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The Effect of Skeuomorphic Digital Interfaces on the Illusion of Control over Gambling Outcomes

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Abstract

The current research focuses on how the use of “skeuomorphs” in digital design interacts with an illusion of control to influence gambling behavior. Skeuomorphism is a design concept in which an aspect of a modern item is made to represent its outdated counterpart, even if this representation serves no functional purpose, such as hands “dealing” cards or horses “racing” on the screen of a digital machine. It is proposed that the inclusion of these non-essential links to physical objects in digital gambling games interacts with a player’s illusion of control over the outcome to influence behavior. Shown across a pretest and three experiments, the inclusion of skeuomorphic elements in the design of gambling games, compared to a minimalistic “flat” design, increases amount gambled. Additionally, skeuomorphism and manipulated illusion of control interact to further increase the amount gambled. The manuscript concludes with a discussion on the practical, theoretical, and policy implications of this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University, 3550 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT, 84322-3550, USA

    Matthew D. Meng

  2. College of Business, University of Nevada-Reno, 1664 N. Virginia Street, Reno, NV, 89557, USA

    R. Bret Leary

Authors
  1. Matthew D. Meng
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  2. R. Bret Leary
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by all authors. Drafts of the manuscript were written and edited by all authors. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Matthew D. Meng.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the authors’ institutions and under delegated authority of the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable standards.

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Appendices

Appendix A

figure a
figure b

Appendix B: Example of skeuomorphic dice used in Study 2 and Study 3

figure c

NOTE: This die was shown for the “3” outcome. Similar dice were shown for all other numbers.

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Meng, M.D., Leary, R.B. The Effect of Skeuomorphic Digital Interfaces on the Illusion of Control over Gambling Outcomes. J Gambl Stud 37, 623–642 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-020-09961-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-020-09961-2

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