3. Dr. Kahlil Philander
Director of Social Responsibility, BCLC

4. CUSTOMIZED RESPONSIBLE
GAMBLING MESSAGING
Dr. Kahlil Philander
Director of Social Responsibility
BCLC

5. Acknowledgements
• Collaborators: Dr. Sally Gainsbury, Dr. Brett Abarbanel,
Dr. Jeff Butler, Navi Brar, Michaela Becker
• Funding: Manitoba Gambling Research Program & BCLC

6. AN ANALYSIS ANALOGY

7. Ford

8. General
Motors

9. Play for fun,
not to make
money.
Know how the game works and
what the odds are before playing.
Don't chase losses.
Accept them as the cost
of entertainment.
Balance gambling
with other types
of leisure
activities.
Set a time limit before
you play.
Set a budget and
stick to it.
Take frequent breaks.

10. Responsible
Gambling Council:
Public Campaign

11. GameSense
Sports Wagering
TargetedAd

12. WHATABOUT CONTENT THAT IS
DELIVERED CLOSER TO THE TIME OF
PLAY?

13. Brochures

14. Ladbrokes FOBT
Messages

15. Gaming
Management System
Improvements
Slot innovation,
primarily driven by
point-of-sale
marketing interests,
has opened up a new
opportunity

16. The study design
System
Assessment
Tailoring
Strategies
Focus Group
Analysis
Field
Experiment
(online)
Execution
Strategy

17. System Assessment
Customized
Player
Messages
Available
Data
Fields
Data
Validity
Platform
Capabilities
Address, Gender,
Language, Ethnicity,
Age, Game Play (type,
freq., spend), Play
Management Settings
Message size,
position, text vs
image, number of
unique messages
Limitation

18. Our target groups
• Young adults
• Older adults
• Women
• Men
• Ethnic groups
• Skill game players
• Pure chance game players
• Large single day loss players
• Players involved in many types of games
• …And/or combinations thereof!

19. TAILORING STRATEGIES
The extent to a message is read, absorbed, and acted upon is
dependent upon the personal relevance of the message, the
targeted recipient’s capacity to assimilate the information, and their
motivation to respond (Wolgater, 2006).

20. CONGRUENCY EFFECT
Health messages framed to match a person’s
predominant motivations are more effective than
mismatched messages (Updegraff et al., 2007).

21. Effectiveness demonstrated in other fields
• SMOKING: A study of smoking cessation messages found incorporating small pieces of
information on a person in a standard text doubled the number of participants who reported quitting
(Dijkstra, 2005)
• CANCER SCREENING: A study compared ads for people who thought they were
at risk for skin cancer against ads that listed risk factors (e.g. odd shaped moles). The referral rate
for the targeted approach was significantly higher 15.5% vs 11.6%(Katris et al., 1996).
• ADVERTISING: “targeting ethnic consumers… with ads that are rich in traditional
cultural cues can significantly influence their responses.” (Appiah & Liu, 2009)

22. More Effectiveness:
Microsoft Research on WebAds
• Click-Through Rate (CTR) of an ad can be
improved as high as 670% by properly
segmenting users
• Similar clickers have similar behaviors
• Short term user behaviors more
representative than long term user behaviors.

23. OUR MESSAGE
GUIDELINES
“Targeted and tailored messages outperform generic health
messages, but the exact components that result in effective tailoring
are not well known”
- Noar et al., 2011

24. Our target groups
• Young adults
• Older adults
• Women
• Men
• Ethnic groups
• Skill game players
• Pure chance game players
• Large single day loss players
• Players involved in many types of games
• …And/or combinations thereof!

25. Poker Players
• Different messaging for games with an element of skill
• Staying in control and gambling with your head, rather
than with emotions
• Encourage players to be mindful of the element of chance
that determines games, and to avoid chasing losses

26. Young Adults
• More prone to erroneous beliefs about gambling and
beliefs that gambling can be controlled
• Problems with money, debt, and family breakdown are less relevant
• Younger participants have difficulty relating to
advertisements intended for other audiences
• Use positive messaging, encouraging specific actions

27. Gambling behaviour
• Regular/highly involved gamblers who enjoy gambling
may be much more defensive about their play
• But may also be among the players that need the warnings the
most.
• Non-judgmental positive messages should be used that
suggest specific actions to stay in control of play

28. WHY SO MUCH RESEARCH?
Many warnings have unintended results when tested on regular
users. Should rely on empirical research, rather than expert opinion
or judgment.
- Stewart and Martin, 1994

29. Approaches to Responsible Gambling
Regulation
Centric
Research
Proven
Best
Practice
Danger of
Unintended
Consequences
Avoidable Harm

30. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

31. Other Considerations
• First, make sure the messages are more effective than
generic approaches
• An appropriate balance between personal content and
more general branding should be maintained
• Consider rotating messages
• Improve data collection topics and validity

32. THANKS AND STAY
TUNED…
(For Gainsbury et al. at New Horizons 2016)

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