Experts looking into FOBT behaviours

A consortium made-up of NatCen Social Research, Featurespace and Geofutures has been commissioned by the Responsible Gambling Trust (RGT) to undertake a new piece of research into gaming machines in bookmakers. The consortium has been tasked with exploring whether data from gaming machines can be linked to problem gambling.

• Featurespace will analyse how industry data may be used to potentially identify harmful patterns of play and will assess how reliable this information is.
• NatCen will conduct qualitative work with machine players to explore attitudes to player tracking and loyalty cards as well as scoping the development a survey of machine players.

If the project shows significant patterns in the machine data then the RGT has committed to commissioning a second phase of research – including a survey of gaming machine users – to see what the patterns identified in phase one mean for gamblers in practice.

NatCen’s lead researcher on the project, Heather Wardle, Researcher Director, NatCen Social Research said: “Our previous research suggests that some of the data collected by gaming machines may help us better understand the way people use them and potentially identify patterns of harmful gambling. This new project will tell us more about the data available and is a first step towards using this data to spot harmful machine play.”