Scent-driven Selective Attention on Gambling Outcome: Implications for Responsible Gambling.

Many casinos diffuse a pleasant ambient scent into their facilities as a customer experience management practice, but the ethics of this scenting process is questionable. Although the effect of a pleasant scent on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses has been well-documented, its effect on attention during gambling has yet to be explored. Grounded in the tenets of the top-down control of attention and cross-modal correspondence between vision and olfaction, we conduct two eye-tracking experiments that involve different electronic casino games including video slots and live Cussec. The findings consistently show that pleasant ambient scent prolongs attention and induces more frequent attention to the win/loss areas on the video screen. The findings add to the implications related to responsible gambling by inspiring the stakeholders to consider the use of ambient scent in the gambling environment. Theoretically, the findings offer insights into scent as the catalyst that directs attention to goal-related information, while scent and goal do not need to be congruent in traits.

Segmenting Chinese Gamblers Based on Gambling Forms: A Latent Class Analysis.

Segmentation of gamblers is useful for understanding their distinctive characteristics and enforcing customized measures in harm minimization work. Previous research has commonly adopted gambling motivation and involvement as segmentation criteria. However, these criteria are less identifiable through observation. Gambling forms, used in recent gambling segmentation research, are more observable, facilitating the prevention and treatment work of governments and practitioners, as the identified segments have distinctive gambling disorder symptoms. As gambling is widespread in the Chinese population and little is known about this ethnic group in terms of gambling form segments, latent class analysis was used to classify 855 Chinese gamblers in Macau based on their participation in 11 gambling forms in the previous 12 months. The analysis identified three distinct segments: casino gamblers, lottery gamblers, and sociable gamblers. Socio-demographic differences between the three segments were revealed. Casino gamblers, compared with their counterparts, were more likely to have DSM-V symptoms, particularly escape and bailouts. Lottery gamblers and sociable gamblers only differed in one symptom, the latter having a higher probability of chasing their losses. Based on these results, Macau policymakers are advised to prioritize their harm minimization measures such as requiring casinos to provide training to workers to help to identify gambling disorder symptoms and that workers should intervene when the symptoms of escape and bailouts were identified from the gamblers. Special attention should be given to Macau casino gamblers who are male, unemployed, or with highest education of high school diploma.