Critique 2

Matthew Perushek, October 24, 2007

Research topic and researchers: Problem gambling on the internet: Implications for internet gambling policy in North America, by Robert T. Wood and Robert J. Williams. It was published in New Media & Society 9(3) (June 2007), pp. 520-542. It was retrieved from Communication & Mass Media Complete on October 19, 2007.

Rationale of the study: The main objective of the study was to better understand online gambling. The authors recognized that online gambling has the possibility of being legalized in North America, so they wanted to understand the negative consequences of such policies, especially with regard to problem gambling (522). Furthermore, the researchers were concerned with the ethical effects of the policies, such as the morality and legitimacy of legalizing online gambling (522-523).
Specifically, the research attempted to find (1) how often internet gamblers tend to be problem gamblers, (2) the associations and predictors of problem gambling in online gamblers, (3) and how gambling policies could reduce such problems (525).

Literature review:
· The number of online gambling sites increases at a drastic rate each year (523).
· Most online gambling sites are located outside of North America (524).
· Online gambling is easier to access and provides more opportunities than traditional methods (524).
· The number of problem gamblers in North America is minimal; however, internet gamblers tend to show more “problem” qualities compared to land-based gamblers (524).
· Research has not yet told us whether internet gambling causes problem gambling, or rather, if problem gamblers just use internet gambling for the convenience (524).
· Internet gambling provides many conveniences that land-based gambling cannot, such as accessibility, the ability to remain anonymous and the ability to play in a relaxed place, such as at home or work (525).
· Because internet gambling is more convenient, it may lead to more usage (525).
· Internet gambling hooks players by inflating winning during the “demo” sessions compared to when actually playing for money (525).
· Internet gambling does not use many safeguards to protect users from developing unhealthy behavior (525).

Research method: The method used by the researchers was an online survey. The survey included demographic questions, gambling activity questions and questions from a shortened version of the Canadian Problem Gambling Index, or CPGI (527).

Subjects of the study: The subjects of the study included 1,920 internet gamblers. The subjects were recruited by placing a banner advertisement on three “gambling portal” websites. Gambling portals are websites that provide links to multiple gambling related webpages. Because of this, the researchers were able to recruit internet gamblers at the very place that they were attempting to gamble. Also, the researches noted that some gambling portals would not allow them to place advertisement on their websites, because they did not want people “bothering” their consumers (526).

Research findings: The first thing that the researchers reported were the demographics of the study participants (or subjects). A noteworthy finding was that 56% of the participants were men, while the average age of the respondents was only 34 years old (530). Also, only 45% of the participants were married, and a little over half of the subjects described themselves as “religious” (530).
The researchers next reported the gambling behaviors of the subjects. The average time spent gambling online was five hours per week, while about 4% of the subjects spent over 20 hours a week online gambling. With respect to problem gambling, 22.6% of respondents were classified as moderate and 20.1% were classified as severe. Almost one quarter of the subjects were classified as “at risk” of becoming problem gamblers (533).
Surprising to the researchers was the fact that there were only a few consistent predictors of problem gambling. Wood & Williams (2007) explain this by saying, “On an individual basis, the only variables that reliably predicted problem gambling status were: time spent gambling, East-Asian ancestry, South-Asian ancestry, African ancestry, a preference for non-internet gambling and male gender” (534). The researchers were very surprised by the fact that online gamblers actually preferred non-internet gambling. Because of this, the researchers explained that it is unlikely that online gambling causes problem gambling (534-535).
The most interesting and important finding was that there was a high rate of problem gambling among internet gamblers. Furthermore, internet gamblers that were not already problem gamblers had an extremely high propensity to become so (537). Because of this finding, the researchers provided some suggestions to those governments that are considering whether to legalize internet gambling. The suggestions included: “Provide internet gamblers with feedback about their problem gambling status,” “develop internet-based treatment and prevention programs,” “implement controls that regulate access and use,” and “implement strict controls over advertising and promotion” (537-538).

My thoughts: I was fairly satisfied and impressed with this study. I thought that it was executed professionally, and I believe that very important and relevant conclusions were drawn from the study. Also, I liked the fact that the researchers provided a lot of direction for further research. I am a firm believer in letting future researchers know what could be done to develop the field further. For example, the researchers suggest that further studies need to be conducted to determine what relationship exists between a problem gambler’s land-based and online gambling behaviors (535). Also, the researchers said that further studies need to find the differences that exist between online gamblers and land-based gamblers (536). Like I said, it is really important to suggest what future research should examine, and I believe that the authors did this fully.
The biggest problem that I had with this study is that it used a survey. I believe that surveys sometimes do not provide the information that you are looking for accurately. People often lie or manipulate their answers when answering a survey. I believe that this study would have more validity and reliability if the researchers were able to use some other methodology. However, I do recognize that using any other method would be very difficult if not impossible. Therefore, I believe that this study should be replicated a few times to see if the results are consistent. Also, I believe that the Literature Review for this study was rather weak. While it did provide us with some important information, I believe that it could have discussed more of the past studies conducted in this field. On that note, however, I do recognize the fact that this is a rather new field within Communication Studies, and for that reason, I can understand why the researchers were unable to find more information.