The utilization and perception of sports betting experts (‘tipsters’) among sports bettors with gambling problems: a qualitative focus group interview study

ABSTRACT

Tipsters are sports betting experts that offer recommendations concerning betting opportunities, usually in exchange for money. With the growth of online sports betting, tipsters have become more accessible via social media. However, it remains unknown whether tipsters might have an impact on sports bettors experiencing gambling problems. In the present study, data concerning tipsters were collected via focus group interviews with sports bettors undergoing treatment for gambling disorder (n = 28) and examined utilizing a thematic analysis approach. The findings suggest that many participants used tipsters during their gambling activity, although they had divergent thoughts about their actual ability to produce accurate tips. The selection of tipsters appears to be biased toward personal contact and word-of-mouth strategies rather than objective performance data. Notably, many bettors had experienced thoughts of becoming tipsters themselves. The participants struggled to integrate into a coherent narrative both the existence of individuals such as tipsters who (allegedly) have been able to consistently ‘beat the bookies’, and their contrasting personal experience of repeated losses. This has implications for therapists working on cognitive restructuring, because tipsters made sports bettors wonder about the importance of skill in betting, and whether thinking they could be winners was actually a distorted or a realistic perception.

KEYWORDS:

• Gambling disorder
• sports betting
• cognitive distortions
• tipsters
• sports betting experts
• professional gamblers
• focus group interviews

Disclosure statements Funding sources

This study was commissioned by the Spanish Union of Associations and Entities of Drug Dependencies (UNAD), which was funded by the National Drug Strategy (101/2018/200/9). Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez had the support of the Beatriu de Pinós programme of the Secretariat for Universities and Research of the Department of Business and Knowledge of the Government of Catalonia (grant number 2017 BP 00035). He thanks CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya for institutional support.

Competing interests

Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez and Alicia Rius-Buitrago were commissioned the report by UNAD. This not-for-profit institution only set the general topic of the research (online gambling) and asked for a biopsychosocial approach to the research. UNAD did not interfere in the design of the study, the research questions, the analysis, or the publication of the results. These two authors are set to receive an honorarium for this work. Susana Jimenez-Murcia declares no competing interests. Mark D. Griffiths declares that he has received funding for a number of research projects in the area of gambling education for young people, social responsibility in gambling and gambling treatment from the Responsibility in Gambling Trust, a charitable body which funds its research program based on donations from the gambling industry. He also undertakes consultancy for various gaming companies in the area of social responsibility in gambling.

Data availability statement

Three supplementary files are included in the submission.

Further data is available on request due to privacy/ethical restrictions

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, [Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez]. The data are not publicly available due to [restrictions e.g. their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants].

Preregistration statement

This study was not pre-registered. The study was designed in 2018 and, at that time, the authors had heard about pre-registration but it was not as widely used as it is today. Furthermore, the qualitative nature of the paper made its pre-registration questionable, although some later voices have supported pre-registration for such studies as well.

Tamarinde L. Haven & Dr. Leonie Van Grootel (2019) Preregistering qualitative research, Accountability in Research, 26:3, 229-244, DOI: 10.1080/08989621.2019.1580147

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez

Dr. Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez is a Serra Húnter lecturer in the Department of Information Science and Communication at University of Barcelona. He holds a PhD in Communication from Pompeu Fabra University. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Nottingham Trent University, UK, and as a Beatriu de Pinós fellow at IDIBELL.

Alicia Rius-Buitrago

Dr. Alicia Rius-Buitrago holds a PhD in Applied Economics and Feminist Studies from Complutense University in Madrid, Spain. She works with qualitative data in projects regarding gender inequality and public health issues and has extensive consultancy experience for public institutions. She is a partner at Instituto Mujeres y Cooperación.

Susana Jimenez-Murcia

Dr. Susana Jimenez-Murcia is an academic researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at the University Hospital of Bellvitge-IDIBELL in Barcelona, Spain and the Ciber Fisiopatologia Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBERobn) at the Instituto Salud Carlos III in Madrid, Spain, and a lecturer at University of Barcelona.

Mark D. Griffiths

Dr. Mark D. Griffiths is a Chartered Psychologist and Distinguished Professor of Behavioural Addiction at the Nottingham Trent University, and Director of the International Gaming Research Unit. He has spent over 30 years in the field and is internationally known for his work into gambling, gaming, and behavioral addictions.