Reaching out to big losers : Brief motivational contact leads to sustained reductions in gambling over one year

• Background and aims: We previously demonstrated that phone and letter-based motivational interventions with high expenditure gamblers had significant short term positive effects on gambling and use of responsible gambling tools. This report examines outcomes over twelve months.Design: A randomized controlled trial design with three conditions: feedback intervention by telephone, letter, or a no-contact control condition.Setting: Customers of Norsk Tipping gambling platforms.Participants: 1,003 statistical triplets from the top .5% of customers based upon annual expenditure, matched on sex, age, and net losses.Measurements: Primary outcome measure was gambling theoretical loss, derived from the Norsk Tipping customer database. Secondary outcomes were responsible gambling customer actions and whether the participant was retained as a NT customer.Findings: The results showed a positive and sustained effect of the phone and letter interventions over 12 months - the telephone group showed a 30% reduction in theoretic loss (d =0.44) and the letter group 13% (d =0.18), both outperforming the control group with a 7% reduction (d =0.11). The phone condition was superior to both the letter and control conditions in per protocol (p<0.001) and intention to treat analyses (ITT) (p< 0.018 and 0.001). Individuals in the phone condition took more responsible gambling actions. The letter condition had better outcomes than the control in the ITT only (p<0.001). Over 99% in the intervention groups were still customers during the follow-up year.Conclusions: A targeted telephone intervention with high expenditure customers effectively reduced theoretical losses over a 12 month period. Gambling companies can utilize this type of intervention as a response to their duty to care for customers.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi -- Tillämpad psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology -- Applied Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Behavioral feedback

Motivational intervention

Problem gambling

Prevention

Responsible gambling

long term effect

Psychology

psykologi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)