Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
Center for Dependency Disorders, Stockholm Health Care Services, Stockholm, Sweden.
JMIR Hum Factors. 2024 Jul 23;11:e54951. doi: 10.2196/54951.
Technology has significantly reshaped the landscape and accessibility of gambling, creating uncharted territory for researchers and policy makers involved in the responsible gambling (RG) agenda. Digital payment solutions (DPS) are the latest addition of technology-based services in gambling and are now prominently used for deposit and win withdrawal. The seamless collaboration between online gambling operators and DPS, however, has raised concerns regarding the potential role of DPS platforms in facilitating harmful behavior.
Using a focus group session with problem gamblers, this study describes a preliminary investigation of the role of DPS in the online gambling context and its influence on players' gambling habits, financial behavior, choices of gambling environment, and the overall outcome of gambling subjective experiences.
A total of 6 problem gamblers participated in a one-and-half-hour focus group session to discuss how DPSs are integrated into their everyday gambling habits, what motivates them to use DPS, and what shifts they observe in their gambling behavior. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the empirical evidence with a mix of inductive and deductive research approaches as a knowledge claim strategy.
Our initial findings revealed that the influence of DPSs in online gambling is multifaced where, on the one hand, their ability to integrate with players' existing habits seamlessly underscores the facilitating role they play in potentially maximizing harm. On the other hand, we find preliminary evidence that DPSs can have a direct influence on gambling outcomes in both subtle and pervasive ways-nudging, institutionalizing, constraining, or triggering players' gambling activities. This study also highlights the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of online gambling, and it proposes a preliminary conceptual framework to illustrate the sociotechnical interplay between DPS and gambling habits that ultimately capture the outcome of gambling's subjective experience.
Disguised as a passive payment enabler, the role of DPS has so far received scant attention; however, this exploratory qualitative study demonstrates that given the technological advantage and access to customer financial data, DPS can become a potent platform to enable and at times trigger harmful gambling. In addition, DPS's bird's-eye view of cross-operator gambling behavior can open up an opportunity for researchers and policy makers to explore harm reduction measures that can be implemented at the digital payment level for gambling customers. Finally, more interdisciplinary studies are needed to formulate the sociotechnical nature of online gambling and holistic harm minimization strategy.
技术极大地改变了赌博的格局和可及性，为参与负责任赌博（RG）议程的研究人员和政策制定者带来了未知领域。数字支付解决方案（DPS）是赌博领域最新的技术服务，现已广泛用于存款和取款。然而，在线赌博运营商与 DPS 的无缝合作引起了人们对 DPS 平台在促进有害行为方面可能发挥的作用的关注。
本研究通过对问题赌徒进行焦点小组讨论，描述了对在线赌博环境中 DPS 作用及其对玩家赌博习惯、财务行为、赌博环境选择以及赌博主观体验整体结果影响的初步调查。
共有 6 名问题赌徒参加了一个半小时的焦点小组讨论，讨论了 DPS 如何融入他们的日常赌博习惯、促使他们使用 DPS 的原因，以及他们观察到的赌博行为变化。采用主题分析方法，结合归纳和演绎研究方法作为知识主张策略，对实证证据进行分析。
我们的初步研究结果表明，DPS 在在线赌博中的影响是多方面的，一方面，它们能够与玩家的现有习惯无缝集成，这突显了它们在潜在地最大限度地造成伤害方面所发挥的促进作用。另一方面，我们初步发现证据表明，DPS 可以以微妙和普遍的方式直接影响赌博结果，推动、制度化、限制或触发玩家的赌博活动。本研究还强调了在线赌博日益跨学科的性质，并提出了一个初步的概念框架，说明 DPS 与赌博习惯之间的社会技术相互作用，最终捕捉到赌博主观体验的结果。
作为一种被动的支付推动者，DPS 的作用迄今为止受到的关注甚少；然而，这项探索性定性研究表明，鉴于其技术优势和对客户财务数据的访问权限，DPS 可以成为一个强大的平台，既能启用，有时也能触发有害的赌博行为。此外，DPS 对跨运营商赌博行为的鸟瞰视角为研究人员和政策制定者提供了一个机会，可以探索在数字支付层面为赌博客户实施的减少伤害措施。最后，需要进行更多的跨学科研究，以制定在线赌博的社会技术性质和整体伤害最小化策略。
