Newall Philip W S, Weiss-Cohen Leonardo, Singmann Henrik, Walasek Lukasz, Ludvig Elliot A
School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK; Experimental Gambling Research Laboratory, School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences, CQUniversity, Sydney, NSW, Australia; Applied Psychology, WMG, Coventry, UK.
Leeds University Business School, Maurice Keyworth Building, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK; Department of Psychology, Kingston University, Kingston upon Thames, London, UK.
Lancet Public Health. 2022 May;7(5):e437-e446. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(21)00279-6.
Safer gambling messages are a common freedom-preserving method of protecting individuals from gambling-related harm. Yet, there is little independent and rigorous evidence assessing the effectiveness of safer gambling messages. In our study, we aimed to test the effect of the historically most commonly-used UK safer gambling message on concurrent gambling behaviour of people who gamble in the UK.
In this study, three preregistered, incentivised, and randomised online experiments, testing the UK's "when the fun stops, stop" message, were carried out via the crowdsourcing platform Prolific. Adults based in the UK who had previously participated in the gambling activities relevant to each experiment were eligible to participate. Experiments 1 and 3 involved bets on real soccer events, and experiment 2 used a commercially available online roulette game. Safer gambling message presence was varied between participants in each experiment. In experiment 2, exposed participants could be shown either a yellow or a black-and-white version of the safer gambling message. Participants were provided with a monetary endowment with which they were allowed to bet. Any of this money not bet was afterwards paid to participants as a bonus, in addition to the payouts from any winning bets. In experiment 2 participants had the opportunity to re-wager any winnings from the roulette game. The primary outcome in experiment 1 was participants' decisions to accept (or reject) a series of football bets, which varied in their specificity (and payoffs), and the primary outcomes of experiments 2 and 3 were the proportion of available funds bet, which were defined as the total amount of money bet by a participant out of the total that could have been bet.
Participants for all three experiments were recruited between May 17, 2019, and Oct 17, 2020. Of the 506 participants in experiment 1, 41·3% of available bets were made by the 254 participants in the gambling message condition, which was not significantly different (p=0·15, odds ratio 1·22 [95% CI 0·93 to 1·61]) to the 37·8% of available bets made by the 252 participants in the control condition. In experiment 2, the only credible difference between conditions was that the 501 participants in the condition with the yellow version of the gambling message bet 3·64% (95% Bayesian credibility interval 0·00% to 7·27%) more of available funds left over than the 499 participants in the control condition. There were no credible differences between the bets made by the 500 participants in the black-and-white gambling message condition and the other conditions. In experiment 3, there were no credible differences between the 502 participants in the gambling message condition and the 501 participants in the control condition, with the largest effect being a 5·87% (95% Bayesian credibility interval -1·44% to 13·20%) increase in the probability of betting everything in the gambling message condition.
In our study, no evidence was found for a protective effect of the most common UK safer gambling message. Alternative interventions should be considered as part of an evidence-based public health approach to reducing gambling-related harm.
University of Warwick, British Academy and Leverhume, Swiss National Science Foundation.
更安全赌博信息是保护个人免受赌博相关危害的一种常见的维护自由的方法。然而，几乎没有独立且严格的证据来评估更安全赌博信息的有效性。在我们的研究中，我们旨在测试英国历史上最常用的更安全赌博信息对英国赌博者同时期赌博行为的影响。
在本研究中，通过众包平台Prolific进行了三项预先注册、有激励措施且随机的在线实验，测试英国的“当乐趣停止时，停止”信息。居住在英国且此前参与过与各实验相关赌博活动的成年人有资格参与。实验1和3涉及对真实足球赛事的投注，实验2使用一款商业可用的在线轮盘游戏。每个实验中，参与者接触更安全赌博信息的情况有所不同。在实验2中，接触到信息的参与者可能会看到黄色或黑白版本的更安全赌博信息。为参与者提供了一笔资金，他们可以用这笔资金进行投注。除了任何赢取投注的奖金外，未投注的这笔钱之后会作为奖金支付给参与者。在实验2中，参与者有机会对轮盘游戏的任何赢款进行再投注。实验1的主要结果是参与者接受（或拒绝）一系列足球投注的决定，这些投注在具体程度（和回报）上有所不同，实验2和3的主要结果是投注可用资金的比例，即参与者投注的资金总额占可能投注的资金总额的比例。
所有三项实验的参与者均在2019年5月17日至2020年10月17日期间招募。在实验1的506名参与者中，处于赌博信息条件下的254名参与者进行了37.8%的可用投注，处于对照条件下的252名参与者进行了37.8%的可用投注，二者无显著差异（p = 0.15，优势比1.22 [95%置信区间0.93至1.61]）。在实验2中，各条件之间唯一可信的差异是，看到黄色版本赌博信息的501名参与者比对照条件下的499名参与者多投注了剩余可用资金的3.64%（95%贝叶斯可信度区间0.00%至7.27%）。在黑白赌博信息条件下的500名参与者与其他条件下的参与者所进行的投注之间没有可信差异。在实验3中，处于赌博信息条件下的502名参与者与对照条件下的501名参与者之间没有可信差异，最大的影响是在赌博信息条件下将所有资金投注的概率增加了5.87%（95%贝叶斯可信度区间 -1.44%至13.20%）。
在我们的研究中，未发现英国最常见的更安全赌博信息具有保护作用的证据。应考虑采用其他干预措施，作为基于证据的公共卫生方法的一部分，以减少与赌博相关的危害。
华威大学、英国学术院和利华休姆信托基金、瑞士国家科学基金会。
