Transitioning Between Online Gambling Modalities and Decrease in Total Gambling Activity, but No Indication of Increase in Problematic Online Gambling Intensity During the First Phase of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden: A Time Series Forecast Study - PubMed (original) (raw)
Transitioning Between Online Gambling Modalities and Decrease in Total Gambling Activity, but No Indication of Increase in Problematic Online Gambling Intensity During the First Phase of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Sweden: A Time Series Forecast Study
Philip Lindner et al. Front Public Health. 2020.
Abstract
Introduction: The COVID-19 outbreak will likely have a public health impact beyond immediate disease transmission. Little is known about whether social distancing and other societal changes has provoked an increase in gambling, whether decreased betting opportunities due to paused sports events spurred gamblers to transition to online casino gambling, or whether any of these factors have had an impact on problem gambling. Methods: Data on lookup queries against the Swedish Gambling Paus registry, logging all initiated gambling sessions by all licensed gambling providers, from 2019-01-01 (start of registry) to 2020-04-08 (well into the first phase of the outbreak) were analyzed using TBATS time series forecasting to estimate trends after the first domestic COVID-19 death. Obfuscated data on daily total wagered and deposited amounts, split by modality (casino or betting, and low and high intensity, respectively) for the equivalent period were supplied by a licensed online gambling provider. Results: Total gambling activity decreased by 13.29% during the first phase of the outbreak compared to forecast. Analyses of online gambling data revealed that although betting decreased substantially in synchrony with a slight increase in online casino gambling, there was no increase in likely problematic, high-intensity gambling and neither did total online gambling increase. Conclusions: This first, preliminary study revealed no increase in Swedish gambling activity, total or specifically online, in the first phase of the COVID-19 outbreak. Future research should examine whether pandemic-induced transitioning between gambling modalities and/or increased participation in gambling, leads to long-term effects on prevalence of problem gambling.
Keywords: gambling; online gambling; pandemic (COVID-19); time series; total consumption model.
Copyright © 2020 Lindner, Forsström, Jonsson, Berman and Carlbring.
Figures
Figure 1
Observed time series and TBATS-derived components. For visualization purposes, Box-Cox transformation was suppressed (in order to preserve raw numbers) and trend included manually. Actual forecast models used AIC to select best specification. Displayed dates grouped into 2-weeks periods.
Figure 2
Observed gambling activity vs. time series forecast reference and point-estimate references. (A) Time series of observed (red) and forecasted (blue, with 95% CI) gambling activity during the evaluation period following the first COVID-19 death in Sweden. (B1) Expanding window analysis indicating forecast performance and sensitivity (respectively) by plotting period-average forecast discrepancy (dates group by week). (B2) Plot of forecast discrepancy for all dates and expanding window models (dates grouped by week). (C) Decrease relative to references points drawn from 5, 10, and 25 weeks (respectively) of same weekdays prior to 2020-03-12 (primary outbreak threshold).
Figure 3
Trends in online betting and casino activity. For visualization purposes, each time series was zero-centered by subtracting their respective mean, preserving absolute differences.
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References
- WHO Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Situation Report−183. (2020).
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