E-Games
E-Games: Electronic Gam(bl)ing: Multinational Empirical Surveys
Several national surveys on online gambling in recent years have helped advance our knowledge about online gamblers and their gambling patterns. Yet these studies face major methodological challenges, their comparability is limited by design, and a lack of statistical rigour prevents deeper analysis.
In this study multiple countries conduct coordinated surveys with a joint pool of questions to allow an improved analysis of the phenomena online gambling and pay2Win gaming through a large dataset and a consistent methodology. In Germany 43,316 adults participated in a representative survey.
This project has three main goals:
1) To establish a gambling status report for each participating country
A series of national gambling surveys will yield a status report for each country. The following important issues will be addressed:
- Demographic characteristics of online gamblers
- Gambling patterns of online gamblers
- Motivations to gamble on the internet
- Problem gambling among online gamblers (prevalence, risk factors)
- Links between online gambling and online gaming, mainly PayToWin gaming
Using a consistent methodology and set of questions will permit comparisons between countries regarding the online gambling landscape. The results will provide indications as to the effectiveness of the regulatory system in each country.
2) To set up a much larger sample of internet gamblers to explore several important issues and themes
By merging the samples of the different countries, we will be able to analyse subsamples that would otherwise be too small for statistical inference. For example, it will then be possible to study the share of pathological gamblers in each game form, rather than just for online gambling in total.
3) To explore the overlap of gambling and gaming
The third goal is to analyse the overlap between gambling and gaming products, especially Pay2Win gaming. Pay2Win gaming is a subcategory of video gaming where players can pay to advance in the game. The connection between gambling and Pay2Win games tap into the ambiguities around the meaning of spending time and money as well as monetary and non-monetary benefits.
The following countries have already conducted, are currently conducting, or will soon conduct the survey:
- France
- Switzerland
- Germany
- Italy
- Poland
- Canada
- Australia
This research project is currently not yet funded. A realization of the project is thus not secured.