Net Bet Blog

Economists and Psychologists at Nottingham Trent University wrote a report back in January 2007 that I am just rereading. For those that have not read it, the report makes very interesting reading. The results are fairly intuitive for those that play on line Poker and at casinos.

There are some great quotes in there.

I have also added this report to the gambling links section.

An Exploratory Investigation into the Attitudes and Behaviours of Internet Casino and Poker Players

The emergence of online gambling has been one of the most significant and controversial developments in the gaming and wagering fields over the past two decades. Though clearly economically substantial, little is factually known about this sector, its customers, and its social and economic impacts. Even more than with other forms of gambling, policy decisions regarding online gambling have been made based on presumptions or prejudices, rather than on facts and scientific findings.

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Social scientists have long been advocating such research and I am delighted that the funding has finally been found to allow it to be developed in a proper manner. This report addresses this emerging global industry in all its richness and provides a benchmark from which further serious and competent research can and will emerge. It contributes a great deal to our understanding of online gambling and I urge everyone to read it with care.

This is the best bit - it is always clear that it goes on especially on PKR where I play most of my games. Those who change sex to play poker - you know who you are, then read on:

Around 12% of players pretended to be a different gender when playing online. Those who always swapped genders when playing poker reported having less profitable play than any other type of player. This finding is consistent with Parke, Wood, Griffiths, and Rigbye (2006) who found that gender swapping during poker play was the number one predictor of gambling problems when playing Internet poker. In this study the authors concluded that these players may have been less successful as a consequence of over estimating the advantage of playing poker as a different sex. More research is needed to determine whether this is something that players do with the intention of controlling the outcome of the game, or whether they do it in order to ”escape” everyday life and use an online profile to dissociate or ‘zone out’ from their real life persona.

The whole report throws up some interesting ideas. I am surprised for example of how many people still see Poker as a game of chance. Good grief. They should play for a while and realise that as a fish, they should stick to roulette.

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