Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity, 400 Kent St, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia; School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
School of Psychology and Counselling, University of Southern Queensland, 487-535 West Street, Toowoomba, QLD 4350, Australia.
Addict Behav. 2022 Jul;130:107308. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2022.107308. Epub 2022 Mar 17.
Cost-of-play information is one public health intervention recommended to help reduce gambling-related harm. In the UK, this information is given on electronic gambling machines in a format known as the "return-to-player", e.g., "This game has an average percentage payout of 90%." However, previous evidence suggests that this information could be improved by equivalently restating it in terms of the "house-edge", e.g., "This game keeps 10% of all money bet on average." A "volatility warning," stating that this information applies only in the statistical long-run, has also been recommended to help gamblers understand cost-of-play information. However, there is no evidence comparing these information provisions' effect on gamblers' behavior. An experiment tested US gamblers'(N = 2433) incentivized behavior in an online slot machine, where this information was manipulated between-participants along with a counter showing the total amount bet. Preregistered analyses showed that participants gambled significantly less when house-edge information or a volatility warning were shown compared to standard return-to-player information, with no effect of the total amount bet counter, and no significant interaction effects. However, these significant findings had small effect sizes, suggesting that a public health approach to gambling should not rely on informational provisions only. Subject to supportive evidence from more ecologically-valid designs such as field studies, these results suggest that improved cost-of-play information could lead to reduced rates of gambling expenditure and therefore benefit a public health approach to gambling.
游戏成本信息是一种被推荐用于帮助减少与赌博相关伤害的公共卫生干预措施。在英国，这种信息以“返奖率”的形式提供给电子赌博机，例如“这款游戏的平均回报率为 90%。” 然而，先前的证据表明，通过等效地将其表述为“赌场优势”，例如“这款游戏平均保留所有下注金额的 10%”，可以改进此信息。还建议提供“波动性警告”，说明此信息仅适用于统计长期，以帮助赌徒理解游戏成本信息。然而，目前尚无比较这些信息规定对赌徒行为影响的证据。一项实验测试了美国赌徒（N=2433）在在线老虎机上的激励行为，该实验在参与者之间操纵了这些信息，同时显示了总下注金额计数器。预先注册的分析表明，与标准的返奖率信息相比，当显示赌场优势信息或波动性警告时，参与者的赌博行为明显减少，总下注金额计数器没有效果，也没有显著的交互作用。然而，这些显著的发现具有较小的效应大小，表明公共卫生方法不应仅依赖信息规定。在更多生态有效设计（如实地研究）提供支持性证据的情况下，这些结果表明，改进的游戏成本信息可能会导致赌博支出率降低，从而有利于公共卫生方法来解决赌博问题。
