House calls: A look at the rise of online bingo

Yesterday, BBC Online News published a report about online bingo (and which I provided some comments about). Given the popularity of bingo in numerous countries throughout the world, it is surprising how little scientific research has been carried out on the activity. To date, most of the research (including some of my own) has examined offline bingo (which is unsurprising given that playing bingo online is a relatively new phenomenon), and most of the published research is from a sociological perspective typically involving small-scale interview studies and/or observation of players in bingo halls. Research carried out between 1980 and 2005 has tended to report that the majority of bingo players are working class women who play the game primarily to socialize with their friends in what they perceive to be a very ‘safe’ (and somewhat non-masculine) environment.

Research carried out by the American sociologists Constance Chapple and Stacey Nofziger and published in the journal Deviant Behavior confirm these general findings but add that winning money eventually becomes an important motivation as constantly losing leads to the bingo playing ceasing (even if the main reason for playing bingo is sociability). Their research also reported that loneliness and boredom can also be critical factors in why women play bingo. Through the alleviation of boredom, bingo playing leads to the meeting of other like-minded people, and also helps to alleviate the loneliness. Online bingo sites have attempted to facilitate the sociability element by incorporating online chat options, the social rules are different online compared to offline. Whereas in offline bingo chatting is typically forbidden during game play, it is actively encouraged when playing bingo online. Online chat functions appear to be an effective retention tool by online bingo operators, and are specifically aimed at female players.

Online and offline bingo appear to have many similarities in terms of demographics. Online bingo sites (and the marketing and advertising they produce) tend to target women – particularly because bingo is the only form of gambling where women significantly outnumber men. For instance, we found in the most recent British Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS) published in 2011, that 9% of the British adult population had played online and/or offline bingo in last year. Although men were more likely than women to participate in most forms of gambling activity, twice as many women (12%) had played bingo in the last year compared to men (6%).

One of the most noticeable trends that I have written about in the last few years is the feminization of gambling. I have argued that one of the reasons that greater numbers of women are gambling is because remote gambling environments (such as internet gambling and mobile phone gambling) are gender-neutral. In the same way that female bingo players view the offline environments in which they play ‘safe’, this is even more so online. While playing online bingo, females do not feel alienated and stigmatized as they sometimes feel in more male-dominated gambling environments such as betting shops and casinos. Furthermore, the perceived anonymity of playing online is another key factor that facilitates the playing of bingo online.

There also appears to be a new type of bingo player – one that only plays bingo online. In our most recent BGPS study, we found that 19% of all bingo players gambled online only (with 4% playing both online and offline, and the majority – 77% – playing offline bingo only). As we predicted, playing bingo was highest among oldest people with 11% of those over 75 years having played bingo in the last year. However, more interesting was the fact that the bingo playing was almost as popular among the young with 10% of those aged 16 to 24 years having played bingo in the 12 months prior to the survey. Interestingly (and perhaps unsurprisingly), this group (being arguably more tech-savvy) was more likely to be playing bingo online, and women were significantly more likely than men to play bingo online at least once a week.

In the same way that online poker sites are now trying to attract more women, some online bingo sites appear to be trying to attract more men. This is being done on many levels including the use of more neutral (unisex) colours in website design, non-cash prizes that appeal across gender lines, and less female-centric marketing and advertising. There are also an increasing number of online casinos that have introduced online bingo to its game portfolio. Such tactics are what we psychologists call ‘foot-in-the-door’ techniques (the most obvious of which are marketing tactics like sign-up cash bonuses or ‘play-for-free and win real money’ offers) where acquisition incentives are given in an attempt to either cross-sell games and/or create longer-term repeat business.

Journalistic stories about the rise in popularity of online bingo sites claim that the most recent statistics suggest that many men also enjoy online bingo and that the numbers of men playing online are on the increase. However, I have not been able to verify such claims, and even if I could, statistics never tell the whole story. As Ebbe Skovdah (a Danish football manager) once stated – “statistics are like mini-skirts, they give you good ideas but they hide the most important things!”.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Chapple, C. & Nofgizer, S. (2000). Bingo!: Hints of deviance in the accounts of sociability and profit of bingo players. Deviant Behavior: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 21, 489–517.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Online gambling, social responsibility and ‘foot-in-the-door techniques. i-Gaming Business, 62, 100-101.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Technological trends and the psychosocial impact on gambling. Casino and Gaming International, 7(1), 77-80.

Griffiths, M.D. (2012). Gambling, stigma, and the rise of online bingo. i-Gaming Business Affiliate, December/January, 34-35.

Griffiths, M.D. (2012). The psychology of online and offline bingo. i-Gaming Business Affiliate, October/November, 38.

Griffiths, M.D. & Bingham, C. (2002). Bingo playing in the UK: The influence of demographic factors on play.  International Gambling Studies, 2, 51-60.

Griffiths, M.D. & Bingham, C. (2005). A study of superstitious beliefs among bingo players. Journal of Gambling Issues, 13. Located at: http://www.camh.net/egambling/issue13/jgi_13_griffiths.html.

Wardle, H., Moody, A., Griffiths, M.D., Orford, J. & and Volberg, R. (2011). Defining the online gambler and patterns of behaviour integration: Evidence from the British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2010. International Gambling Studies, 11, 339-356.

Wardle, H., Moody. A., Spence, S., Orford, J., Volberg, R., Jotangia, D., Griffiths, M.D., Hussey, D. & Dobbie, F. (2011).  British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2010. London: The Stationery Office

Stats entertainment: A review of my 2012 blogs

My last blog of 2012 was not written by me but was prepared by the WordPress.com stats helper. I thought a few of you might be interested in the kind of person that reads my blogs. I also wanted to wish all my readers a happy new year and thank you for taking the time to read my posts.

Here’s an excerpt:

About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 180,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 3 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!

Click here to see the complete report.

Blame it on the fame? The role of celebrity endorsement in gambling advertising

Have any of you reading this ever visited an online poker site because of a celebrity endorsement? Would the presence of Ben Affleck or James Woods make you more likely to play poker? Commercial gambling has only relatively recently got in on the celebrity endorsement bandwagon mainly because gambling advertising has always been very restricted. When a poker company uses a celebrity endorser, they are signing up an image that is itself a gamble. At the very least, gaming companies should get what they pay for but it can all go horribly wrong. When a purple-bearded Billy Connolly was used to promote the National Lottery in 2002/2003, sales decreased. The adverts had high recall by the public but were hated by a large proportion of the British public who found Connolly highly irritating.

This is all goes to show that any gaming company wanting to use celebrity endorsement as part of its marketing drive has to carefully evaluate a celebrity’s image and reputation. Steps need to be taken to make sure the celebrity’s image and reputation matches the needs of the company. Sales can take a tumble especially if the celebrity used does something that compromises the company’s image. For instance, Vic Reeves drink-driving conviction wasn’t very good for the car insurance company he was promoting! However, in most situations, the relationship between the company and the celebrity will be mutually beneficial. The company receives all of the perks associated with the celebrity such as publicity, positive connotation, recognition, respect and trust. The celebrity – at the very least – benefits financially.

The advertising industry claims that brand recognition, recall and awareness are the most important outcomes of successful marketing campaigns. This, they believe, will result in greater sales and increased revenue. However, as with the Billy Connolly example above, this isn’t always the case. Celebrity endorsement is perhaps even more important in online commercial activities like playing Internet poker where identity, trust and reliability equate to potential punters. As a consequence, many online commercial enterprises appear to opt for short-term, high impact celebrity endorsement and ‘buzz marketing’ rather than investing for the long term. These types of marketing tend to create an instant image and reputation but may not necessarily be good for the company’s longevity. To be market leaders amid the competition, online gaming operators will need to couple strategic marketing with solid brand management.

Interestingly, a survey carried out by Marketing UK asked marketers from a sample of the top 1000 British companies which techniques they thought were the most successful in increasing sales and at building long-term relationships with customers. It found that celebrity endorsements ranked last, beneath things like loyalty schemes, sales promotions, and general display advertising. However, it doesn’t make sense to isolate celebrity endorsements, because they are just one of many marketing elements that are used in a successful campaign. What’s more, if marketers didn’t believe celebrities help in generating long-term sales and profits, they wouldn’t keep paying the large fees they command.

While the jury is out on whether celebrity endorsement is a sales winner, one question that has yet to be answered through research is, what type of gambler does a celebrity endorsement impress and/or influence in their decision play? Is it the novices, long-standing players, or both? Maybe different types of celebrities appeal to different clientele. For me, the most interesting development of the celebrity endorsement culture is how the big poker tournament winners have now become celebrities in their own right. For instance, the star after-dinner speaker at an academic gambling conference I was at in Lake Tahoe was World Series of Poker veteran Howard Lederer. This type of celebrity endorsement may be more appealing to players. The fact that someone has become a celebrity through skill and talent in an activity that gamblers are already positively predisposed towards suggests they will want to have more of a psychological association with these celebrities than those the celebrities who just happen to play poker as a hobby. Judging by the front covers of magazines like Inside Poker, the editors clearly believe that it is the big poker winners that sell the magazine rather than Hollywood A-listers or scantily dressed women.

Celebrity endorsements also tap into the psychology of ‘intrinsic association’. This is the degree to which the gambling activity is positively associated with other interests, people and/or attractions. Intrinsic association also taps into the psychology of familiarity and help explain why so may UK slot machines feature themes relating to television shows, films, popular board games, video games or celebrities. It makes punters feel they know something about the product before they have even played it.

Gaming companies have to ask themselves how much they are willing to gamble on celebrity endorsement in trying to carve out a niche in the market. Companies have got to be clear that they are targeting the right product with the right celebrity with the right message. It can be a long hard slog to shape an image or reputation but it can take just a few seconds of celebrity madness to destroy it.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Binde, P. (2007). Selling dreams – causing nightmares? On gambling advertising and problem gambling. Journal of Gambling Issues, 20, 167-191.

Griffiths, M.D. (2005).  Does advertising of gambling increase gambling addiction? International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 3(2), 15-25.

Griffiths, M.D. (2007). Brand psychology: Social acceptability and familiarity that breeds trust and loyalty. Casino and Gaming International, 3(3), 69-72.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Celebrity endorsement and online gambling: Ten golden rules. i-Gaming Business Affiliate, June/July, p.64.

Griffiths, M.D. (2010). Media and advertising influences on adolescent risk behaviour. Education and Health, 28(1), 2-5.

Griffiths, M.D. & Parke, J. (2003). The environmental psychology of gambling. In G. Reith (Ed.), Gambling: Who wins? Who Loses? (pp. 277-292). New York: Prometheus Books.

Griffiths, M.D., Parke, J., Wood, R.T.A. & Rigbye, J. (2010). Online poker gambling in university students: Further findings from an online survey. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 8, 82-89.

Wood, R.T.A., Griffiths, M.D. & Parke, J. (2007). The acquisition, development, and maintenance of online poker playing in a student sample. CyberPsychology and Behavior, 10, 354-361.

Zangeneh, M., Griffiths, M.D. & Parke, J. (2008). The marketing of gambling. In Zangeneh, M., Blaszczynski, A., and Turner, N. (Eds.), In The Pursuit Of Winning.  pp. 135-153. New York: Springer.

In for a penny? Why online penny auctions are a form of gambling

Yesterday, I was quoted in The Observer about activity on online penny auction sites such as ‘Madbid’ and whether they were a form of gambling. My first thought when looking at what people do on these sites was basically gambling. To me they are all but gambling in name and they don’t seem to be regulated by any gambling organization or authority.

The basic idea behind online penny auctions is perhaps laudable. They offer the chance to buy brand new products at very competitive prices. On sites like Madbid, a bid is raised by one penny at the time, so when the current price of a product is (for example) £1.10, the bid is raised to £1.11. There is no time limit as such for the sales time, instead whenever no additional bids are made during a product specific time limit (e.g., five minutes) the auction is automatically closed. To give an example, if a bid is made at 1:06pm and there is a five-minute time limit, at 1:11pm the auction is closed, assuming no other bids are made. The opening times of the auctions are often product specific (e.g., 10am-10pm). Should the product not have been sold by 10pm the auction continues again the following morning.

In order for a person to participate in a penny auction, they need to place a bid in an ongoing auction. They can do this by (a) placing a bid by sending a text message from their mobile phone (at £1.50 a bid plus operator’s costs) or (b) placing a bid through the creation of an online account where the person buys a ‘bundle’ of bids (at 75p to £1.40 a bid depending on how big a bundle they buy in advance). To bid by text message, a person sends a message with the code for the specific product that they want to bid on. To bid using an online account, a person clicks on ‘Register’ and follows the online instructions. There is no limit to how many bids that can be submitted on the same auction product. There is also no limit on how many different products can be bid on at any one time.

Here’s an example of a real winning bid. A PlayStation videogame console (retail price of over £300) was won in a penny auction for £8.34. To the winner of the auction this was won at a hugely discounted price. However, what this really means is that there were 834 separate bids for this item all costing between 75p and £1.50 per bid (depending whether it was done online or via mobile phone). Looking at the ‘bid history’, most of the final 50 bids were made by just two individuals who at a minimum spent at least £30 in those final bids trying to secure the item. Although one person won the console, the other person spent a lot of money and got nothing. I think there are many reasons as to why online penny auctions are akin to gambling. Below are some (but not all) of the main similarities between penny auctions and gambling:

• In penny auctions, winning is essentially chance-determined: There may be limitations on the number of text messages operators allow per month but theoretically a person can bid again and again (on either a single product or multiple products) with no certainty that they will ever win the product. In short, a person could make 10 bids for an item on their mobile phone at £1.50 a bid and end up with nothing. Whether a bidder wins the auction or not, it does not seem to depend on any discernable skill and is more like a chance-based lottery. If there is no real skill in participating and is essentially a chance activity, how is this not a form of gambling.

• Penny auction websites utilise the ‘availability bias’: The availability bias occurs when a person evaluating the probability of a chance event makes the judgement in terms of the ease with which relevant instances come to mind (Griffiths, 1994). For instance, lottery winners are highly publicised. This perpetuates the idea that wins are regular and commonplace. Penny auction websites display the winners of each item. This is a way of emphasising winning and minimising the act of losing. Similarly, penny auction websites have a ‘Meet the winners’ webpage highlighting people that have won very expensive items (like a car) for incredibly low amounts of money. These instances are very rare but by publicising them it makes them appear a more common occurrence.

• Multiple staking for no reward is commonplace in penny auctions: It is clear from looking at almost any of the item bidding histories that many people make multiple bids without ever winning the product. Here, peoples’ multiple bids are similar to putting down multiple stakes when there is a high jackpot prize to be won (e.g., buying lots of lottery tickets during a ‘rollover’ week). In penny auctions, all the bidders bar one on each auction fail to win the product (prize).

• Penny auction websites provide tips for winning: As with many Internet gambling websites (especially online poker websites), penny auction website operators feature webpage sections providing tips on winning for its clientele (e.g., “What can I do to improve my chances of winning?”).

• Penny auction websites have responsible gambling-like policies: Instead of ‘responsible gambling’ policies, the more ethically and responsibly minded penny auction websites have ‘responsible bidding’ policies. For instance, Madbid has a helpful FAQ section that included the question “Is there a risk of addiction to the service?” and provided a link to their ‘Responsible Bidding’ page which gives the following advice:

• Take regular breaks between buying activities.
• Decide a monthly budget in advance as your own personal limit. Do not increase the maximum limit that you have decided for yourself later on.
• Before you start participating in a product purchase, decide the number of bids you are willing to place or determine a price at which you will not raise the bid further.
• Never participate under the influence of alcohol or medication, or if you are in a depressive mood.
• Bid only when you are fully rested and concentrated.

This list looks as though the operators have read the responsible gambling guidelines at an online gambling website and simply replaced the words ‘gamble’ and gambling’ with the words ‘bid’ and ‘buying’.

I have tried to argue that penny auction websites are Internet gambling websites in all but name. They appear to be unregulated and there is no gambling watchdog or regulatory body that oversees their operation. At the very least, the British Gambling Commission should at least do their own investigation to determine whether penny auction websites should come under their regulatory jurisdiction. I also think it would be more socially responsible if penny auction websites listed the total amount spent on bids by the person who got the winning item rather than what the final winning bid was.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Griffiths, M.D. (2009). Online ‘penny auction’ sites: Regulation needed. World Online Gambling Law Report, 8(1), 3-5.

Griffiths, M.D. & Wood, R.T.A. (2001). The psychology of lottery gambling.  International Gambling Studies, 1, 27-44.

Griffiths, M.D. & Wood, R.T.A. (2008). Responsible gaming and best practice: How can academics help? Casino and Gaming International, 4(1), 107-112.

Parke, J. & Griffiths, M.D. (2007). The role of structural characteristics in gambling.  In G. Smith, D. Hodgins & R. Williams (Eds.), Research and Measurement Issues in Gambling Studies. pp.211-243. New York: Elsevier.

Touchpoint (2011). Penny auctions: Costly pastime or online gambling? February 18. Located at: http://www.nsgamingfoundation.org/publications/touchpoint/Touchpoint%20February%2018,%202011.pdf

Against all odds: The psychology of lottery gambling

Playing on national lottery games is one of the most popular forms of gambling worldwide and they are also a growing in popularity in their many online incarnations. But what is the psychological appeal of an activity where the odds of winning huge jackpot prizes are usually infinitesimal? For instance, the odds of winning the EuroMillions lottery are 76 million to one. I often joke that you would get better odds of Elvis Presley landing on the moon on the back of the Loch Ness Monster!

Most of us have probably wondered what we would do if we ever won the lottery, but the sad fact is that almost all of us won’t ever win even if we play the lottery every week for the rest of our lives. Conventional wisdom says that big jackpot lottery winners should hopefully look forward to a long life of everlasting happiness. However, research studies have found that lottery winners are euphoric very briefly before they settle back to their ‘normal’ level of happiness or unhappiness. This is because happiness is relative. There is a popular belief by some psychologists that in the long run, winning on the lottery will not make you happy. Researchers who study happiness say that everyone has a certain level of happiness that stays relatively constant but can be changed by particular events that make you happy or sad.

For instance, if you are a generally happy person and a close relative dies, research shows that after a few months or so, you will go back to the same happiness level you were previously. However, this works the other way too. Say you are a person who is not very happy in your day-to-day life. You could win the lottery and would probably be happy for a couple of months, but then you would ‘level out’ and go back at your normal unhappiness level.

On a more practical day-to-day level, most of the research on lottery winners has shown that their lives are much better as a result of their life-changing wins but there is also a significant minority of winners who find other problems occur as a result of their instant wealth. They may give up their jobs and move to a more luxurious house in another area. This can lead to a loss of close friends from both the local neighbourhood and from their workplace. There can also be family tensions and arguments over the money and there is always the chance that winners will be bombarded with requests for money from every kind of cause or charity. However, despite potential problems, most of the psychological research (perhaps unsurprisingly) indicates that winners are glad they won.

There are also those groups of people who will view the acquisition of instant wealth as “undeserved”. Basically, when people win the lottery, other people treat them differently, even if the winners don’t move out of the area or carry on in their job. This can lead to envy and resentment, not just from people who know the winners, but also from those in the locality where the winners may move. Thankfully, most large lottery operators have an experienced team of people to help winners adjust to their new life and to minimize potential problems.

It’s unlikely that the downsides of winning the lottery would be enough to put us off playing. Neither is the unlikely probability of winning. Why then – despite the huge odds against – do people persist with their dream of winning the elusive jackpot? Part of the popularity of lotteries in general is that they offer a low-cost chance of winning a very large life-changing amount of money. Without that huge jackpot, very few of us would play.

The probability of winning a large lottery prize is one of the basic risk dimensions that may help us decide whether we gamble in the first place. Some mathematicians say that playing lotteries is a tribute to public innumeracy and that playing the lottery is totally irrational. However, the probabilities of winning something on the National Lottery are fairly high in comparison with other gambling activities, although the chances of winning the jackpot are very small. Therefore, most players don’t think about the actual probability of winning but rely on what we psychologists call ‘heuristic strategies’ – a fancy name for ‘rules of thumb’ – for handling the available information. What most lottery players’ concentrate on is the amount that could be won rather than the probability of doing so.

We also know that the greater the jackpot the more people will gamble. That is why more lottery tickets are sold on rollover weeks because the potential jackpot is huge. Also, by providing lots of coverage for the huge winners, it helps us forget the millions of people who lost!

We also know that as human beings we tend to overestimate positive outcomes and underestimate negative ones. For instance, if someone is told they have a one in 14 million chance of being killed on any particular Saturday night they would hardly give it a second thought because the chances of anything untoward happening are infinitesimal. However, given the same probability of winning the National Lottery and people suddenly become over-optimistic. For instance, one study found that 22% of people thought that if they played the national lottery every week until they died, they would scoop the National Lottery jackpot at some point in their lifetime.

Another factor that may be important in why lotteries are so financially successful is because of the ‘psychology of entrapment’ with people who choose the same numbers every week. By picking the same numbers the person may become trapped into playing every week. Each week the player thinks they are coming closer to winning. The winning day is impossible to predict but should the player decide to stop and cut their losses, they are faced with the prospect that the very next week their numbers might come up. Very simple – but effective – psychology.

Dr Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies, International Gaming Research Unit, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK

Further reading

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). Selling hope: The psychology of the National Lottery. Psychology Review, 4, 26-30.

Griffiths, M.D. (1997). The National Lottery and scratchcards: A psychological perspective. The Psychologist: Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 10, 23-26.

Griffiths, M.D. (2011). Gambling, luck and superstition: A brief psychological overview. Casino and Gaming International, 7(2), 75-80.

Griffiths, M.D. & Wood, R.T.A. (2001). The psychology of lottery gambling. International Gambling Studies, 1, 27-44.

Wood, R.T.A. & Griffiths, M.D. (2004). Adolescent lottery and scratchcard players: Do their attitudes influence their gambling behaviour? Journal of Adolescence, 27, 467-475.