- November 01, 2024
- Gambling
Adolescent and young adults are gaming and gambling at a much higher rate than people tend to believe. The Minnesota Student Survey offers a rich data set from 8th, 9th and 11th grade students across the state and has been collecting data since the early 1990’s. Recently, gambling data has been part of the ongoing study and is providing practitioners with some interesting information. Serena shares what she’s learned by working with adolescent and young adults and including how advertising, artificial intelligence, and evolving incentives all play a role on how our younger generations interact with gaming and gambling.
Show Links:
Dr. Serena King:
Email: sking02@hamline.edu
Call Gateway Foundation: 855-723-0963
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LinkedIn: @Gateway-Foundation
Transcript:
00;00;00;01 – 00;00;28;01
Unknown
The definitions of gambling and gaming are evolving, and so therefore we need to evolve with them. Welcome to another episode of Wager Danger. I’m your host, Shane Cook. Gambling Disorder Program director at Gateway Foundation. Today, we’re thrilled to be joined by Dr. Serena King, a clinical psychologist and professor at Hamline University in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis. Saint Paul.
00;00;28;04 – 00;01;07;24
Unknown
Serena has spent nearly 20 years studying the developmental pathways and risk factors for gambling disorders, with a specific focus on adolescence and young adults. In our discussion, we’ll explore emerging trends in sports betting, the increasingly blurred lines between gaming and gambling and effective strategies for prevention and early intervention. Serena also shares many of her thoughts and discoveries from exploring how technology is reshaping the gambling landscape for young people, the alarming trends that are emerging, and the innovative approaches she believes are needed to effectively protect the vulnerable population.
00;01;07;26 – 00;01;39;01
Unknown
Welcome to the show, Serena. It’s my pleasure to be here. Thanks, Shane, for asking me to come on. Absolutely. So happy to have you join us. We’ve had a lot of fun so far with our pre-show meetings and emails back and forth, so I’m really looking forward to our conversation. But before we get going, give us a sense of your background, where you came from, how you got tied into gambling in particular focused on the youth population as it relates to gambling.
00;01;39;03 – 00;02;13;03
Unknown
I have been committed to working in the addiction space, particularly around youth and families, for about 19 years now, and I started my research in the addiction field at the University of Minnesota’s Twin and Family Research Center, looking at the ideology of substance use disorders all the way from adolescence to young adulthood. And in that work, we were looking at sort of the causal factor, including genetics, environment, as well as other forms of psychopathology.
00;02;13;06 – 00;02;48;29
Unknown
And that work really led me down the path to becoming passionate about prevention, about understanding the root causes of addiction. And during my postdoctoral time as a professor, I was mentored in Minnesota under some researchers here in Minnesota who study problem gambling. I also applied for a research grant from ICRC and was able to get that research grant on gambling and problem gambling, looking at a twin study.
00;02;49;02 – 00;03;13;24
Unknown
And so that was my first point of contact in the problem gambling field. And since I’ve been there, I’ve loved the work that I’ve done since. As I left the University of Minnesota, I picked up a career in teaching and I teach undergraduate psychology at Hanley University in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where I do my work with students and do community and research work here in Minnesota.
00;03;14;01 – 00;03;39;07
Unknown
Excellent. So I would imagine then you’re teaching covers a broad array of topics, right? But do you get into the whole gambling addiction space and talk about that? And I’m just kind of kind of curious as a side note more than anything, how do your students react to that? Yeah, because I know we talked, we’ve talked about on this show quite a bit.
00;03;39;10 – 00;04;11;17
Unknown
How are we focused in on that particular demographic on college age kids and how gambling really is a big part of their daily activities? In some cases, for at least for a certain percentage of that. So I’m curious what kind of discussions you’re having with your students about. Yeah. Yeah. I’m glad you asked that question. Actually teaching at the college level as a rich sort of life lab, so to speak, with my students.
00;04;11;17 – 00;04;38;06
Unknown
And so my students come with a lot of knowledge and experience with technology, with video gaming, with sports betting. A lot of them are athletes. A lot of them have personal contact with this topic. And they give me a rich understanding of the technological sort of advances that, you know, allow students, young people, youth to engage with betting in a variety of ways.
00;04;38;13 – 00;05;03;24
Unknown
And so a lot of our students notice that their technological applications, like, say, it’s video gaming, let’s say it’s any sort of other product that is engaging in social media with wagering. We we hear a lot of stories from our students when we start to talk about this this information and, you know, talking about the introduction of artificial intelligence, A.I..
00;05;03;26 – 00;05;27;25
Unknown
Students are really interested in it, and they see it in their everyday lives. When they engage with games, they see advertising in the media, around gambling, gaming, sports betting, and they’re fascinated by it. So it’s a rich conversation that we engage with the youth. And I get a lot of my ideas actually from the people that I work with at the college level, right?
00;05;27;25 – 00;05;53;20
Unknown
Because they’re in it every day and they they bring a lot to my research lab and I learn a lot about gaming video gaming from their experiences. Sure. We often hear this phrase that the our particular age group doesn’t view gambling as gambling. Do you do you find that rings true with a lot of your students, at least initially having these conversations?
00;05;53;23 – 00;06;18;16
Unknown
Absolutely. I love that question. So because I’m able to engage with college students every day, I recognize that they’re seeing that a lot of the things that we would call gambling they don’t recognize as gambling. So it’s just a part of everyday life to, for example, purchase items within video games or also to, you know, wager on sports.
00;06;18;18 – 00;06;46;07
Unknown
These types of things that I think have become really normalized in our everyday life and partly due to technology. So I think a lot of people, not only have they not intentionally thought about it as gambling, but they have also been exposed to it very early before they even knew what gambling was. And that, I think, is a game changer, if you will, around what and how we study gambling among youth.
00;06;46;09 – 00;07;09;22
Unknown
Right. So I think that that’s critical to recognize that young people aren’t calling it gambling. They’re calling it a lot of other things. And it’s very technology driven. Right. So I know we were going to talk about the younger demographic here, and we’re kind of focused on on the college age group. But I find it fascinating. So let’s explore this a little bit more.
00;07;09;29 – 00;07;49;03
Unknown
And you’ve brought up the technology aspects of this and how the technology is changing. And we’ve had conversations about how artificial intelligence is being infused into this as well. Give us a sense or you know, from your perspective, give us a sense of how pervasive and how integrated technology has become as part of gaming, gambling and perpetuating the cycle for people in particular, because I think that’s a big part of what the technology allows, is to reach out and grab somebody and hold them right, and get them to continue to play.
00;07;49;05 – 00;08;26;20
Unknown
Right. So in the context of almost every gaming environment, data analytics play a significant role in driving user engagement. And so we see that games are becoming more complex in terms of their ability to predict players moves, to predict what drives user engagement, to predict emotional responsivity to a game, the analytics that are being employed in a lot of these spaces that could be anything from the Internet to gambling to the development of advertising.
00;08;26;20 – 00;08;56;12
Unknown
Even these elements that the analytics behind being able to engage with these products is a significant advance in terms of technology and from a user end is almost invisible, right? So the more I engage, the more I drive into this product or I get more engaged and more intense with the product, I may not even be aware of the the elements that are being used to engage me.
00;08;56;12 – 00;09;32;23
Unknown
So I’ll give you an example of this. From the advertising field, we’re seeing the use of, for example, artificial intelligence. That’s emotion focused. So emotion AI is being used to create media as well as advertising that drives sort of an emotional space and a level of engagement for for developing advertising theory quickly. These tools could also be used to drive the development of gambling and gaming advertising.
00;09;32;25 – 00;10;04;25
Unknown
Now, a lot of people haven’t really been studying this, so we but we know these tools are being used. We know that advertisers use them frequently. It’s kind of a standard. And what what these tools can do is they can analyze facial expressions regarding media engagement and obviously with, you know, small samples or even large samples of people to determine if an advertisement is effective in in evoking a response.
00;10;04;27 – 00;10;47;15
Unknown
And so just understanding that level of analytic that can be used in the media space, I think is really important in understanding how technologically advanced the field could move, you know, very quickly underneath us. Right. So I think that’s really critical to to thinking about how do we keep ahead of these trends. Okay, great. Let’s now kind of dial it back a little bit and get back to the more youthful population and talk about where this all where where it begins and I think there’s there’s a couple of different ways we could talk about this and hopefully we’ll be able to cover all of them.
00;10;47;15 – 00;11;29;28
Unknown
But in terms of the age demographic that you are tending to spend a little bit more time on in terms of research and study and things like that, may perhaps some of your students as well. What are the factors there that are just like, man, I didn’t think about this or this is really something that we’ve we have an opportunity to start shaping the way people think about and approach gambling, gaming with a wide eyed as they approach it and and really start to kind of affect their behaviors and how they interact with gambling in a more positive direction.
00;11;30;01 – 00;12;03;28
Unknown
I think ultimately that’s probably the direction that you want to go from a prevention standpoint, Right? Right. So because the field is evolving so much with regard to where gambling exists, so everything from social media applications to video games to the emergence of various forms of sports betting that youth might be exposed to think that the evolving field creates a situation where we have to be ahead of how we define gambling.
00;12;04;00 – 00;12;41;13
Unknown
And so from a researcher standpoint, you know, I think we’ve talked about this. I’ve worked on data analysis on the Minnesota Youth Survey, and so that is Minnesota Student Survey. And that is a large scale study in the state of Minnesota that looks at gambling, gaming, all sorts of types of wagering. Right. And youth. And what we find is that there’s a lot of ways to define gambling and the ways in which we define gambling now are evolving.
00;12;41;15 – 00;13;08;09
Unknown
And we do wonder if, for example, when we ask about online gambling, what are you defining as online gambling? Because we know that video games have embedded gambling in them, they have embedded wagering. And so when we ask about online gambling, are we really tapping into these different forms of of gambling? So I think the definitions of gambling and gaming are evolving.
00;13;08;09 – 00;13;42;11
Unknown
And so therefore we need to evolve with them. And so one of the things I think about when I think about prevention, to get to your point, is that education around the ways in which wagering exist in various products is is critical. And the reason for that is that people may be engaging in a video game and wagering or engaging in a microtransaction or buying, you know, something to open up a box to see if that particular box has a valued player in it, for example, or a valued product or skin.
00;13;42;13 – 00;14;20;22
Unknown
And they may not even see that as wagering. And so educating youth and families about the various ways in which wagering can exist in these products is essential. But that starts with us as a field defining what exactly is gambling, and especially in these contexts, and keeping track of the varieties of ways in which these wagering and gambling like activities in, for example, video games or other spaces exist and keeping a large category and catalog of them and understanding How do we talk about this with with young people?
00;14;20;22 – 00;14;45;17
Unknown
How do we talk about this with families? Because they may not even be identifying it. So that’s step one. And step two is looking at looking at how do we how do we think about talking to families and youth about using money within for example, video games or wagering on sports and how, you know, invested do families get in terms of like outcomes around sports games?
00;14;45;20 – 00;15;19;01
Unknown
And is this sort of sense of overinvestment maybe kind of promoting this idea that, you know, we’re going to start to move in the space where, you know, we might be trying to monetize that investment and winning. So I think it’s really important for us to start to think about the ways in which families define what gambling is and also the ways in which there are risk factors within families and and populations of youth and peers that that lay the groundwork for the normalization of of gambling.
00;15;19;03 – 00;15;52;03
Unknown
Sure. Yeah. So you brought up the Minnesota survey that was done and it’s an impactful study in that the sample size I think, that was created for this or that emerged as part of the effort is impressive. Give us a little bit more background on, you know, how how large of a study this is and how some of the outcomes and findings for the study that were really interesting that you maybe wouldn’t have thought of before.
00;15;52;05 – 00;16;25;09
Unknown
Yeah. So let me give you some good background on the Minnesota student survey. I want to credit Dr. Randy Stinchfield, who is now emeritus professor from the University of Minnesota Medical School, who has mentored me into this role of leading the new efforts with the Minnesota Student survey. So the Minnesota Student Survey is a large scale epidemiological style data set on pretty much the entire state of public school students in Minnesota.
00;16;25;09 – 00;17;04;17
Unknown
So we are looking at eighth, ninth and 11th graders. And what the data set is very rich. So it has it has everything from, you know, substance use to mental health to gambling. And so Dr. Randy Stinchfield developed the gambling protocol that was used in that study. And from that data, he’s been tracking student gambling behavior since the 1990s in Minnesota, looking at a large scale study to really determine kind of monitoring the future of gambling in the state.
00;17;04;19 – 00;17;40;16
Unknown
And it really is one of the richest places, I think, to study really sort of the prevalence of this these behaviors track problem, gambling, track, frequent gambling, look at racial, racial and gender effects in the sample, looking at what’s common among younger populations of students. And I think it’s it’s going to be an extremely rich place to study sports betting as the game has shifted in Minnesota.
00;17;40;20 – 00;18;03;12
Unknown
Once, you know, sports betting becomes legalized here in our state. Right. So right now, we are not in a legalized sports betting environment, so we can’t really study that. And I want to also mention that this study was funded by the Minnesota Alliance on Problem gambling. And so I think that that’s really critical for you to know that this work has really been supported by them.
00;18;03;15 – 00;18;30;23
Unknown
So over 30 years of data gathering with that particular study is got to be just very interesting. What what are some of the things that came out of that study here continue to emerge from that study because it’s not a static study at this point. It continues to go and go each year. So you’re adding to it. What are some of the most surprising things that you came across?
00;18;30;26 – 00;18;57;20
Unknown
As? I wouldn’t have even thought of that or that’s amazing that we have this data. Yeah, so there’s a lot of things we still yet want to dig into in the data. But one of the things that we have found is just the sheer prevalence of gambling. Even in very young populations, right around 30 to 32% of our sample is reporting that they’ve they’ve gambled.
00;18;57;22 – 00;19;31;18
Unknown
And so knowing that it’s so common in our young people, even, you know, before the age of legal, you know, legalized gambling for them, I think that’s really critical. The other piece of it is, and I think this has been shown in other data sets, but the very common place with sports betting. So we’re seeing a lot of sports betting, formal and informal sports betting, even in a state here that isn’t technically legalized state.
00;19;31;21 – 00;19;58;00
Unknown
So I think that, you know, those are two really critical pieces of the puzzle. And when we piece apart, you know, who, for example, is engaging in these behaviors. So we’ve looked at this from, you know, a gender angle, and we’ve also looked at racial and ethnic group differences in the sample. There are some interesting emerging trends, right?
00;19;58;00 – 00;20;36;15
Unknown
So we know, of course, that young men or boys tend to gamble at a significantly higher rate than girls. However, even among those, you know, girls who are gambling, they’re still engaging in things like sports betting. That’s still very popular in the sample, probably the most popular form of betting in our sample, even among girls. And so I think that that is a unique insight that the data set has to offer the richness of our racial and ethnic group data is also a critical piece that I think gets understudied in the literature.
00;20;36;17 – 00;21;04;27
Unknown
And so we find racial and ethnic differences in youth gambling. And so we’re still trying to piece apart these these differences. And I think they’ll be critical for prevention efforts as we think about, you know, moving forward with those. Right. So interesting with women, girls in that age category when it comes to sports betting, I’m just curious what what defines sports betting for them?
00;21;04;29 – 00;21;38;03
Unknown
Immediately I thought of March Madness would probably be at the top of that list, but not so much interacting with the online gambling. And I know kids in that age group still have access to online sports betting, right? Even if it exists offshore and not legal in the state, there’s probably some people that have access to it. But is there a difference between how you see the girls betting versus the boys?
00;21;38;05 – 00;22;10;26
Unknown
Yeah. So we we take the questionnaire as it stands. So we’re looking at formal and informal forms of sports betting and other types of betting on activities that are sport like. And so we don’t ask specifically about what types of betting, but we do piece it apart in terms of formalized betting and then more informal sports betting. And so we do find that the more informal forms of sports betting are the most popular among all youth.
00;22;10;28 – 00;22;39;26
Unknown
And we see that same trend in girls. And so there has been some suggestion in the literature that a lot of this sports betting activity among girls, particularly among youth, might be in groups of, you know, mixed gender types of situations. But we haven’t been able to explore that in our sample because we didn’t ask those questions. We ideally could do some pull out focus groups and I think that would be super useful.
00;22;39;28 – 00;23;03;09
Unknown
We also wonder if youth sports may be a place that could place young people of all genders at risk for engaging in gambling. And so that actually could be looked at. I think, in this data. I do believe there has been some questionnaires about youth athletics. So these are the kinds of questions that still need to be explored.
00;23;03;12 – 00;23;29;25
Unknown
Right. But I think they’re really critical questions. The popularity of sports in all, you know, students is quite high. So sure. Knowing that the potential is there. Right. So when you when you use the terms formal and informal sports betting, what what are some of the differences there so people understand what those differences are. So they’re both on sports.
00;23;29;25 – 00;24;00;29
Unknown
So we’ll start there. But also knowing that with formal sports betting, this is this is looking at actually typically legalized or maybe formalized places where people are going to engage in betting on sports, whereas betting with friends, for example, is very formalized, informal sports betting where they’re maybe having playing cards with friends and they’re doing it in a sort of informal manner versus, okay.
00;24;01;02 – 00;24;27;10
Unknown
So the difference to put it in in practice here, you’ve got your squares that you’re you’re purchasing for maybe the Super Bowl or the March Madness bracket that you’re filling, that that’s more of an informal versus a formal sports betting where you’re looking at odds and you’re looking at your point spreads and things like that, and betting on those types of things.
00;24;27;12 – 00;24;58;03
Unknown
So what is it that when you look back at your journey in this area and your education, what is it that really drew you to the youth as a particular field of study and interacting with with them? Yeah. So my roots in terms of training have really allowed me to see how almost all mental health disorder is are developmental in nature.
00;24;58;03 – 00;25;29;15
Unknown
And so it’s a field of study called developmental psychopathology that looks at the life course and the development of mental health disorders and addiction. And from that lens, we understand that the causal pathways for almost all mental health disorders are developmental in nature, and we can trace that back to the roots of people’s behaviors, including substance use, gambling, gaming, whatever behavior you’re studying.
00;25;29;22 – 00;26;00;09
Unknown
And so for me, as a as a scientist, it’s very meaningful to be able to study youth in their families, because when you look at youth, you really look at the roots of where things begin and how we can prevent harm to people as as they grow older. And so if we can get at the root of these disorders, we can understand how best to prevent harm or to interrupt the pathway or the cycle.
00;26;00;12 – 00;26;48;11
Unknown
And so it’s been my absolute pleasure to be able to study youth and families and to be able to find out about the roots of mental health disorders in an effort to try to prevent harm or to prevent a chronic, more persistent course. Right. So so your experience then, what are some some trends in that space that in terms of interrupting the cycling and perhaps avoiding the harm or taking detours around the potential harms that exist for this this age demographic, what is it that you’ve picked up on and you’ve learned and some things that people can employ in their own lives?
00;26;48;14 – 00;27;21;23
Unknown
Maybe we’ve got moms and dads who are listening to this and they what they want to think about. They do recognize that that their kids are probably engaged in this activity a little more frequently than they would like. So how do you how do you get in there, jump in front and maybe divert their attention from it? I think the first thing to recognize is that it’s never too late to start to work with a young person on becoming more mindful of of whatever behavior they’re engaging in.
00;27;21;25 – 00;28;01;10
Unknown
And that includes gaming and gambling, Right. So I think the first thing is to help young people, families become more self aware. And that means that becoming aware means taking a close eye and a close look at what’s really going on. And that can be a hard process to engage with. But it’s a really important process to engage with because when we’re more self aware of what we’re doing that can that can open our eyes to the potential to help ourselves modify or modulate how we respond to games or gambling or other types of media.
00;28;01;13 – 00;28;28;10
Unknown
And so I think that’s the first point, is looking closely and becoming self aware of what’s really going on. Part two is becoming aware of the risks as well as the benefits of the behavior, right? So when we look at a behavior, what is at the root cause of the behavior? So if I’m engaging in a lot of gaming and it’s getting out of control, what where did that start?
00;28;28;10 – 00;29;11;09
Unknown
How did that begin? And what function is that serving for me as a young person? Is it serving to divert my attention away from things that are more stressful Is a distraction. Is it giving me excitement and is it a form of fun? Is it a is it a form of social engagement? And so I think really starting to truly look at and understand what is that young person, you know, what purpose is this serving for them and what are the potentials for emerging harm in the in the harm could be that I’m wagering within games or I’m feeling more agitated or angry while I’m gaming these sorts of things.
00;29;11;11 – 00;29;39;18
Unknown
And that includes gambling or and or I’m losing money. Right? So those are things that we can recognize, but also not necessarily confront with a young person because confrontation is good, could lead us down to a different path. So I think that becoming more mindfully aware of what exactly is going on, what exactly are we doing and what role does that, you know, does that behavior serve in my life?
00;29;39;20 – 00;30;10;24
Unknown
And also for parents, it can be a tug of war, right? So people parents who might see their kid engaging with technology may get frustrated or they may feel like they don’t have control or they they don’t know what to do. They’re feeling helpless. And so I think really checking our own emotions as parents can be really critical and kind of distancing, if you will, from the emotions we might feel about the games or gambling or what have you.
00;30;10;27 – 00;30;37;11
Unknown
And then and then stepping back and seeing things with eyes wide open. That’s, I think, really the first step at starting to to sort of look at how do we start to have the conversation. Also, decision making is really critical. So a lot of the times youth and or adults may make more impulsive or rash or snap decisions.
00;30;37;13 – 00;31;04;27
Unknown
And the irony here is that technology, I think, also encourages us in a way to make those decisions. So stepping back from the technology and creating some sort of cognitive a distance from these these applications for games, even wagering that can be really important. Often we think, right. It has to be a really complicated intervention to be able to slow us down.
00;31;04;29 – 00;31;30;10
Unknown
But a lot of the research we see on mindfulness tells us to pause distance and create some cognitive distancing from these these media and these tools in order to to slow and slow down the whole system. Yeah, interesting. You’re a parent, too. And and we kind of go through these things as the kids as our kids are growing.
00;31;30;10 – 00;31;54;28
Unknown
Right. And, you know, it’s about setting boundaries and limits. And and really, I think the more you can engage with the kids, with your own kids around these things and really having those limits in place, the guardrails is what I like to call them, you know, So they are making their own decisions, but they’re making the decisions within the guardrails.
00;31;54;28 – 00;32;19;12
Unknown
Right. Which is kind of a a gentle hand on the tiller. There’s another way to put it. I love that. And I want to add to it. I’m glad you brought this up. As children and vary in their reward sensitivity. Right. So we can see different personality traits come out in different kids. And some kids may be really susceptible to reward.
00;32;19;14 – 00;32;52;17
Unknown
And we also acculturate children in a sort of a reward based society. Right. And so in that sense, we can be thoughtful and careful and explain wins and explain reward and explain competition early and often with kids so that they aren’t always pressing the reward button or they’re not, you know, getting sort of caught in the cycle of of wanting to be consistently rewarded in one way or another.
00;32;52;17 – 00;33;18;23
Unknown
And I think video gaming, gambling, competition and sport, all these things, there’s the good side and the not so good side of these these types of, you know, sort of experiences. And I think being thoughtful about rewards and having conversations about what’s rewarding and what’s not in in kids and how we’re sort of tuned to rewards, but that we need to be able to, like, modulate that.
00;33;18;26 – 00;33;56;01
Unknown
That sort of tendency or that craving for reward I think is really critical. Sure. What is it that’s that you’re engaged in today around this topic? Yeah. So what’s got your attention? Right. So there’s a lot continuing to study. The Minnesota student survey data and working deeply with that. We have a variety of analyzes underway with that data set, including a study, a study on race and ethnicity in the dataset, as well as types of gambling that are common among our frequent and problem gamblers in that dataset.
00;33;56;01 – 00;34;28;25
Unknown
So I think those emerging findings will be critical in understanding prevention, at least in our state. And then also keeping an eye on trends in the advertising field and understanding, you know, how can we better address the sort of proliferation of ads around gambling and gaming that we’re seeing? And so that’s been an area of research that I’m wanting to kind of grow because I’m looking to see ways in which we can kind of counteract those effects.
00;34;28;25 – 00;35;10;27
Unknown
So experimentally. So we’re really excited to potentially launch experimental type of behavioral change studies in the lab. We can I can I break in there because you hit on something that is very interesting to me is there’s a proliferation of advertising around gambling, especially when it comes to sports. You can’t you cannot watch an NFL game without being bombarded by ads for FanDuel, you name it, DraftKings, whoever, whoever it is.
00;35;10;27 – 00;35;38;16
Unknown
Right. When it comes to that type of advertising, where do you start to draw some lines between is this inbounds or is it out of bounds for, you know, the audience that’s seeing this? Yeah. So advertising is a really interesting and I think understudied area in the gambling field and that’s why I’d like to make some, you know, progress in that area.
00;35;38;23 – 00;36;03;11
Unknown
And I’m glad you asked the question. I think the first thing that people need to think about is where is the ad placed and who could be the potential audience. So, for example, you talked about sports betting, advertising. We’ve seen pop ups show up in all sorts of places, including, you know, YouTube, which could be potentially an underage audience.
00;36;03;11 – 00;36;31;12
Unknown
Right. We see it on TV, perhaps even on primetime television. We see it on the Internet all over the place. Social media, the list goes on. Right. So just taking, for example, sports betting, advertising, I think where we start to worry is if there’s widespread exposure, where youth could be exposed. And in all those places youth are and can be exposed to that type of advertising.
00;36;31;15 – 00;37;04;19
Unknown
The second piece is what kinds of tactics are advertisers using to to get people to engage in this behavior? Right? So that includes incentivizing, that includes, if, for lack of a better word, promises made about how and when, you know, people can cash in on an incentive in these sorts of incentivizing type of advertising, advertisements can bring in new players and can be very alluring to young people.
00;37;04;24 – 00;37;35;05
Unknown
And then you combine that with who’s doing the advertising, what the sort of subtext context is, if it’s athletes, if it’s young people, if it’s driving excitement, if it’s, you know, sort of glorifying the win. And, you know, I don’t want to say promising, but promising the hope of big wins. I think those are concerning elements, especially when you think about a young audience.
00;37;35;07 – 00;38;03;18
Unknown
And so those are points of of contact where we need to think about how we can shape and reshape young people’s perspectives on this. And one of the things that I have been thinking about is how do we unpackage the incentives? And so what I mean by that is helping youth in any audience understand the truths behind these types of incentives.
00;38;03;23 – 00;38;33;12
Unknown
Right. And and so those are those are tricky places to be. But I think we need to sort of make people more aware and sort of pre educate, if you will, around these sorts of incentives that are being shown in advertising as well as, you know, helping people understand what you know, what tactics are advertisers using to to bring them into that.
00;38;33;15 – 00;38;58;00
Unknown
Okay. So do you do you have an example of that? I mean, I’m trying I’m trying to formulate an example in my head of how you get in front of the audience and you kind of debunk what’s actually occurring in an ad, for example, the incentive would be deposited $5 into this fantasy game and will give you $50 in play.
00;38;58;05 – 00;39;23;11
Unknown
Right? How do you go to some 14, 15, 18 year old? How do you get in front of that age group with debunking that? Yeah. So one of the ideas I’ve had and we haven’t yet tested this in the lab, but I’m pretty excited to think about it is to leverage the voices of people who have been affected.
00;39;23;18 – 00;39;51;00
Unknown
So that means including people in the conversation who are on the other side of that incentive and, you know, showing through their experience what they’ve lost in terms of monetary loss as well as maybe even emotional loss, the ways in which they thought they were going to win or the ways in which they thought they were going to get the extra amount of cash, whatever incentive it is.
00;39;51;03 – 00;40;23;23
Unknown
And really having a person with lived experience talk about the before and after. Right. And so I think for young people this really resonates potentially and the language can resonate, the experience can resonate, the motivations behind why and how an advertisement has got pulled them in, gotten them hooked to, you know, that gameplay. I think that actually is a place where we can do some good work, right?
00;40;23;23 – 00;40;53;04
Unknown
So to have a person with experience talk this through and have an audience listen to that message, it’s it has the potential to be pretty compelling. Yeah, Yeah. It’s interesting you as you were going through that, it reminded me a bit and we’ve had him on the show here. It’s Rob Audet who’s out in front of people and talking about it and using social media as a channel to push his message.
00;40;53;06 – 00;41;29;27
Unknown
And it really is resonating with his peers. So I think that’s a great point. And the more we get down to their peer level to distribute these messages just back to their own community, it will go a long way and resonates really well with that demographic. So great conversation today. We’ve covered a lot of different topic areas. Is there is there one particular topic area you wanted to talk about and we just haven’t gotten to yet and we’ve covered a lot of ground.
00;41;29;27 – 00;41;59;10
Unknown
I think one of the things that I think is really important is understanding the varieties of ways in which gambling is embedded into a lot of different applications. Right. So and I guess my point to drive home is that the proliferation of gambling within video games, the proliferation of gambling in the sports betting arena, all of these sort of spaces need to be monitored.
00;41;59;13 – 00;42;33;03
Unknown
And we need to, as a community and as researchers, start to refine our definitions of gambling, both within our research studies, but also as we message a prevention into the community, in education, in the community. So the the critical element is keeping track of all the ways in which gambling exists inside a video games inside of social media, all of these ways in which it’s you know, it manifests, right?
00;42;33;03 – 00;42;56;04
Unknown
We don’t keep on top of our terms. We’re not going to be able to do effective prevention messaging. Yeah, we just are not. That’s a good point. Talk about pervasiveness. I mean, you can bet on the elections that we’re going through a president this presidential election year and you can gamble on that, for goodness sakes. I it doesn’t matter.
00;42;56;04 – 00;43;40;01
Unknown
It’s it’s very pervasive. It covers it extends well beyond just the sports arena, gamification of video games and things like that. So it is it’s big. Yeah. And I want to maybe finish with one anecdote. I have learned a lot from my research lab that I lead my university and my students have taught me a lot. And one of the things I learned just this week is there is a website called Kik, and I know that probably most of you listening probably already know about this, but you know, from my era it’s kind of a new thing.
00;43;40;03 – 00;44;23;11
Unknown
And within that I actually looked inside of Kik actually this week and realized that there’s a lot of exposure to people livestreaming gambling. Actually. And this this website is designed to cater to people wanting to watch other people play video games. But in addition, we have livestream gambling in those in those applications. And what’s even more, I think concerning is that these gambling applications actually are linked to cryptocurrency types of gambling, and a lot of those crypto type gambling websites don’t have any age restrictions.
00;44;23;13 – 00;44;59;19
Unknown
So this can be, I mean, from my perspective as a gambling researcher, quite concerning the exposure level that that a variety of people might have to gambling within, you know, the video gaming realm. Wow. That’s that’s interesting because what you’re talking about there with crypto with tie into crypto it’s gambling on top of gambling. Right right. Because the whole crypto markets are nothing but arbitrage that you’re playing up and down are a lot of people, from what I understand, are playing the arbitrage game with crypto.
00;44;59;23 – 00;45;25;04
Unknown
So you’re doing that on top of your gambling. So there’s two different ways you can get burned there. Exactly. Very interesting. Well, Serena was a great conversation. Really enjoyed having you join us today. I’ve had a lot of fun in our previous pre meetings ahead of taping the show today and I look forward to continuing to stay in touch.
00;45;25;04 – 00;45;48;00
Unknown
And I think we’ve got plenty to talk about. We could probably do this again sometime down the road. I would love that. Thank you so much for having me on. Shane Absolutely. We love hearing from you. So please take a moment to like, share and comment on our podcast. You can reach out to us directly via email at Wager Danger at Gateway Foundation Talk.
00;45;48;03 – 00;46;13;11
Unknown
Look for us on Facebook and Twitter at Recovery Gateway on LinkedIn, at Gateway Dash Foundation, or through our Web site at Gateway Foundation. Dot org Wager Danger is supported through funding in whole or in part through a grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Division of Substance Abuse Prevention and Recovery. And remember, recovery is a lifelong process.
00;46;13;14 – 00;46;26;03
Unknown
If you are a family member struggling with a gambling problem, call Gateway at 8449753663 and speak with one of our counselors for a confidential assessment.
