Gambling Streams on Twitch: Cravings, Motivations, and Problem Gambling

Session Title

Session 2-3-B: Identifying Gambling Patterns to Reduce Harm

Presenters

Raymond Wu, The University of British ColumbiaFollow
Brett Abarbanel PhD, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow
Mark R. Johnson PhD, The University of SydneyFollow
Luke Clark PhD, The University of British ColumbiaFollow

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation

Location

Park MGM, Las Vegas, NV

Start Date

24-5-2023 1:30 PM

End Date

24-5-2023 3:00 PM

Disciplines

Cognitive Science | Psychiatry and Psychology | Psychology

Abstract

Gambling has always attracted spectators, and the proliferation of digital streaming platforms, such as Twitch, has made spectating more accessible than ever. Recently, there has been a boom in gambling content on Twitch, but barely any empirical research has investigated the psychological effects of watching such content. Across three studies using online crowdsourced samples, we elucidate this mysterious group of gamblers. We first establish differences between gambling stream viewers and non-viewers, revealing that viewers were comprised of more young men with higher levels of gambling cravings, boredom, and problem gambling severity than non-viewers. Next, we determine whether gamblers watch gambling streams to regulate their cravings which could adaptively attenuate problem gambling. We demonstrate that the cravings evoked in response to gambling streams (M=3.04, SD=1.19) was not only stronger than the motivation to use such content to regulate cravings (M=2.18, SD=1.11) but also had a stronger relationship with problem gambling severity (r=.34, p<.001). We will end by focusing on the various motivations that gamblers have to watch gambling streams, showing that motivations to watch gambling streams are similar as those to gamble, suggesting that gambling streams serve similar functions as gambling despite being a passive, non-pecuniary form of consumption.

Implications: Our findings provide a foray into the psychological effects of watching gambling streams with regulatory implications that affirm concerns about consumer protection, and in particular among those who have or are vulnerable to gambling problems, on streaming platforms.

Keywords

Streaming, craving, motivation, passive consumption, online gambling, gambling

Author Bios

Raymond Wu is a graduate student in Cognitive Science at the University of British Columbia working at the Centre for Gambling Research. His research integrates insights from cognitive science, social psychology, and addiction research to improve our understanding of how and why people engage in appetitive and addictive behaviors.

Brett Abarbanel is Director of Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, International Gaming Institute, with a research affiliate appointment at the University of Sydney Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic. Dr. Abarbanel’s research covers Internet gambling policy and behavior, esports and gambling, operations and technology use, and responsible gambling and community relations.

Mark R. Johnson is a Lecturer in Digital Cultures in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. His research focuses on live streaming and Twitch.tv, esports, game consumption and production, and gamification and gamblification. He has published in journals including ‘Information, Communication and Society’, ‘New Media and Society’, ‘The Sociological Review’, ‘Convergence’, ‘Games and Culture’, and the ‘Journal of Virtual Worlds Research’.

Luke Clark is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and Director of the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC. He is an experimental psychologist by training. His research focuses on the psychological and neural basis of decision-making in gambling and its relevance to the development of gambling harms.

Funding Sources

The Centre for Gambling Research at UBC is supported by the Province of British Columbia government and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC; a Canadian Crown Corporation). LC also holds a Discovery Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN‐2017‐04069).

Competing Interests

LC is the Director of the Centre for Gambling Research at UBC, which is supported by funding from the Province of British Columbia and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation (BCLC), a Canadian Crown Corporation. The Province of BC government and the BCLC had no role in the preparation of this manuscript and imposed no constraints on publishing. LC holds a Discovery Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada). LC has received a speaker/travel honorarium from the National Association for Gambling Studies (Australia), the International Center for Responsible Gaming (US), and has received fees for academic services from the International Center for Responsible Gaming (US), GambleAware (UK), and Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (Canada). He has not received any further direct or indirect payments from the gambling industry or groups substantially funded by gambling. He has received royalties from Cambridge Cognition Ltd. relating to neurocognitive testing.

Comments

We are also open to submitting to the other presentation types (lighting talk and poster).