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I’d be interested in seeing if specific gaming activities is associated with increased gambling, as well as longitudinal studies to determine a timeline (first

I’d be interested in seeing if specific gaming activities is associated with increased gambling, as well as longitudinal studies to determine a timeline (first I opened loot boxes, then I started gambling). I’m worried about the growing amount of gambling in society, specifically among young men. I’m shocked that sports betting was allowed to become legal in my country (US). I’m skeptical of the video game gateway hypothesis, but this is such an important problem that we need to look at it from multiple angles.

HideousKojima 1y ago
I remember watching some pirate streams of UFC pay per view fights about a decade ago. The streams were being provided by someone in the UK, and apparently had commercials between each fight. Every single commercial was for sports gambling, and I just remembered thinking every time "I'm glad this isn't an issue in the US." I'm a bit sad that's no longer the case.
XorNot 1y ago
I mean we could look at it from multiple angles...but commercial TV in Australia, and advertising in general is basically wall to wall gambling advertising for sports betting. I feel like looking at the adolescent to adult years, you could basically ask "maybe a deluge of gambling advertising during the formative years has a significant impact on the target demographic audience for it (i.e. in Australia it is definitely white male coded in terms of actors and faces). Which is the problem I have with trying to take any other factor with a demographic selector and draw conclusions from correlation: environmentally I don't see how you isolate the incredible amount of gambling targeted messaging out there.
giraffe_lady 1y ago
Have you played any prominent mobile games in the last few years? The gacha model is dominant, it would not surprise me at all if this is priming children for gambling. It's not what "gamers" think of as gaming but there are dozens of mobile games each with hundreds of millions of active players, it is a massive market with a lot of it focused on children and teens. If it has any even slight contribution towards gambling addiction the social consequences will be massive over the next couple decades.
dfxm12 1y ago
We're also getting attacked from multiple angles. When trying to set up a study, it would be impossible to control for all the gambling ads we get bombarded with, especially during events you can gamble on!

HideousKojima 1y ago

I remember watching some pirate streams of UFC pay per view fights about a decade ago. The streams were being provided by someone in the UK, and apparently had commercials between each fight. Every single commercial was for sports gambling, and I just remembered thinking every time "I'm glad this isn't an issue in the US." I'm a bit sad that's no longer the case.

XorNot 1y ago

I mean we could look at it from multiple angles...but commercial TV in Australia, and advertising in general is basically wall to wall gambling advertising for sports betting. I feel like looking at the adolescent to adult years, you could basically ask "maybe a deluge of gambling advertising during the formative years has a significant impact on the target demographic audience for it (i.e. in Australia it is definitely white male coded in terms of actors and faces). Which is the problem I have with trying to take any other factor with a demographic selector and draw conclusions from correlation: environmentally I don't see how you isolate the incredible amount of gambling targeted messaging out there.

giraffe_lady 1y ago

Have you played any prominent mobile games in the last few years? The gacha model is dominant, it would not surprise me at all if this is priming children for gambling. It's not what "gamers" think of as gaming but there are dozens of mobile games each with hundreds of millions of active players, it is a massive market with a lot of it focused on children and teens. If it has any even slight contribution towards gambling addiction the social consequences will be massive over the next couple decades.

dfxm12 1y ago

We're also getting attacked from multiple angles. When trying to set up a study, it would be impossible to control for all the gambling ads we get bombarded with, especially during events you can gamble on!