Brain and Mind Centre, School of Psychology, Science, University of Sydney.
Sydney Informatics Hub, Core Research Facilities, University of Sydney.
Psychol Addict Behav. 2021 Dec;35(8):974-984. doi: 10.1037/adb0000761. Epub 2021 Jun 24.
Consumer Protection Tools (CPTs; e.g., deposit limits, timeouts) are provided by gambling sites to assist customers to gamble without harms. We aimed to understand how CPTs are used, and by which customers, which is essential to determine their effectiveness.
We examined the account data of 39,853 customers (median age = 33 years; 84% male) across six Australian wagering sites over 1 year (2018/07/01-2019/06/30).
Most (83%) customers did not use any CPTs, with low rates of use for deposit limits (15.8%), timeouts (0.55%-1.57%), and self-exclusion tools (0.16%-0.57%) observed. Requiring customers to set a deposit limit or opt-out of setting one led to substantial increases in limit setting. Many customers who used limits later changed them, typically by increasing or removing them. Non-CPT users and deposit limit users were similar in their demographic and gambling characteristics, while comparatively, timeout and/or self-exclusion users were younger and displayed more risky gambling behaviors (e.g., higher net loss and betting frequency).
Our findings suggest that voluntary deposit limits have inherent limitations in addressing harmful behaviors if consumers can easily increase or remove limits. The study suggests that greater efforts are needed to encourage CPT use among a broad customer base, including default limits requiring opt-out, greater restrictions on increasing or remove limits, and more persuasive communication of the benefits of timeouts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
消费者保护工具（CPTs；例如，存款限额、超时）由赌博网站提供，以帮助客户在没有伤害的情况下赌博。我们旨在了解 CPTs 的使用方式以及哪些客户在使用，这对于确定它们的有效性至关重要。
我们在一年的时间里（2018 年 7 月 1 日至 2019 年 6 月 30 日），对六个澳大利亚博彩网站的 39853 名客户（中位数年龄=33 岁；84%为男性）的账户数据进行了检查。
大多数（83%）客户未使用任何 CPTs，存款限额（15.8%）、超时（0.55%-1.57%）和自我排除工具（0.16%-0.57%）的使用率较低。要求客户设置存款限额或选择不设置，会导致限额设置的大幅增加。许多使用限制的客户后来更改了限制，通常是增加或取消限制。非 CPT 用户和存款限额用户在人口统计学和赌博特征方面相似，而超时和/或自我排除用户则更年轻，表现出更危险的赌博行为（例如，更高的净损失和投注频率）。
我们的研究结果表明，如果消费者可以轻易增加或取消限制，那么自愿的存款限额在解决有害行为方面存在固有局限性。研究表明，需要更加努力地鼓励广大客户群体使用 CPT，包括需要选择退出的默认限制、对增加或取消限制的更大限制以及更有说服力地传达超时的好处。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2021 APA，保留所有权利）。
