Understanding online voluntary self-exclusion in gambling: an empirical study using account-based behavioral tracking data

Catania, M and Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, 2021. Understanding online voluntary self-exclusion in gambling: an empirical study using account-based behavioral tracking data. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18 (4): 2000. ISSN 1661-7827

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Abstract

Online gambling has continued to grow alongside new ways to analyze data using behav-ioral tracking as a way to enhance consumer protection. A number of studies have analyzed consumers that have used voluntary self-exclusion (VSE) as a proxy measure for problem gambling. However, some scholars have argued that this is a poor proxy for problem gambling. Therefore, the present study examined this issue by analyzing customers (from the gambling operator Unibet) that have engaged in VSE. The participants comprised of costumers that chose to use the six-month VSE option (n = 7732), and customers that chose to close their Unibet account due to a specific self-reported gambling addiction (n = 141). Almost one-fifth of the customers that used six-month VSE only had gambling activity for less than 24 h (19.15%). Moreover, half of the customers had less than seven days of account registration prior to six-month VSE (50.39%). Customers who use VSE are too different to be treated as a homogenous group and therefore VSE is not a reliable proxy measure for problem gambling. The findings of this research are beneficial for operators, researchers, and policymakers because it provides insight into gambling behavior by analyzing real player behavior using tracking technologies, which is objective and unbiased.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Creators:	Catania, M. and Griffiths, M.D.
Publisher:	MDPI
Date:	2 February 2021
Volume:	18
Number:	4
ISSN:	1661-7827
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.3390/ijerph18042000 DOI 1409683 Other
Rights:	Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jill Tomkinson
Date Added:	23 Feb 2021 16:53
Last Modified:	31 May 2021 15:06
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/42366

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