Applying behavioural insights to online wagering

Authored on
4 years 8 months ago
Complete
Project Type
Evaluation report
Policy Area
Social and Health
Partner agencies
Department of Social Services
Registration date
Thursday, 16 July 2020

BETA partnered with the Department of Social Services to determine the effect of behaviourally-informed activity statements on gambling behaviour in a simulated game. We tested two activity statement prototypes and found participants who saw the activity statements bet less than those who did not. Showing participants clear and easy-to-understand information about their gambling activities empowered them to make informed decisions about how much to bet. This project was conducted under Measure 7 (Activity Statements) of the National Consumer Protection Framework for Online Wagering. In 2022, BETA worked with several academics to co-develop a short video showcasing the results of this project and the value of applying behavioural insights to help improve people’s welfare.

Descriptive transcript

Trial start and end date: 3 July 2020 to 31 July 2020

Ethics approval: Bellberry Human Research Ethics Committee, 2020-01-021, 17 February 2020

Keywords: Online wagering, behavioural economics, gambling, consumer protection

Experimental design including randomisation:

A three-arm randomised trial, to be evaluated using gambling data collected through the online experiment and a post-experiment survey. There will be two treatment arms and a control arm.

Randomisation will be at the individual level with a one-third probability of assignment to each experimental arm.

We will recruit 1,500 online wagering participants into the trial.

Participants will gamble for a total of 64 gambles on the simulated online platform. They can choose to not place a bet or bet any amount from 1 lab dollar to 15 lab dollars for each gamble.

Outcome(s):

Primary outcome:

  • amount bet (lab $) over 56 gambles (range 0 lab dollars to 840 lab dollars)

Secondary outcome:

  • the number of bets made over 56 gambles (the range for this outcome is 0 to 56)

Expected sample size: Each participant will have a one-third chance of being allocated to each experimental arm. Therefore, we expect approximately 500 observations each in the control, treatment group 1 and group 2.

Other: AEA Registration: AEARCTR-0005373