Gambling & Risk Taking: When Gambling Becomes Content

Patrick, your research shows responsible gambling messaging appears in fewer than 10 per cent of gambling vlogs. Why is it still so underrepresented in creator content?

One likely factor is regulation. In many jurisdictions, gambling operators are required to include RG messaging in their advertising. But there’s no equivalent requirement for gambling vlogs, whether from the platform itself like YouTube, or from the jurisdiction where the content creators are filming. So RG inclusion ends up being entirely a personal choice for creators, and in my sample most of them didn’t make it.

At the same time, you found that videos with responsible gambling messaging generate higher engagement. What’s driving that counterintuitive result?

This is a cross-sectional study, so I can only say that videos with RG messaging are associated with higher engagement. I can’t say RG messaging is causing it. Specifically, the regression showed videos with RG terms were about 3.8 times more likely to have a high like-to-view ratio and 5.4 times more likely to have a high comment-to-view ratio. 

I offered two plausible explanations in the dissertation. The first is that RG messaging directly influences viewer engagement by attracting individuals who value safer gambling practices, so vlogs that incorporate RG language resonate more strongly with that segment of viewers, leading to higher interaction. The second is the reverse direction: successful content creators who already have strong viewer engagement become more likely to incorporate RG messaging as their channels mature. As they gain prominence in the gambling content community, they become more aware of their influence and the responsibilities that come with it. Both interpretations are reasonable, and we’d need further research, ideally with an experimental design, to tell them apart.

What are the dominant content themes emerging from gambling vlogs today, and what do they tell us about how gambling is being framed to audiences?

In my sample of 170 popular slot vlogs, Betting Strategy and Game Features were the most prevalent themes, serving as the dominant topic in 41 per cent and 39 per cent of videos respectively. What this tells us is that the content is framed primarily through skill, strategy, and game introduction rather than risk. What’s mostly missing is candid discussion of the risk of losing money, or the underlying math of slots like Return to Player (RTP).

Looking at viewer comments, what patterns stand out in how audiences interpret wins, losses, and risk?

I conducted sentiment analysis on 43,837 comments. About 60 per cent were neutral, 36 per cent positive, and four per cent negative. This study didn’t directly look at how audiences interpret wins, losses, and risk, and that’s an important direction for future research. But the sentiment distribution does tell us something. Imagine an audience scrolling through a comment section where the tone is overwhelmingly neutral and positive. They’re more likely to come away perceiving slot gambling as fun, exciting, and a possible path to winning big, rather than as an activity with real risks attached.

Do viewers tend to challenge unrealistic portrayals of gambling outcomes, or reinforce them?

My comment analysis didn’t go deep enough to assess how audiences interpret the actual content of the videos, so this is another important direction for future research. One thing worth noting though: comments that strongly challenge a creator’s portrayal may be removed by the creator before they’re ever visible. So even if challenges exist, we may be undercounting them.

How much of the engagement is passive entertainment versus active influence on behaviour? And are viewers actually being nudged toward gambling?

This is the question I most want to answer and am least able to. My study doesn’t follow viewers into their actual gambling behavior. To really understand influence, you’d need longitudinal data linking exposure to behavior over time. So when people ask whether vlogs are driving gambling behavior, the honest answer is that we don’t have the evidence yet, in either direction.

To what extent are platforms like YouTube shaping the way gambling content is presented and consumed?

This wasn’t a direct focus of my study, so I want to be careful, but I do think the influence is substantial. Recommendation algorithms shape what viewers see next, monetisation rules shape what creators make, and platform policies shape what gets flagged or demonetised.

The way these incentives line up tends to push creators toward content that performs well within the platform’s logic, which usually means bigger reactions and clearer hooks on wins. That’s part of why, in my dissertation, I suggested platforms like YouTube could consider policies that support healthier gambling content communities.

One option would be displaying a brief RG advisory for videos tagged as gambling vlogs, similar to how YouTube already handles suicide and self-harm content, where viewers acknowledge an advisory before accessing certain videos. Another would be algorithmic: platforms could identify gambling vlogs that include RG messaging and give them a visibility boost, which would create a small incentive for creators to incorporate it. Whether any of these would actually work in practice is an open question, and would need to be evaluated.

Are current platform policies around gambling content sufficient, or are they still playing catch-up with creator-led formats like vlogging?

Like I just mentioned earlier, I think they’re still catching up. There’s room for platforms to do more here, and that’s why I brought up those suggestions.

Where should responsibility sit in this ecosystem, with creators, operators, affiliates, or the platforms themselves?

I think it needs to be shared across all of them. Each group has a different kind of leverage. Platforms set the rules of the road and shape what content gets visibility. Operators control commercial relationships that determine what sponsored content looks like. Creators decide what actually makes it into a video. And regulators set the outer boundaries for all of them. The more productive conversation is probably about how these groups can coordinate, since no single one of them can address this on its own. And researchers have a role to play too, in providing the evidence base that helps each of these groups make more informed decisions.

For licensed operators, is there a missed opportunity in not engaging more directly with this content space in a responsible way?

I think it depends on which group of vloggers we’re talking about. Some are operating independently, relying on platform monetisation or their own merchandise for income. For that group, operators don’t really have much leverage to shape what gets included in the content. But for vloggers who are being paid by operators to promote a casino property or a specific game, there’s room for operators to act.
They could require RG messaging to be included in sponsored vlogs as part of the contract, treating it as an extension of the RG compliance rules that already apply to traditional advertising. And if my preliminary finding holds, that RG messaging is associated with higher engagement, operators shouldn’t have to worry that including it would hurt a vlog’s performance. It might even help.

Could integrating more visible and authentic responsible gambling messaging into influencer content actually improve both compliance and commercial outcomes?

The data from my study suggests that adding RG messaging at least doesn’t hurt engagement. Videos with RG messaging in my sample had higher like-to-view and comment-to-view ratios. But this is correlational, and the sample of RG-inclusive videos is small (16 videos), so I don’t want to oversell it. What I can say is that the assumption RG messaging is bad for engagement isn’t well supported by my findings.

The dissertation also flags that wording matters. Generic phrases like “gamble responsibly” tend to be perceived by gamblers as superficial in prior research. More actionable language, like one creator’s “do not chase” advice in my sample, may land better in practice. That’s worth testing in future experimental research.

As this content channel continues to grow, what should regulators and the industry be paying closest attention to over the next two-three years?

A few things come to mind, and they all sit in regulatory grey areas.

First, how do we even categorise gambling vlogs under current regulations? If they function as a form of gambling advertising, do the rules built for traditional ads actually work for this format? Right now, vlogs largely fall outside that framework, and I don’t think regulators have caught up to what these videos actually are.

Second, many gambling vloggers also livestream their casino sessions on platforms, which adds a real-time interactive layer that pre-recorded vlogs don’t have. Imagine a viewer in a jurisdiction where gambling isn’t legal sending a private message to a vlogger asking them to place a bet on their behalf. Is that legal? Who’s responsible? This is the kind of scenario that doesn’t fit neatly into existing rules, and as livestreaming grows it’s the kind of thing regulators may need to address.

Third, and related, there’s a group of vloggers who sell private slot tours, where a viewer pays a fee to meet the vlogger in person and have them pick slot machines for them to play. In my view, that puts the vlogger in a kind of middleman role between the patron and the casino, which raises questions about whether and how this activity should be regulated.

There’s also a smaller operational point worth flagging. Phone use on the gaming floor used to be tightly restricted, but many casinos now allow it because of how common content creation has become. That shift raises its own security and compliance questions that operators and regulators will probably need to revisit.