Public opinions and attitudes toward a state monopoly: a study of the finnish gambling system.

Background: Gambling regulated through a state monopoly is often justified for reasons of public health, that is, that monopolies are a more effective means of reducing potential harm. This focus on harm prevention has increased in recent years, particularly as a result of pressures arising from the growth of online gambling and of legislation designed to promote competition. While prior works have examined the role of stakeholders in influencing policy decisions and in public discussions of the monopoly systems, attention has been focused on those with direct financial interests; the opinions of the public have largely been absent from these discussions.

Increased volatility in video poker results in more winning players but shorter winning streaks - Evidence from simulations.

Objective And Method: Electronic gambling machines are a prominent cause of significant gambling harms globally. We use simulations of a simplified video poker game to show how changes in game volatility, defined primarily by the size of the main prize, affect patterns of wins and losses as well as winning streaks.

Results: We found that in low- and medium volatility games the proportion of winning players quickly drops to zero after about 30 h of play, while in the high volatility game 5% of players are still winning after playing for 100 h.

How can the potential harms of loot boxes be minimised?: Proposals for understanding and addressing issues at a national level.

Background And Aims: Loot boxes are in-game items which distribute rewards to players via random-number generation; many games require players to make in-game payments to access their contents. The combination of financial outlay and random rewards has raised concern about similarities to gambling. This debate paper presents a series of themes identified by an inter-institutional working group in Finland, alongside suggested actions, and are presented with the intention of stimulating debate among stakeholders.

GamCog: A measurement instrument for miscognitions related to gamblification, gambling, and video gaming.

"Gamblification" is a rapidly emerging form of media convergence between the more chance-based activity of gambling and the more skill-based activity of (video) gaming, for example in the competitive video gaming known as esports. The marriage of video gaming and gambling has been theorized as bringing about new forms of gambling-related cognitive processes in individuals and affecting the ways in which they approach and evaluate gambling situations. As such, a pertinent research problem is whether existing measurement instruments designed to identify gambling related cognitions can be employed in this new context and population, and if not, how they can be adapted.