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.
Really weird that the label loot boxes and gambling mechanics in games as recent trends and mostly ignore them, as they imho are the main culprit here.
These kids don't transition from gaming to gambling. They switch from gambling in games like Counter-Strike, Fifa or Apex Legends, to gambling on online casinos.
Also from what I have witnessed, this transition already happens while they are still minors, as many of the big casinos have no KYC until you want to cash out again.
I am fighting gaming, TV, YouTube and phone addiction at the moment. It is very hard for me to find something else to do, especially at home. But I try to have projects going every day and try to go out and see people and have a community I visit frequently.
Why not study the effects of legalized gambling for children - i.e. the ticket machines at Dave and Busters/Chuck-e-Cheese?
Also, to see the impacts of gambling addiction in the funniest way possible, see BossManJack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qztd9eOuwsc
There's so much wrong with the gambling industry as a whole and the way the same tactics have seeped into casual and online gaming is a real problem.
I'm sure that the blame will be correctly placed on the predatory gambling and video games companies rather than the parents for letting their kids play video games.
There's an eye opening look into how the gambling industry has changed in recent years on Michael Lewis' latest season of against the rules if you are interested in the topic: https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/against-the-rules
Anecdotal, as a kid I was really into CS:GO skin betting. Ended up losing my entire collection, never gambled since.
The abstract kind of covers my thought on the headline:
> Given more recent introductions of loot boxes and social casino games, continuous research is needed for future cohorts which may be greater affected by such developments.
The route from COD4 and FIFA 08 (the games popular when the "early childhood" cohort had their initial gaming activity measured) to online gambling is a lot longer than the route from the latest COD Warzone and Fifa Ultimate Team to online gambling.
I think it's probably worse than what the study is saying:
>ongitudinal data from Ireland to examine whether computer game engagement at 9-years-old (collected in 2007/8), and online gaming at 17 and 20
Imagine gaming 15 years ago compared to now. Today with things like micro-transactions and loot boxes there's much more gambling adjacent behavior in games.
Gaming and Gambling used to be separate until what year? What gaming product broke this barrier?
I don't how it impacts the results, but it's relevant to keep in mind the data is self reported.
If for instance kids who played games at an eraly age have less stigma towards exposing their hobbies, their self reported gambling numbers will also be affected.
I already think grouping these things in a sentence is problematic, "gaming and gambling opportunities in contemporary society" and putting gaming first shows bias and implies assumed causality, why not "gambling and gaming"?
A interesting 3 video series about the casino scene in CS2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q58dLWjRTBE
Likely correlation and not causation, Gambling addiction is just like any other addiction, and no one has answered the question of ‘why’ one becomes an addict. Most likely the causation is more closely related to the upbringing of the child, and the genetics passed down from the parents.
Anecdotal, I know, have been gaming for ~45 years (started ~8), played hundreds (thousands?) of games, never bet, never gambled, neither offline or online, no inclination to ever do that.
I might just be too dumb to read even an abstract, but it sounds like they said "meh idk, no strong evidence"
(also curious if they'd call going hard on crypto / options "gambling" or not :P, which might be more about how hard it is to get ahead in todays economy than playing games as a kid, but that point is a very hard digression from what we're talking about here).
Without reading the article, I bet these problems exists because kids/teens are playing "games" on mobile phones.
Big difference to PC or console games.
Mobile phones games are made only with one purpose, to vacuum parent's credit card.
I hope EU will put some measures in place, to ban Pay2win mobile phone games.
Maybe I'm being reductionist, but it is rather obvious that if someone likes gambling but doesn't have access to it due to their age, they will reach for gaming as the closest substitute, sure.
That doesn't mean that gaming makes you like gambling. There are many player archetypes, some of which get enjoyment out of games from factors that are quite dissimilar from gambling, and they will probably never gravitate towards it. I could see the reverse being true though, probably gambling does make you like some kinds of gaming.
Also, this is saying that online gaming is correlated with online gambling. Well yeah, it's all sitting at the computer playing competitive games against strangers, money or not it's a similar activity.
Indeed, they show no correlation between "playing games at 9" and "online gambling at 20". It might be the age difference, but it also might be that gaming in general has little correlation with online gambling, it's just competitive online gaming that correlates, which makes a lot of sense.