As with any addictive product, the sites of online gamesmust broadcast prevention messages to players. However, these same platforms regularly solicit Internet users via various automatic promotional emails. Visitors who “stumbled” into the addiction games then frequent these sites even more regularly…
To reverse this trend, a Inserm teamworked in partnership with a poker site. The idea: to develop a tool capable of identifying players in difficulty by coupling player account data to a screening tool.
Players in difficulty lose 1.7 euros per game
“We have built and validated a predictive model, which makes it possible to identify people whose gambling behavior is problematic, based on their data and their online behavior”, explains Amandine Luquiens, who led this work.
The profile of players in difficulty? Male, under the age of 28, able to deposit money upon registration on the site, to lose on average more than 1.7 euros per session, and to participate in more than 60 games per month.
Thanks to these factors, people whose gambling behavior was problematic could be identified with a sensitivity of 80%.
Only a third of gambling addicts have financial difficulties
Inserm researchers sent an email to the 170,063 people registered on the site and invited them to describe their behavior Game through a scientifically validated questionnaire. The players were classified according to their potential addiction and, among them, 18% had a probable addiction.
“Addiction is not correlated with the amount spent. Moreover, only a third of people with a gambling problem find themselves facing financial difficulties. In reality, it is above all the temporal invasion of the game in the daily newspaper which illustrates addiction, especially in the field of poker”, continues Doctor Luquiens.
Identify and support game addicts
In France, the game sites and online betting are placed under the authority of the Online Gaming Regulatory Authority (ARJEL). The latter issues a license to platforms if they properly fulfill a set of legal requirements, including the obligation to collect game data. Operators thus have a database for prevention purposes.
ARJEL could use Inserm’s screening tool to identify players in difficulty, inform them and offer them support.
The organization would send awareness emails to addicts or perform online moderation with screened players. A way to protect users and facilitate the use of care for dependent people.
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