Mobile gambling games are a growing industry that allows players to access their favorite casino games anytime, anywhere. They are often available on a wide variety of platforms, including iOS (Apple’s operating system) and Android, which run the majority of smartphones. These systems are fast, virus-free, and provide a safe environment for gamers to play their favorite games. Many people choose to gamble on their mobile devices because of the convenience and accessibility. It is important to understand how gambling games on a mobile device work before making a decision to play one.
As the market for gambling apps grows, companies are trying to differentiate their offerings from the competition by focusing on customer experience (CX). In addition to offering a large selection of bets and games, many mobile casinos offer special features that set them apart from their competitors. For example, they may offer different payment options such as ApplePay or Samsung Pay, and may have games sized for smaller screens. These changes are important in a world where customers have a lot of choices and want their experience to be as easy as possible.
Another factor in the success of mobile gambling is the increasing capability of mobile phone devices to process high-intensity data and graphics. The latest phones feature high-resolution displays, multi-core processing units, and a high amount of RAM to handle the demands of gaming. They can also be coupled to household Wi-Fi networks to provide broadband Internet speeds. These advances have made mobile casinos more accessible than ever before.
Unlike most computer-based games, which are often used for longer periods of time and with greater amounts of personal information, mobile gambling games are designed for short, interspersed sessions of use. These shorter bouts of interaction have been described as akin to snacking, and may lead to different patterns of behaviour than computer-based games. Mobile gambling may have the potential to exacerbate risky behaviour by exploiting associative learning and reinforcement schedules, and by presenting players with near-misses that have structural and aesthetic similarities to wins.
To study this, participants were asked to download a simulated gambling app onto their mobile phone and use it during a series of experiments. Contextual data were collected about their location and activity, as well as self-reports on behavioural measures and questionnaires. GPS co-ordinates were recorded each time a gamble was placed, which allowed the app to record the exact position of the phone at each moment of engagement. Results indicated that engagement with the app while there was a chance of winning predicted perseverance during extinction phases, while larger rewards were associated with longer latencies between gambles and a tendency to end a session prematurely. This is the first empirical evidence of a distinctive pattern of behaviour that distinguishes mobile gambling from other new forms of online gambling. It has the potential to inform research on the relationship between mobile technology and addictive behaviour, and highlight the need for a more holistic approach to understanding the risk of harmful gambling.