University research says betting companies do not promote safe gambling on Twitter
Twitter has become a marketing machine for operators and affiliates, but university research from January shows not enough is being done to promote safe gambling on the platform.
Operators promote safe gambling messages in just under 2% of tweets, according to the research, which amounts to slightly more than one in every 100.
The study was carried out by researchers at Northumbria University across a two-week period and looked at more than 8,000 tweets from 40 of the UK’s highest-grossing gambling companies.
It grouped the tweets into categories based on content and calculated the percentage of messages in each area.
The study found nine different categories; direct advertising, betting assistance, sports content, customer engagement, humour, updates of current bet statuses, promotional content, safer gambling and “other.”
Operators had a higher frequency of posts in the sports and humorous sections, while affiliates had a higher proportion of posts within the direct advertising and betting categories.
A statement from the study read: “These findings suggest affiliates were more direct in their posting style, whereas operators followed a more indirect approach, reflective of branding strategy.
“Future research should address how interacting with different types of gambling content on social media impacts upon gambling attitudes and behaviour.”
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