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Gambling marketing is ubiquitous in UK football and, despite gambling industry self-regulation such as the whistle-to-whistle ban, remains prominent in live TV coverage. Major international tournaments do not usually feature gambling pitch-side advertising and shirt sponsorship, increasing the importance of TV adverts during these high-profile competitions. The present study examined the prevalence and features of gambling adverts shown during the commercial broadcaster ITV's live coverage of games in the 2022 Qatar World Cup. Each match shown live on ITV was recorded. For each gambling advert, the timing of the advert (pre-/during-/post-match), the advert category (financial inducements/live odds/safer gambling/brand awareness) and safer gambling messaging were recorded. Over the 30 matches analyzed, there were 156 adverts directly for gambling brands or products (M = 5.2, range 3 – 8), featuring adverts from eight different operators. The majority of adverts were shown pre-match (80.8%). Financial inducements were most commonly advertised (42.3%), followed by brand awareness adverts (26.9%). The safer gambling message 'take time to think' was shown in 70.5% of adverts. Adverts for lottery products did not feature any safer gambling messages. Multiple gambling adverts were shown during each match of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, especially so pre-match. Pre-match adverts predominantly encourage viewers to gamble promptly, through financial inducements and boosted live odds. Any potential further legislation could therefore consider either further restrictions based on the entire broadcast, or by enforcing the use of specific safer gambling messages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loot boxes provide randomized rewards in video games; their purchase is linked to disordered gambling and they are present in approximately half of UK video games. The relative novelty of loot boxes means that regulators and policymakers in various jurisdictions are still deciding how to regulate them. The People's Republic of China (PRC) is the first, and presently only, jurisdiction to legally require companies to disclose the probabilities of obtaining randomized loot box rewards – an approach that is also favored by the industry as self-regulation. This study is the first to assess paid loot box prevalence in the PRC and companies' discretionary interpretations of probability disclosure regulations. Loot boxes were found in 91 of the 100 highest-grossing PRC iPhone games. Of games deemed suitable for children aged 12+, 90.5% contained loot boxes. Probability disclosures could not be found for 4.4% of games containing loot boxes. Disclosures were implemented through various methods both in-game and on the games' official websites; however, consistent with the concept of 'sludge,' only 5.5% used the most prominent format of automatically displaying the probabilities on the in-game loot box purchase page. Loot box probability disclosures should be uniform and visually prominent to best help inform consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 = 3333 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: (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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most gamblers lose money, and this means that a behavioral dependence to gambling can cause harm. However, some professional gamblers win consistently, and there is little academic literature on their psychology and how they differ from disordered gamblers. To contribute to this understudied area, we qualitatively analyzed interviews with 19 elite online professional poker players, by examining factors from the disordered gambling and decision-making literatures. Like disordered gamblers, participants displayed aspects of a behavioral dependence to gambling, but contrastingly did not generally experience harm. Other contrasts included their rational approach to statistical thinking, a general selfreported tendency to not be impulsive, and their social connections with other experts. One factor that did not yield clear contrasting results was whether or not they experienced early big wins. Parallels with the decision-making literature included their assessment of decision quality based on expected value rather than realized outcomes, their reluctance to take risks outside of their 'circle of competence,' and their 'active open-minded' thinking style. This study contributes to gambling psychology via an in-depth exploration of an understudied group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safer gambling messages are a common public health intervention for gambling, and yet there is little evidence to support the variety of messages that are in widespread use. This paper thematically analyzed the perspectives of 21 participants – including academics, regulators and treatment providers – regarding the design characteristics of safer-gambling messages with the goal to improve on those already being used. The focus groups were semi-structured and discussed exemplar messages based on five areas of previous gambling research: teaching safer gambling practices, correcting gambling misperceptions, boosting conscious decision making, norm-based messages, and emotional messages. Five themes were supported by the three focus groups, including that messages: may be insufficient to change behavior; should respect the diversity amongst gamblers; should not contribute to gambling stigma; should provide norm-based information thoughtfully; and should trigger only positive and not negative emotions. These findings can be useful in developing messages that are based on themes endorsed by experts as being relevant to the design of effective safer-gambling messages. Generating a pool of messages that are evidence based is likely to improve on current messages, thus serving as a useful public health tool for promoting safer-gambling involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article titled "Structural characteristics of online gambling platforms: How the provision of multiple gambling formats could contribute to harm" discusses the potential harm associated with online gambling platforms that offer multiple gambling formats. The study highlights the importance of understanding the structural characteristics of these platforms, such as fast-paced games and the ability to switch between different formats, in relation to increased risk of harm. The article emphasizes the need for further research and analysis on switching behavior and its impact on harm. It also acknowledges the lack of freely available online operator data for researchers. [Extracted from the article]

Background and aims: Youth gambling research mainly focuses on the illegal use of age-restricted machines, but coin pusher and crane grab machines are gambling machines that can be used by people of any age in the UK, and are also in use internationally. Previous cross-sectional evidence has associated recollected childhood usage of these machines with adult gambling participation and levels of problem gambling amongst adult gamblers. We attempted to conceptually replicate the findings of one of these studies (Newall et al., 2021), while addressing some limitations of that study. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 2,000 UK-based and -born participants aged 19–24 years. The measures were participants’ recollected usage of coin pusher and crane grab machines as a child, whether they had gambled in the past 12-months or not, and the PGSI for past 12-month gamblers. Results: Overall, 5 of 7 tested associations were significant and in the hypothesized direction. Logistic regression models showed that adult gamblers were more likely to recollect using, and used at higher levels of frequency, coin pusher and crane grab machines, than non-gamblers. Then, negative binomial regression analysis showed that adults who recollected using crane grab machines at higher levels of frequency showed more gambling-related problems. Discussion and Conclusions: These results suggest that childhood usage of coin pusher and crane grab machines may act as an underappreciated risk factor for the development of gambling-related harm across the lifespan. This information may be considered for further youth gambling research and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]