October 24: Marketing Professor Receives Grant to Study Effects of Gambling Advertisements

Article featured in the Guelph Mercury

A University of Guelph researcher had received funding to study how advertising about gambling influences gamblers.

Prof. Sunghwan Yi, in U of G’s department of Marketing and Consumer Studies, has received a $49,000 grant from the Manitoba Gambling Research Program to investigate how much of an impact positive and negative protrayals of gambling in advertising have on bettors.

The funding will be linked to two studies and will see partnering with researchers from Dalhousie University and the University of Manitoba. They will work with frequent gamblers to see how they process pro-gambling messages such as casino ads and anti-gambling messages such as responsible gambling ads.

“Our first study examines the possibility that, even when gamblers are exposed to casino ads for less than one second, these ads trigger positive expectations about gambling based on their positive past gambling experiences, although they may not be aware of it,” Yi said, in a statement issued by U of G.

“In the second study, we investigate the possibility that a really brief exposure to well-intentioned anti-gambling messages may also activate positive rather than negative expectations about gambling.”

It is hoped the research results may help in designing responsible gambling ads and in developing policies on allowable forms of advertising for casino gambling, online gambling sites and lotteries.