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Gambling games on social platforms: How do advertisements for social casino games target young adults?

journal contribution
posted on 2017-12-20, 00:00 authored by B Abarbanel, SM Gainsbury, D King, Nerilee HingNerilee Hing, PH Delfabbro
Social casino gaming, which simulates gambling games on social platforms, has become increasingly popular and is rapidly merging with the gambling industry. Advertisements for social casino games, however, are not bound by the same regulations as real money gambling, despite their similarities. We performed a content analysis of a sample of 115 unique social casino gaming advertisements captured by young adults during their regular Internet use. The results showed that the advertisement imagery typically featured images likely to appeal to young adults, such as bright colors, character images of young adults, cartoon animal characters, gambling and sporting activities, references to popular culture, and references to Las Vegas. Latent and manifest message themes included glamorization of gambling, winning, normalization of gambling, play for free, and a general encouragement to play. Notably, nearly 90 percent of the advertisements contained no responsible or problem gambling language, despite the gambling-like content. As young people are receptive of messages that encourage gambling, we recommend that gaming companies recognize the potential harms of advertisements and embrace corporate social responsibility standards. This includes adding warning messages to advertisements for gambling-themed games and ensuring that marketing messages do not encourage excessive gambling. © 2016 Policy Studies Organization.

Funding

Category 2 - Other Public Sector Grants Category

History

Volume

9

Issue

2

Start Page

184

End Page

209

Number of Pages

26

eISSN

1944-2866

Publisher

John Wiley & Sons, USA.

Peer Reviewed

  • Yes

Open Access

  • No

Acceptance Date

2016-09-26

External Author Affiliations

University of California; Southern Cross University; University of Adelaide

Era Eligible

  • Yes

Journal

Policy and Internet

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