Sports bars: environmental design, drinking, and sports betting

Abstract

Background

Informed by literature on venue design and ‘nudging’ in the context of choice architecture, the purpose of this article is to investigate the physical design of, and practices enacted within, sports bars to provide some indication as to whether these venues are spaces that encourage risky drinking and betting.

Methods

Our analysis draws on three arms of data collection: (i) website review of licensed venues in Victoria, Australia that promoted sports telecasting; (ii) observational data collection including site visits to 50 venues in Victoria that promoted sport telecasting, and more intensive sessions of observation during six sporting matches; and (iii) in situ interviews with 200 sports bar patrons.

Findings

We identified three types of sports bars: (i) prototypical sports bars; (ii) venues that have a sports bar section; and (iii) venues that televise sport on occasion. Sports bar attendees reported moderately heavy drinking at sports bars and frequent engagement in sports betting. We identified two distinct groups of sports bettors. Prototypical sports bars and venues that televise sport on occasion attracted younger men who bet the least frequently but in the highest amounts, while venues that have a sports bar section attracted older men who bet more often but in smaller amounts.

Conclusions

We identified several design elements across the three types of venues, each ‘nudging’ sports betting and drinking in different ways. Any focused public health work in relation to sports bars will need to consider the social and physical design elements of different sports betting environments.

Keywords:

• Sports bar
• sports betting
• alcohol
• Australia
• nudging
• choice architecture
• environmental design

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the time and information offered by project participants (both patrons and licensed venue staff), as well as the support of participating venues. Thank you to our fieldworkers, and project advisory group members.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation in partnership with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation. AP is supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award [190101074]. ML is supported by an NHMRC Career Development Fellowship [1123840]. RR is supported by a core grant to the Center for Alcohol Policy Research from the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE).