FOCUSING ON THE POSITIVE TO OPTIMISE RG STRATEGY AND PROMOTE BETTER PLAYING EXPERIENCES

Positive play is about developing responsible gambling strategy with a player facing perspective. Traditionally, RG has been focused mostly on the small minority of high-risk players or those with gambling problems. This reactive response makes RG seem like it’s only for people with problems. By contrast, positive play is a proactive approach, focused on maximising healthy and happy playing experiences for all players.

We developed the Positive Play Scale (PPS) (Wood, Wohl, Tabri & Philander, 2017) which is the first ever standardised scale to measure responsible gambling-related beliefs and behaviours amongst players.

The benefits for measuring positive play amongst players are as follows:

  • Encourages positive playing experiences rather than simply issuing negative warnings about problem gambling (PG) consequences, which many players deem personally irrelevant.

  • Better understanding of the responsible beliefs and behaviour of all your players using a standardised and validated scale. Previous attempts to measure overall levels of RG have tended to use PG screens that only focus on a small minority of non-typical players.

  • Optimises your RG strategy by identifying key strengths and areas for targeted improvement. Put resources where they are most needed.

  • Segments RG by player type, allowing for different approaches to be taken with different players (e.g., by games played, ages, sex etc.). Move away from the one-size-fits-all strategy.

  • Identifies potential concerns at a much earlier stage than PG screens, thereby helping to avoid minor incidents from becoming bigger problems.

  • Benchmarks the level of RG within your player base, so that comparisons can be made over time to monitor and improve effectiveness and chart progress.

  • Demonstrates that your organisation actively monitors and evaluates RG through ongoing research (helps to fulfill RG standards criteria such as the WLA RG framework).

A typical PPS study with Gamres takes 4 to 6 weeks and involves three key steps:

  • Gamres will work with you to design an online survey that includes the PPS and other relevant information of interest (e.g., awareness of your RG messages).

  • Gamres will administer the survey via a third-party survey company or via your own player database.

  • Gamres will analyse and score the results for you and present them in a report that identifies key findings and makes recommendations for how to optimise your RG strategy.

See Examples of Our Work

Risk Assesment & Guidance

We evaluate the risk of games and gaming environments on vulnerable players and offer guidance on best practices.
We examine the structural and situational characteristics of game design and environments, identify potential risks for vulnerable players, as well as make suggestions on how to reduce risks.

We also licence gamgard our responsible game design tool. Games can be reviewed in-house, or with our assistance. Gamgard facilitates well-informed, objective, and responsible game reviews, and indicates the specific features of a game that may be problematic. In this way, it is (usually) possible to minimize risks whilst maintaining then game’s overall enjoyability.

See Examples of Our Work

Responsible Gambling

RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF RESPONSIBLE GAMBLING STRATEGIES

We have been directly involved in developing many RG initiatives and have evaluated many more. We can advise on the most suitable RG features for your game portfolio. We can also evaluate your current strategy and provide evidence-based recommendations to make your RG strategy as effective as possible, whilst making sure that your players still experience the fun leisure activity that they seek.

Current, evidence-based research is an important part of understanding and promoting healthy gaming attitudes and behaviours. Gamres works collaboratively with leading experts from around the world, to ensure that our services are always evidence-based and up-to-date. This is why our mantra is “putting research into play”.

See Examples of Our Work