Recently, the Australian government made it mandatory for all electronic gaming devices to display information about each player’s gambling experience. The displays indicate how much time and money each player has spent while gambling.
The reason behind this development was to fight problem gambling by allowing players to make informed decisions about their gambling activities, choosing to stop playing if the display indicated they had spent more time or money than they had initially planned. The technology did not undergo a trial before it was implemented, but a recent study reveals its impacts.
Sally M. Monaghan, Alex Blaszczynski and Lia Nower published a report titled: “Do warning signs on electronic gaming machines influence irrational cognitions?” As part of the research, 93 undergraduate students were gathered. They were allocated to different messages resembling those that they would see while gambling at a land-based venue, displaying information about their gambling session.
There were two types of messages displayed. The first was a ‘standard message’, an example of which is: “Your chance of winning the maximum prize on a gaming machine is generally no better than one in a million”. The second was an ‘informative message’, an example of which is: “The outcome of every game is randomly generated by the machine. It is not linked to previous results and cannot be influenced in any way by the machine or the player”.
After playing on the machines for a period of time, players were required to fill in a questionnaire regarding the machine’s messages. 95% of participants in the survey remembered seeing a sign on the machine, but only 20% recalled that the sign had anything to do with their chances of winning. Only 9% of participants could accurate recall what the sign had actually said.
Just 20% of participants stated that the sign had any impact on their behaviour while playing. While some stated that the statistics made them want to give, others claimed that although the sign indicated that the game was random, they still believed that the outcome of the game was linked to other situations.
The results of this study indicate that more work needs to be done in order to educate the public about gambling activities. There is a wealth of information out there, but many Australian gamblers remain unaware of the odds of winning casino games, a lack of information which would lead to the development of dangerous gaming habits.
To read the full report, click here.
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