Modeling the non-linear relationship between gambling engagement and years of gambling experience: integrating the exposure and adaptation hypotheses

ABSTRACT

This article integrates the exposure and adaptation hypotheses concerning gambling engagement by quantitatively modeling, at the community level, the non-linear relationship between gamblers’ engagement and their years of gambling experience and identifies the years of experience corresponding to the maximum/minimum engagement. Gambling engagement indicators were based on the odds of three metrics concerning casino visits, gambling budgets, and gambling affordability being beyond predefined thresholds. Empirical data were collected offline and online (n = 206 and 481) in Macao. Curve fitting of these indicators against gamblers’ years of experience found that the odds of casino visit frequency being less than daily and the gambling budget being greater than both the first and second quartiles followed up-maximum-down quadratic curves over gamblers’ experience. Their maxima were at around 13.3, 22.0, and 22.4 years, respectively. In conclusion, these indicators are non-linearly and bi-directionally related to gamblers’ years of experience as per the aforesaid curves, i.e. the two hypotheses take turns to prevail over gamblers’ lives and are thus integrated temporally. Unprecedentedly, such curves quantitatively model and quantify the timing, magnitude, maximization, and minimization of these indicators’ variations over gamblers’ lives, which matter to governments, the public, therapeutic/rehabilitative professionals, and gambling operators.

KEYWORDS:

• Gambling engagement
• years of gambling experience
• non-linearity
• bi-directionality
• exposure hypothesis
• adaptation hypothesis

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendeley Data at http://doi.org/10.17632/xg7m6mw2mw.1

Ethical Approval

The authors' affiliated institution, Macao Polytechnic University, does not have any specific Human Research Ethics Committee. Instead, this overall study attained ethical approval from the University Research Committee, which in essence doubled as an ethics approval body on top of fulfilling other duties of its.

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest, and that there are no constraints on publishing.

Disclosure statement

Funding for this study was provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 7171101069 and the Science and Technology Development Fund of Macao Grant 020/2017/AFJ. Both had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest, and that there are no constraints on publishing.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [7171101069]; Fundo para o Desenvolvimento das Ciências e da Tecnologia [020/2017/AFJ]

Notes on contributors

Victor K. Y. Chan

Victor K. Y. Chan Dr Chan was educated in both engineering and management and is now a Professor at the Faculty of Business, Macao Polytechnic University. He is interested and publishes broadly in areas ranging from gambling and tourism to information systems and data science.

Zhonglu Zeng

Zhonglu Zeng Dr Zeng holds a doctorate degree in economics and is now a Professor at the Centre for Gaming and Tourism Studies, Macao Polytechnic University and on Economic Committee, Macao SAR Government. His research interests cover gambling, tourism, and economics in general, in all of which he has published extensively.

Xing Wang

Xing Wang Mr. Wang is now a doctorate student at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Macao Polytechnic University under the supervision of Professor Zeng. His research interests include human resource management and tourism management.