New study on game breaks reveals interesting results
The Swedish government, led by the Swedish Gambling Inspectorate, is hard at work to introduce more and more responsible gambling tools into Swedish casinos and betting sites. One such feature is game breaks.
In the past, it was up to each gaming company to decide if they wanted to give players a break from the casino. But since the Swedish gaming market was re-regulated on January 1, 2019, all online casinos are required to offer gaming breaks. They are generally viewed as an effective method of reducing the risk of gambling, but a new study published on October 12, 2021 shows that this is not always the case.
Experiment with players
In the period from April 17 to May 21, 2020, an experiment was conducted in the gaming operator https://casinos-without-license.com/ with game interruptions and their consequences. In total, 21,129 players took part in it, of which 61% were men.
In Norsk Tipping, the player must take a break after playing at least one hour continuously, and the participants were selected from those who were forced to take at least one game break during the period. In total, the survey included 156,989 game breaks lasting 90 seconds, 5 minutes, or 15 minutes.
Less breaks in the game give better results
It turned out that longer game breaks of 15 minutes gave a significantly better result than shorter ones. Namely, they resulted in a much longer voluntary break in the game than the breaks of 90 seconds and 5 minutes respectively. So it seems that a longer break in the game also means that the player himself waits longer before he or she starts playing again after the break ends at his favorite https://casinos-without-license.com/trustly-casino/.
However, none of the breaks in the game resulted in players betting either more or less than before. Thus, the effect of breaks in the game does not seem to affect the overall bets of the players, which of course is an important part of the problem for those players who are risky.
Personal feedback doesn't seem to have any effect
In some cases, players have also received personal feedback in conjunction with breaks in play. Then it was about information about how much they bet and won, as well as today's net profit or loss.
Previous research on the subject has shown that personal feedback may have some effect on how much or how little a player chooses to play after a break. However, this result was not obtained in the current experiment. Instead, it seems that personal feedback has neither diminished nor enhanced the gameplay.
The reason for the difference may be that the previous studies were conducted in a laboratory environment, as opposed to the current experiment, which was conducted on a real gaming site.
Other measures extend game break
The study of Norsk Tipping players also revealed that the exit button from the gaming site resulted in a significantly longer break from the game. This is fully consistent with the results of previous studies. In addition, some participants were not told how long their game break would last. These people waited longer before the start of the next game round than people who knew the length of the game break from the very beginning.
As such, the results of the new survey have provided a lot of interesting information that game companies can use when they want to develop sustainable features for responsible gaming.
A break of 15 minutes seems to be the most effective way to reduce overall playing time. At the same time, not a single game break has led to the fact that players have invested less money. Personal feedback also does not have a noticeable effect on the player's future gaming habits.
