Is Eports Spectating Associated with Gambling Behaviour?

Abstract

Esports exemplifies the evolution of digital games into a socio-economic and cultural force of global impact and can serve as context for investigating pressing issues of contemporary digital culture. The reframing of digital play as a form of sport has both highlighted and supercharged the ongoing convergence of gaming and gambling, pioneering techniques that are increasingly appearing in other digital contexts. There is increasing evidence of individuals first exposed to gambling within games subsequently developing problematic gambling behaviours, lending weight to concerns about normalisation of gambling through digital games. This research uses crosstabulation of a dataset gathered from digital games players to investigate whether esports spectating is associated with participation in a range of gambling, and gambling-like behaviours. By understanding the potential interactions, it is possible to identify those practices and forms of gamblification which impact players and whether links exist between game-related gambling and traditional gambling.