Gaming researchers are on mission to understand player behaviour, and the team at Central Queensland University has thought up a new way to do so. A new pokie app has been developed to help researchers find out why online pokies effect players in the way that they do. Professor Matthew Rockloff is the principal researcher on the study.
He states that very little is known about virtual gaming and online pokies, and that his team aims to delve into this area. To get the information that they are after, they have developed their own pokie app – which has been funded by the university Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. The app is available to download on the app store, so players can choose to take part and help the research team.
The team will also recruit players through an online survey. Some players who download the app will be interviewed weekly for up to six months to determine the effect that the game is having on them, and why they choose to play pokies online. "We sort of focus on the downside which is perhaps that gambling apps can make people who are not experienced gamblers or novice gamblers want to partake in more gambling," he says.
"But there is another side to it. We have found through many interviews that people actually use these apps as a way to stay away from real-money gambling.” Another area of interested is the effect that online pokies have on young people. When they are exposed to mobile pokie apps, do they feel compelled to gamble?
This is a common belief among responsible gambling advocates, but it has yet to be explored with official research. So, Professor Rockloff’s team aims to address this issue. The research data will be gathered by 2016. We are very interested in the results, and will keep you posted.
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