Empirical Model of EGM Play

The beginning of Chapter 2 revisited the arguments summarised in the position article (Dickerson & Baron, 2000), the main theme of which was that future research into excessive gambling might examine the behaviour in terms of the construct of choice or subjective control, rather than as pathology or mental disorder. Not that this was to deny the harmful impacts or the mental disorder model but rather because this approach had the potential to be a more productive research frame of reference focusing on the key addictive construct of self-control. It also shifted the focus from clinical populations to people who were currently regular gamblers, engaged in a continuous form of gambling weekly or more often: a group that in the Australian context has been demonstrated to be most at risk of the harmful impacts of gambling. In the following research all participants were regular electronic gaming machines (EGM) players.

Chapter 3 reviewed the range of variables that may contribute to the development of impaired self-control and the figure below summarises those selected for empirical exploration in a sequence of two pilot studies exploring measures and methods and one main study. The first of the sequence was conducted in 1997, the second in 2001 and the final project data collection was completed at the beginning of 2002. The pilot studies were funded by research “seed” monies from the University of Western Sydney and the final project by the Casino Community Benefit Fund (a state government administered fund used to deliver services for problem gamblers and related research) following a peer evaluated competitive round of research funding.