In recent years, there has been a rapidity of gaming and gambling combinations most commonly noticed in Twitch, YouTube and Kick streaming platforms. Influencers, with their considerable and active follower base, play a crucial role in transforming the landscape of gambling-related content in the gaming community.
However, this landscape has also witnessed the emergence of a concerning trend of having influential and dishonest actors (individuals and companies) adapt to gambling, which adds to the loopholes within the game. Influencer-driven betting within game content is a tendency that has arisen on the radar of researchers, government and campaign organisations, respectively. With this type of marketing, influencers display casino games or betting content (often on unregulated or overseas gambling sites) and participate in gambling activities in real-time themselves during live streams. What is significant here is that it gains popularity mainly among young or vulnerable people who can be passionate and emulative of others. The ongoing integration of gambling into game content brought up by charismatic influencers and state-of-the-art streaming technologies gets to be a grey area in the world of gaming, drawing parallels between the two as forms of entertainment.
The promotion of gambling within gaming for real-world money by influencers on streaming platforms can have a detrimental impact on viewers, particularly young and vulnerable individuals who are more susceptible to influence (Andreassen, 2023).
On streaming platforms, influencers often serve as a huge source of advertising for gambling-related content to their audiences. This gambling-related content is often from unlicensed gambling operators or those based overseas. The research information reviewed considered the success of an influencer’s endorsements or taking part in gambling actions could impact viewers and their behaviour.
Influencers often engage directly with their audience during live streams, creating an interactive environment that encourages participation in gambling activities (Molde et al., 2019). The study by Andreassen (2023) on ‘Healthy Gamers’ teaches gamers how to practice good mental health through the internet shows how the role-model behaviour of streamers who gamble, gamble, and win can normalize the activity. Viewers of this content, especially those who do not have earlier experience of gambling, view it as a casual form of entertainment and a harmless pastime.
Our research found that the messaging from some influencers directed towards unintentional gambling facts utilises their viewers’ cognitive biases, such as availability bias and the illusion of control. Availability bias is the ease of remembering some events over others. People tend to emphasise and exaggerate the high probability of events on the memory scale.
The study by Choi et al. (2014) found that the gambling platforms’ integration into streams or links on YouTube, Twitch or Kick that viewers can access directly enhances the idea that gambling is becoming increasingly salient for viewers. This means the psychological barrier of gambling is becoming as easy as turning the channel to a favourite TV show.
Streamers develop great bonds among themselves by sharing the same gaming virtues and owning common virtual merchandise. This can result in social comparison that can introduce symptoms such as fear of missing out and feeling left behind. This is reflected in people following what they see on the influencers’ screen not because they want to but because they feel they don’t belong in the online community (Critselis et al., 2013).
As a rule, influencers or streamers tend to hide their losses or try not to focus on the topic because permanent attention to losses can cause discomfort and depressive moods. This diminishes the viewer’s or gambler’s perception of the reality involved in losing, which in turn increases the risk of poor loss stemming from nothing other than their experience with digital gambling (Delfabbro et al., 2020).
Streaming platforms of video games can display more gambling-related blogs that cause viewers to consume gambling activities more often, given the frequency that viewers watch content from their favourite influencer for several hours a day in some cases.
Some of the more complicated decision-making factors relate to environmental factors, such as peer pressure and social media influencers, which can inspire young people to gamble (Costes & Bonnaire, 2022). One of the most salient environmental influences that make gamblers give their all to gambling activities among their peers is peer influence.
Viewers are pushed by several motivations, such as the need for fun, social contact, and sometimes earning rewards, which can lead to gambling activity (King, Wong-Padoongpatt, 2022). Besides the enjoyment, gamblers are captivated by numerous personal rewards that directly and indirectly satisfy their needs and wants. According to King & Wong-Padoongpatt (2022), some factors influencing viewers’ motivation to bet on gambling are excitement and joy through social interaction and the expectation of rewards.
Virtual and real-world rewards that viewers receive as a result of gambling are a powerful incentive. The mesmerising calling of winning in-game items, receiving cash awards, winning real money or getting social acknowledgement encourages viewers to play and gamble despite the risks and lack of awareness of information.
The environment setting is essential in giving viewers a particular point of view about the influence of pictures and gambling on streaming platforms. The study by Li et al. (2019) on the relationship of loot box purchases to problem video gaming and problem gambling found that the social environment accompanying gambling-related material or Influencer streaming on streaming channels is potentially a powerful influence over the viewer’s attitude and conduct.
The involvement and support from influencers in gambling games can affect the viewers and thus make gambling more popular among peer friends (Azevedo, et al., 2023). One of the most critical roles of streaming platforms is their ability to create a feeling of community, with viewers utilising chat platforms to express their opinions and interact.
ndulging streams personalise their connection with the viewers while heightening parasocial relationships (Lee et al., 2021). Thus, a social interactive pattern, above typical viewer-broadcast interaction, evolves. Audiences frequently find that they crave human contact with the streamers because they connect with a good streamer’s personality and trust their recommendations.
Streaming platforms’ recommendation algorithms could create echo chambers with repeat views of content that do not mind mainstream viewers (Sanders, & Williams, 2019). The recommendation system can make a vortex of similar streams by exposing viewers who have watched some gambling-related content that is influencer-produced to these channels. This is again very likely to lead to a situation where gambling as a habit gets more and more entrenched in the environment of online viewers through a process of normalisation.
The Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) can be a strong urging overall in streaming services. Viewers feel inclined to carry out influencer-promulgated gambling activities to keep in touch with the online community’s discussions, trends and experiences shared within the community members (Reith et al., 2019). This pressure can play a pivotal role for the viewers whose feelings about streamers or the community they follow are powerful.
Some Influencers frequently depict wealthy gamblers with winnings from their gambling. This highlights the glamorous and winning elements of gambling. This might be an even more appealing addition to young or vulnerable viewers, who can be attracted by the prospect of ensured money and an easy way to life, including spending time on fashion items and other luxury stuff.
Molde et al.’s (2019) study on whether video games are the gateway to gambling noted that diversity, or the lack of it in this case, could make problems even worse. Education content and awareness should be created on the potential risks and controls viewers can take. Still, we should be mindful of making the content appealing to all sections of our community.
In the study by Lickert (2019) on Gaming myth and exploration of video gaming, heritage, and identity creation in Cuba, platform providers could introduce more restrictive rules about gambling and labels on sponsored posts related to gambling companies. Furthermore, a wider variety of streamers and representation can provide audiences with different opinions and the chance to limit the effectiveness of promoting betting harm minimisation by one source only.
The existing lack of regulation concerning created casino content on streaming platforms does need to be reviewed. This wide range of non-existent regulations potentially creates a warm greenhouse for unethical activities and presents a risk to the populations that are the innocent victims of this careless practice. Another challenge is that through the wide spread of gambling-related content, the influencer (and platform) can influence viewers’ behaviours and do nothing to minimise gambling-related harm (knowingly or otherwise) (Li et al., 2019).
A key consideration of influencer gambling in streaming platforms is they might appeal to those who are not of the legal age to participate in gambling, as they will be able to access such information. The study by Li et al. (2019) shows that underage gambling can cause more severe problems later on in life as it increases the likelihood of potential addiction among individuals.
The design of some influencer platforms, including interactive applications and games, enables users to view gambling as a norm and an off-the-cuff activity with no consequence. There is a lack of safer gambling messaging, support, tools or signposting.
Streaming platforms’ main advantage is their dependence on recommendation algorithms for finding the right content for an individual viewer. Individuals’ likeness leads to personalisation, which might shape viewers’ thoughts and expose them to content related to their worldview (Gibson et al.,2022). It can be alarming for viewers if they have already seen the influencer’s gambling content, which they may have been watching previously but didn’t want to see it again.
The main advantage of live streaming is that it engages the viewer more and leads to the success of influencer-led gambling. Chat functionalities are a feature that enables instant interaction between other viewers, influencers, and themselves. In such instances, the viewers enjoy community and togetherness (King & Wong-Padoongpatt, 2022).
The economic model can also impact the influencers-led gambling process. Footprints usually demonstrate money on advertising, subscriptions, and donations from your audience. Broadcasters advertising a bookmaker’s websites can be instrumental in becoming sponsors and partners and developing audiences when they view content related to gambling due to the thrill of gambling.
It is expected to note that many streaming platforms have inbuilt integrations with gambling platforms. This comprises pop-up ads, clickable links in the streaming through which you may be able to gamble, and in-stream gambling as well. The process of this smooth integration eliminates psychological obstacles as well as the psychological problem of online betting to online gambling.
Influencers usually have weak or no age-restriction systems and no parental control features. At this point, there is a situation where young people are much more likely to be influenced by the videos of gambling influencers. Thus, the risk is higher at mass exposure of even the most innocent viewers to influence-led gambling content. The online gambling ecosystem is dynamic, and changes as tech devices and ways to access the internet evolve.
The effort to reduce the aspects of technology that result in influence-driven gambling necessitates the involvement of governments, charities, gambling businesses, platform developers, and content publishers. Platform providers might consider tighter supervision of influencers’ content when they allow it to be posted. Another essential goal alongside education and awareness is implementing underage access restrictions and robust identity verification systems.
The rule and regulation sector of the steaming service is where the content and behaviours associated with influencer-led gambling are primarily shaped. These operational policies are the guidelines that wellness influences adhere to in their work and can, therefore, be macro-impressions on the content and behaviours accompanying gambling.
Twitch, being a top gaming content site, has become a target of many critics of the way the influencers of the site have been using gambling as a mode of content creation. Whether the platform is a month or a game-based revenue stream from supporters/viewers, for many streamers, the financial benefit is of great motivation (Greenfield, 2022).
Influencer-endorsed gambling advertising on streaming platforms is growing in huge numbers; however, the absence of clear regulations and ethical considerations can have a significant impact on both the gambling and gaming sectors and society as a whole. With no or very limited information or tools on safer gambling, there is the probability that viewers, primarily young or vulnerable people, could experience gambling-related harm and be in a vacuum where there is no support or information available. This is because the gambling being promoted may be from unregulated or overseas markets.
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