Patterns of Play

The Gambling Commission is working with gambling industry partners to study how patterns of play vary across different environments, products, and characteristics. This will involve analysis of real play data provided by the gambling industry, and linking it to data on the socio-economic, demographic, and low-risk/moderate-risk/problem gambling status of gamblers using different products.

In support of the National Strategy to Reduce Gambling Harms in Great Britain, GambleAware has commissioned a study of online gambling data, a study of bank transactional data, and a scoping study to develop an independent repository for gambling industry data. More information about these projects is available on the National Strategy website. In the past, GambleAware has supported research projects on gambling behaviour, gaming machines, and online gambling, which are all available on the GambleAware Research Publications page.

Greo has commissioned reports and developed many research snapshots related to patterns of play. The following are some examples:

• The relationship between volatility of bet outcomes and gambling behaviour for online slots (Greo Research Snapshot, 2021)
• Brain activity when anticipating and processing gambling outcomes during slot machine play (Greo Research Snapshot, 2021)
• The role of overconfidence in the understanding of electronic gaming machines and skill-based gaming machines on attitudes (Greo Research Snapshot, 2020)
• A medium number of losses disguised as wins in slot machine games affect players’ ability to identify real wins (Greo Research Snapshot, 2020)
• Does winning or losing impact further gambling behaviour? (Greo Research Snapshot, 2020)
• Differences in learning when making decisions may be linked to specific harms from gambling (Greo Research Snapshot, 2020)
• The role of symbolic generalization in explaining the effect of the near-miss (Greo Research Snapshot, 2020)
• People may have less self-control while playing gambling games with faster playing speeds (Greo Research Snapshot, 2020)
• The relationship between scratch card near-misses and gambling behaviour (Greo Research Snapshot, 2020)
• Using a foreign language does not lead to more optimal gambling decisions (Greo Research Snapshot, 2020)
• Differences in decision-making and impulsiveness in gambling disorder patients may be related to the type of gambling they prefer (Greo Research Snapshot, 2019)
• Reviewing the impact of loyalty programs on gambling behaviour (Greo Knowledge Snapshot, 2018)
• Loyalty programs in the gambling industry (Greo research report, 2018)
• Review of Internet gambling research that uses behavioural tracking to explore gambling behaviour (Greo Knowledge Snapshot, 2017)
• Does gamblers’ payment behaviour predict future self-exclusion? (Greo Research Snapshot, 2016)
• Use of data analytics for responsible gambling regulatory directives (Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre research report, 2015)

See all Patterns of Play resources in Greo's Evidence Centre.