The Gambling Behaviour and Attitudes to Sports Betting of Sports Fans

Seal, Emma-Louise; Cardak, Buly; Nicholson, Matthew; Donaldson, Alex; O'Halloran, Paul; Randle, Erica; Staley, Kiera

doi:10.26181/19444334.v1

1192303_Seal,A_2022.pdf (945.78 kB)

The Gambling Behaviour and Attitudes to Sports Betting of Sports Fans

journal contribution

posted on 2023-01-13, 06:25 authored by Emma-Louise Seal, Buly CardakBuly Cardak, Matthew NicholsonMatthew Nicholson, Alex DonaldsonAlex Donaldson, Paul O'HalloranPaul O'Halloran, Erica RandleErica Randle, Kiera StaleyKiera Staley

Survey responses from a sample of nearly 15,000 Australian sports fans were used to study the determinants of: (i) gambling behaviour, including if a person does gamble and the type of gambling engaged with; (ii) the number of sports and non-sports bets made over a 12-month period; and (iii) attitudes towards betting on sports. The probability of betting on sports decreased with increasing age and was lower for women and people with a university education. This gender difference varied with age, with the greatest difference found among the young. Similar effects were observed for the number of sports bets made, which declined with age. The gender difference in the number of sports bets also varied with age with the greatest difference found among the young arising from the high propensity of young men to bet on sports. Attitudes to sports betting were also analysed, with a key finding that, within friendship circles, the views that sports betting is perceived as harmless, common and very much a part of enjoying sports were stronger among young men. These permissive attitudes were stronger among people who bet on sports and those who bet on sports more frequently. The analysis of sports fans provides insights into the characteristics of the target market most likely to bet on sports, which can be used to inform public health initiatives and harm reduction campaigns.

Funding

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions. This research received funding from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation.

History

Publication Date

2022-02-01

Journal

Journal of Gambling Studies

Volume

38

Issue

4

Pagination

33p. (p. 1371-1403)

Publisher

Springer

ISSN

1050-5350

Rights Statement

© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Com-mons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.