Which Causes More Gambling Harm? Pace Of Play Or Illusion Of Skill

Gambling Twitter ended last week with a pithy but also interesting debate about gambling harm. Specifically, a comparison of the harm caused by sports betting vis-à-vis online casino games. Both products produce social harm, but is it equal?

All gambling products have the potential to lead to addiction and problem gambling.

As I wrote in a column last year:

“Gambling is a lot like an illusionist. In that it makes you see things that aren’t really there. Whether it’s finding seeming order in randomness, placing added emphasis on big wins while letting losses slip from the memory banks, linking independent events together, or overestimating small samples, gambling is very good at tricking the brain.”

That said, research indicates the level of harm varies by product, as each product has a unique composition.

The Speed of Slot Machines vs. the “Skill” of Sports Betting

Slot machines have three components that lead to addiction, small, constant rewards, visual near-wins, and a very fast rate of play. That trifecta leads people to believe that the next big win is just around the corner as their minds try to make sense of the random patterns they’re constantly bombarded with.

Sports betting is structured quite differently. Even with in-play wagering, bets are far less frequent, as the contest is what holds the bettor’s attention and brings them back the next day or week. But what sports betting possesses that online slot machines don’t is a skill element. And research clearly shows that inserting skill into games (whether they are beatable or not) can lead to problem gambling through the illusion of skill/control – that with more study and effort, they will crack the code. That creates a false sense of control that can lead to problematic play.

As an aside, the illusion of control can also lead people to believe there is a skill component to a game devoid of skill like roulette or picking lottery/keno numbers.

But Which Is Worse?

The million-dollar question is, which form of gambling causes more harm?

The numbers out of New Jersey show an increase in calls about sports betting, according to The Day:

“Since 2018, sports-betting related calls to the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey’s helpline have increased month after month, according to Dan Trolaro, the council’s assistant executive director. Before 2018, sports-betting related calls represented 4% to 8% of all problem-gambling calls; since legalization, they’ve been 12% to 16% of all calls.”

That’s a difficult question to answer, but all signs point to slot machines being the larger problem from a gambling harm perspective. The high-speed gameplay of slot machines (and many online casino games) ensnares far more people than sports betting. Sports betting will capture the susceptible bettors who believe they can beat the system, while the harms of slot machines cast a wider net and are capable of entrapping anyone who sits down and starts mashing buttons.

As Dr. Sally M. Gainsbury, Douglas J. Angus, and Alex Blaszczynski wrote in a 2019 paper:

“This study advances our understanding of how specific gambling activities are associated with disordered gambling and psychological distress in users of Internet gambling services. Our results suggest that among Internet gamblers, online and land-based EGMs [Electronic Gaming Machines] are strongly associated with gambling disorder severity. High overall gambling engagement is an important predictor of gambling-related harms, nonetheless, venue-based EGMs, sports betting and casinos warrant specific attention to address gambling-related harms and psychological distress among gamblers.”

There’s also some evidence that illusion of control is more likely to be a problem for people already showing signs of problem gambling.  

As research on gambling in New Jersey headed by Dr. Lia Nower found, high-risk gamblers favor games with skill components:

“High risk gamblers represented only 8.9% of all gamblers, however, they constituted 43.2% of all live poker player, 41.9% of all sports betters, 34.3% of horse race track betters, and 33.5% of those playing games of skill; high risk gamblers reported the highest rates of participation of any group on all activities except for scratch?offs.”

But, There’s Always a But

Most of what you just read is my informed understanding of the data. While the evidence strongly points in that direction, there simply isn’t enough evidence to say these are indisputable facts.

As Andrew Harris and Mark Griffiths wrote in a June 2017 paper:

“Conceptually, there is a common association between gambling games with fast speeds of play and problem gambling. This relationship however, is largely correlational in nature, which comes at the expense of carefully controlled empirical investigation. Research that does exist aimed towards investigating the impact of gambling speeds on psychological and behavioural factors, is in its relative infancy, and the research possesses disparate methodologies and variables of interest.” 

Upshot

There is a solid case to be made that the speed of play causes the most harm, but already at-risk gamblers tend to gravitate towards sports betting, poker, and other games with high levels of skill. Basically, we could be looking at a situation where a gambler’s journey is they come in for the slots and stay for the sports.

And the most important point when discussing problem gambling is, as always, that more research is needed.