Exploring the Impact of Safer Sports Betting Promotion on Social Media: An Experimental Study

The current study assessed the effectiveness of delivering safer gambling messaging to regular sport bettors on social media. It also assessed whether the content of the message impacted message effectiveness. A 3 x 2 mixed factorial design was employed, with 281 participants randomly assigned to follow one of three Twitter accounts. The accounts either sent out informational messages, self-appraisal messages or emotional self-efficacy messages. Participants reported betting behaviour from the two weeks prior to following the accounts, in addition to during the two-week intervention period, using information from their online gambling accounts. Participants reported readiness to change gambling behaviour pre and post the two-week intervention period. A significant main effect of intervention stage highlighted reductions in betting behaviour and increased readiness to change behaviour. However, there was no significant main effect of condition and no significant interaction between intervention stage and condition upon betting behaviour or readiness to change. The findings suggest receiving safer gambling messages on social media may lead to a reduction in betting behaviour. However, similar reductions in behaviour were observed in the experimental and control conditions. Further research is needed to clarify whether changes in behaviour observed in the current study would extend over a longer period of time.