Dr. Kahlil Philander

Director of Social Responsibility, BCLC

CUSTOMIZED RESPONSIBLE

GAMBLING MESSAGINGDr. Kahlil Philander

Director of Social Responsibility

BCLC

Acknowledgements• Collaborators: Dr. Sally Gainsbury, Dr. Brett Abarbanel,

Dr. Jeff Butler, Navi Brar, Michaela Becker

• Funding: Manitoba Gambling Research Program & BCLC

AN ANALYSIS ANALOGY

Ford

General

Motors

Play for fun, not to make money.

Know how the game works and what the odds are before playing.

Don't chase losses. Accept them as the cost of entertainment.

Balance gambling with other types of leisure activities.

Set a time limit before you play.

Set a budget and stick to it.

Take frequent breaks.

Responsible

Gambling Council:

Public Campaign

GameSense

Sports Wagering

Targeted Ad

WHAT ABOUT CONTENT THAT IS

DELIVERED CLOSER TO THE TIME OF

PLAY?

Brochures

Ladbrokes FOBT

Messages

Gaming

Management System

Improvements

Slot innovation,

primarily driven by

point-of-sale

marketing interests,

has opened up a new

opportunity

The study design

System Assessment

Tailoring Strategies

Focus Group Analysis

Field Experiment

(online)

Execution Strategy

System Assessment

Customized Player

Messages

Available Data

Fields

Data Validity

Platform Capabilities

Address, Gender,

Language, Ethnicity,

Age, Game Play (type,

freq., spend), Play

Management Settings

Message size,

position, text vs

image, number of

unique messages

Limitation

Our target groups• Young adults

• Older adults

• Women

• Men

• Ethnic groups

• Skill game players

• Pure chance game players

• Large single day loss players

• Players involved in many types of games

• …And/or combinations thereof!

TAILORING STRATEGIESThe extent to a message is read, absorbed, and acted upon is dependent upon the personal relevance of the message, the targeted recipient’s capacity to assimilate the information, and their motivation to respond (Wolgater, 2006).

CONGRUENCY EFFECTHealth messages framed to match a person’s predominant motivations are more effective than mismatched messages (Updegraff et al., 2007).

Effectiveness demonstrated in other fields

• SMOKING: A study of smoking cessation messages found incorporating small pieces of

information on a person in a standard text doubled the number of participants who reported quitting

(Dijkstra, 2005)

• CANCER SCREENING: A study compared ads for people who thought they were

at risk for skin cancer against ads that listed risk factors (e.g. odd shaped moles). The referral rate

for the targeted approach was significantly higher 15.5% vs 11.6%(Katris et al., 1996).

• ADVERTISING: “targeting ethnic consumers… with ads that are rich in traditional

cultural cues can significantly influence their responses.” (Appiah & Liu, 2009)

More Effectiveness:

Microsoft Research on Web Ads

• Click-Through Rate (CTR) of an ad can be

improved as high as 670% by properly

segmenting users

• Similar clickers have similar behaviors

• Short term user behaviors more

representative than long term user behaviors.

OUR MESSAGE

GUIDELINES“Targeted and tailored messages outperform generic health messages, but the exact components that result in effective tailoring are not well known”

- Noar et al., 2011

Our target groups• Young adults

• Older adults

• Women

• Men

• Ethnic groups

• Skill game players

• Pure chance game players

• Large single day loss players

• Players involved in many types of games

• …And/or combinations thereof!

Poker Players• Different messaging for games with an element of skill

• Staying in control and gambling with your head, rather

than with emotions

• Encourage players to be mindful of the element of chance

that determines games, and to avoid chasing losses

Young Adults• More prone to erroneous beliefs about gambling and

beliefs that gambling can be controlled

• Problems with money, debt, and family breakdown are less relevant

• Younger participants have difficulty relating to

advertisements intended for other audiences

• Use positive messaging, encouraging specific actions

Gambling behaviour• Regular/highly involved gamblers who enjoy gambling

may be much more defensive about their play

• But may also be among the players that need the warnings the

most.

• Non-judgmental positive messages should be used that

suggest specific actions to stay in control of play

WHY SO MUCH RESEARCH?

Many warnings have unintended results when tested on regular

users. Should rely on empirical research, rather than expert opinion

or judgment.

- Stewart and Martin, 1994

Approaches to Responsible Gambling

RegulationCentric

ResearchProven

Best Practice

Danger of

Unintended

Consequences

Avoidable Harm

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Other Considerations• First, make sure the messages are more effective than

generic approaches

• An appropriate balance between personal content and

more general branding should be maintained

• Consider rotating messages

• Improve data collection topics and validity

THANKS AND STAY

TUNED…(For Gainsbury et al. at New Horizons 2016)

To provide session feedback:

• Open New Horizons app

• Select Agenda tile

• Select this session

• Select Take Survey at bottom of screen

If you are unable to download app,

please raise your hand for a paper version