Could the provision of multiple game themes be a neglected gambling product structural characteristic? Results of an online simulated gambling task

Philip Newall, Ty Hayes, Leonardo Weiss-Cohen, Richard J.E. James, Christopher A. Byrne and Naomi Muggleton

International Gambling Studies, 2025, vol. 25, issue 2, 366-385

Abstract: Previous research has indicated that several gambling product features, such as slot games’ fast potential speed of play, are potentially harmful ‘structural characteristics’. However, we know of little empirical research exploring whether the provision of multiple themes for slot games could be considered another relevant structural characteristic. We therefore explored this game feature in a simulated online experiment (N = 990). Compared to the provision of only a single game theme, providing multiple themes could lead to greater persistence among all gamblers (H1), could increase persistence among those at most risk of harm (H2), could influence persistence or lead to switching during periods of losses (H3), or influence participants’ desire to play again (H4). However, this experiment yielded either largely null (H1, H2, H4) or contradictory results (H3), where participants were found to be more likely to persist after losses than after wins. In conclusion, the present study’s predictions were not supported, meaning that there was no evidence that multiple themes affected slot behavior in this task.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14459795.2025.2488868 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:intgms:v:25:y:2025:i:2:p:366-385

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RIGS20

DOI: 10.1080/14459795.2025.2488868

Access Statistics for this article

International Gambling Studies is currently edited by Katie Donnelly, David Marshall, Bronwyn Stuart, Alex Blaszczynski and Jan McMillen

More articles in International Gambling Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().