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Online Gamblers or Online Gamers: Why Labels Matter

Online Gamblers or Online Gamers: Why Labels Matter

Added: October 31, 2013

Many gamblers around the world struggle with the connotations that the word 'gambling' carries because they are often not very positive. If the last statement comes as a surprise to you, stick around and keep reading because today we will talk about how labels impact perception in the online gambling industry. The topic we want to discuss today revolves around the question of why online gambling sounds sketchy, but online gaming is socially acceptable ?

A newly released study released in the Journal of Consumer Research was written by Kathy LaTour, associate professor of services marketing at the school of Hotel Administration at Cornell University, and Ashlee Humphreys of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. Their research finds that changing the label from gambling to gaming affects what consumers, and particularly people who do not gamble online, think of online wagering.

“A label like gaming prompts all sorts of implicit associations like entertainment and fun, while a label like gambling can prompt seedier implicit associations like crime,” the study suggests. Their analysis involves media descriptions of online lottery and casino gambling in The New York Times, the Wall Strees Journal, and USA Today between the years of 1980 and 2010. They also did an in-depth analysis of media coverage on our infamous "Black Friday" (April 15th, 2011) when the US Federal Government seized the domains and shut down the three largest online gambling websites available at the time.

The analysis showed that the way in which newspapers framed their descriptions of online betting, which involved criminal associations, led to a huge shift in the opinion of consumers, mainly related to how legitimate online casinos were. Surprisingly, people who do not gamble online were more prone to develop a negative outlook on "online gambling" after the Black Friday events. Also, a new trend was born in which lotteries and casinos were looked at as more reliable forms of entertainment in comparison to online gambling, which carried deep associations with crime and illegal activities.

So if you have ever wonder why your friends give you a weird look when you tell them you were gambling online, you can blame the media for their depiction of the industry and failure to provide accurate information on the entire situation when the sites were shut down back in 2011. You can always frame it as online gaming to avoid the looks, or just live your life and do whatever makes you happy. Up to you.