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The provision of information to consumers is a common input to tackling various public health issues. By comparison to the information given on food and alcohol products, information on gambling products is either not given at all, or shown in low-prominence locations in a suboptimal format, e.g., the “return-to-player” format, “this game has an average percentage payout of 90%”. Some previous research suggests that it would be advantageous to communicate this information via the “house edge” format instead: the average loss from a given gambling product, e.g., “this game keeps 10% of all money bet on average”. However, previous empirical work on the house edge format only uses this specific phrasing, and there may be better ways of communicating house edge information. The present work experimentally tested this original phrasing of the house edge against an alternative phrasing that has also been proposed, “on average this game is programmed to cost you 10% of your stake on each bet”, while both phrasings were also compared against equivalent return-to-player information (N = 3,333 UK-based online gamblers). The two dependent measures were gamblers’ perceived chances of winning and a measure of participants’ correct understanding. Preregistered Stage 1 protocol: https://osf.io/5npy9 (date of in-principle acceptance: 28/11/2022). The alternative house edge phrasing resulted in the lowest perceived chances of winning, but the original phrasing had the highest rate of correct understanding. Compared to return-to-player information, the original phrasing had both lower perceived chances of winning and higher rates of correct understanding, while the alternative phrasing had only lower perceived chances of winning. These results replicated prior work on the advantages of the original house edge phrasing over return-to-player information, while showing that the alternative house edge phrasing has advantageous properties for gamblers’ perceived chances of winning only. The optimal communication of risk information can act as an input to a public health approach to reducing gambling-related harm.

The Problem Gambling Severity Index is the most commonly used population measurement of disordered gambling. However, there is some debate regarding the construct being measured, and whether it is a single factor of gambling problems, or separate indices of dependence and harms. This paper reviews existing psychometric analyses of the factor structure of the PGSI, identifying key limitations of the literature. To overcome these, exploratory structural equation modelling was applied to data from 10 nationally representative surveys of gamblers in the UK (n = 35,776) to test between these accounts. Measurement indices provided slight support for a two-factor model. However, these models were not consistent across items or datasets, and further examination provided stronger support for a one-factor model. Sensitivity analyses coarsening across categories further supported these findings. This study provides strong evidence to support the use of PGSI scores as a single-factor construct.

Loot boxes are gambling-like products found in video games that players can buy with real-world money to obtain random rewards. A positive correlation between loot box spending and problem gambling severity has been well-replicated. Some researchers recently argued that this observed positive correlation may be due to participants incorrectly interpreting problem gambling questions as applying to their loot box expenditure. We experimentally tested this alternative explanation for the observed positive correlation (N = 2,027), by manipulating whether all participants were given the problem gambling scale (the ‘non-screening’ approach; n = 1,005), or by ‘screening’ participants (n = 1,022) by only giving those reporting recent gambling expenditure the problem gambling scale. Results showed positive correlations across both experimental conditions, with the association being slightly stronger in the non-screening group. In addition, a predicted positive correlation emerged between past-year gambling participation and loot box expenditure in the screening group. These experimental results confirm that the association between loot box spending and problem gambling severity is likely not due to participants misinterpreting problem gambling questions as being relevant to their loot box spending. These results also provide support for the usage of gambling participation screening questions in further research on this topic.

Measurements of smartphone addiction weakly correlate with actual behaviour logged from smartphones. Instead, smartphone addiction may probe distress rather than disordered behaviour, but this has not been adequately tested. This study examined the relative contributions of self-reported and actual smartphone behaviour alongside key mental health and individual differences in a pre-registered, two-wave study with a two week re-test. 511 smartphone users (391 at Time 2) completed measures of smartphone usage, attitudes towards smartphone usage, smartphone and other behavioural addictions, and individual differences. Smartphone addiction is principally driven by perceived rather than actual usage, especially where these are discordant. Self-reported smartphone usage, other behavioural addictions, and the impulsive facet of negative urgency are more predictive of smartphone addiction than logged behaviour. These results fail to support the idea that volume of smartphone usage is a sufficient criterion for an addictive behaviour and questions the validity of smartphone addiction measurements.