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Why Some Sports Bettors Think Gambling Addiction Prevented Them from Becoming Winners? A Qualitative Approach to Understanding the Role of Knowledge in Sports Betting Products

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Abstract

Sports betting products rely upon a balance between their knowledge and chance based structural characteristics. The emphasis by bookmakers on mastering the knowledge-based elements to become winners poses significant challenges for those seeking help for gambling disorder. Bettors find difficulties in integrating their preconceptions about the role of knowledge and skills in winning, into the new cognitive restructuring fostered by cognitive-behavioural therapy. Using a grounded theory approach, this study collected data from 43 Spanish sports bettors undergoing treatment for gambling disorder. The results suggest sports bettors neutralize some gambling-related cognitive distortions during CBT but retain others. Sports bettors try to eliminate them but encounter external validation to retain them, as well as internal incongruences to integrate them into a coherent understanding of how gambling works. The results are discussed with the aim of providing practical guidance as to how skill versus chance related persistent cognitions can be addressed in CBT.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Government of the Basque Country, Spain, under grant reference (Eusko Jaurlaritza, POS_2015_1_0062). This work has been additionally funded by the Spanish Organization of the Blind (ONCE, III International Award). We thank CERCA Programme / Generalitat de Catalunya for institutional support. HLG is funded by the Beatriu de Pinós programme of the Secretariat for Universities and Research (Grant Number 2017 BP00035).

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Correspondence to Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez.

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Hibai Lopez-Gonzalez and Ana Estévez declare that they have no competing interests. Mark D. Griffiths declares that he has received funding for a number of research projects in the area of gambling education for young people, social responsibility in gambling and gambling treatment from the Responsibility in Gambling Trust, a charitable body which funds its research program based on donations from the gambling industry. He also undertakes consultancy for various gaming companies in the area of social responsibility in gambling.

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The study obtained the ethical approval of the first author’s university research ethics committee in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The participants signed a consent form, in which they were reassured that participation in the focus group was voluntary along with their rights to withdraw from the study at any time, the confidentiality of their data management, and their anonymity. Furthermore, participants agreed to be audiotaped (no video) for research purposes. All of the participants who agreed to take part in the study received a small gift at the end of the session (i.e., a USB flash drive or earphones with an approximate value of €10).

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Lopez-Gonzalez, H., Griffiths, M.D. & Estévez, A. Why Some Sports Bettors Think Gambling Addiction Prevented Them from Becoming Winners? A Qualitative Approach to Understanding the Role of Knowledge in Sports Betting Products. J Gambl Stud 36, 903–920 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-020-09944-3

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