MOD&JEU: Moderators of Online Gambling, How Effective?

Nantes University Hospital (NUH)

Status: Unknown

Conditions: Online Gambling

Treatments: Other: Gambling moderator

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01789580

RC12_0153

Details and patient eligibility

About

Prevalence of problem gambling is estimated about 1-3% of the general adult population. This percentage increases to 5% when talking about online gambling. In France, the market for online gambling was recently opened up to competition and regulation (May 2010), including poker and sports/horse races betting, but excluding for the moment casino games. Recent international studies show that legalizing online gambling led to an increase of practices, including problem gambling.

In France, the law stipulates the establishment of moderators of online gambling, to prevent excessive gambling practices. The Regulatory Authority of Online Games (ARJEL) guarantees the implementation of these moderators. However, no evaluation of the effectiveness of these moderators is planned.

Therefore the investigators propose to conduct an experimental study about online gambling. The objective will be to evaluate the effectiveness of four kinds of moderators, some already legislated, but not evaluated, and others offered by the investigators team. Proposals for amending legislation will be made according the results of this study.

Enrollment: 485 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 65 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Adult
• French people, living around Nantes
• Giving their consent for access to their gambling account
• User of a gambling site approved by the ARJEL, with an active account
• Regular gambler (gambling at least once a week, since at least 3 months)

Exclusion criteria

• Age under 18 and over 65
• Excessive gamblers (CPGI > 8) or gambler seeking treatment
• Protected persons (pregnant women, being under protection measures)
• Overindebtedness
• Psychiatric or cognitive major dysfunctions

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

---

485 participants in 5 patient groups

Control group

No Intervention group

Description:

The participants play on their preferred online gambling site (experimental gambling session) without gambling moderator.

Bonus group

Experimental group

Description:

The participants play on their preferred online gambling site (experimental gambling session) with the first gambling moderator sudied : bonus (with different modalities of the moderator).

Treatment:

Other: Gambling moderator

Auto-exclusion group

Experimental group

Description:

The participants play on their preferred online gambling site (experimental gambling session) with the first gambling moderator sudied : auto-exclusion.

Treatment:

Other: Gambling moderator

Auto- limitation group

Experimental group

Description:

The participants play on their preferred online gambling site (experimental gambling session) with the first gambling moderator sudied : auto- limitation(with different modalities of the moderator).

Treatment:

Other: Gambling moderator

Information group

Experimental group

Description:

The participants play on their preferred online gambling site (experimental gambling session) with the first gambling moderator sudied : information (with different modalities of the moderator).

Treatment:

Other: Gambling moderator