Gambling is now recognized as an addictive behaviour. But unlike substances, gambling does not involve consuming a psychoactive agent. This makes it important to understand the mechanisms of learning that could help explain gambling disorder. The researchers created the Frescati Online Research Casino (FORC) to study online gambling behaviours. The FORC is a simulated online casino platform that mimics real online gambling. FORC allows researchers to control various aspects of gambling. FORC has three types of gambling: (i) roulette, (ii) slot machine, and (iii) a simple card game. FORC was also designed to be integrated with Amazon's Mechanical Turk (AMT).
The researchers tested if the FORC worked the way that was intended. They also tested if participants on AMT produced high-quality data on FORC as well as on self-report measures. A total of 101 participants were recruited from AMT. Only 6% of participants seemed to provide poor behavioural data on FORC. The game mechanics on FORC worked as was designed. Findings on the self-report questionnaires were also as expected.
