The use of Twitter for marketing by U.K. gambling companies

What this research is about There has been a growth in gambling advertising in What you need to know recent years. In addition to traditional media like This study is the first to compare how major television, many gambling companies have an active gambling brands in the U.K. use Twitter in their presence on social media sites. Twitter is a popular marketing. A total of 63,913 tweets were gathered social media site where short messages containing from the official Twitter accounts of seven text, images, videos and hyperlinks can be posted. gambling brands. The gambling brands varied in Users share their content via tweets to their network how often they tweeted and the content of their of followers, who can reply, like, and retweet the tweets. All gambling brands were quite active on posts. As such, Twitter has the potential to reach a Twitter, posting anywhere between 89 to 202 wide audience beyond the users’ network of times per day on average. The gambling brands followers. Moreover, users can continuously post new mainly used words that conveyed positive tweets. This might be important for gambling emotions, such as anticipation, joy and trust. Some companies as they can advertise bets and odds with a brands used Twitter to run competitions for free time limit. This study is the first to investigate how stake money. This study highlights how people major gambling brands in the U.K. use Twitter to who follow gambling brands on Twitter may be engage with customers and advertise their products. continuously exposed to messages about gambling odds and sporting events. This could be What the researchers did problematic if they are trying to reduce their The researchers searched for official Twitter accounts gambling behaviour. associated with seven well-known gambling brands in the U.K. These brands belong to the five biggest brands were active in their tweeting. In total, there gambling companies, including Bet365, Betfair, were 15,419 tweets posted during the 16-day period. Betfred, Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, and William The researchers compared the number of tweets per Hill. Twenty-two Twitter accounts were found. The day, the days of the week the tweets were posted, researchers used the Twitter Application Program and the times of the day the tweets were posted. Interface (API) to collect up to 3,200 tweets from each Second, the researchers used sentiment analysis to account on August 1, 2018. The API only allows the explore the content of the tweets. Sentiment analysis most recent 3,200 tweets to be pulled from an allows researchers to examine the emotions account. A total of 63,913 tweets were collected. expressed by different words. In this study, the The researchers compared the use of Twitter across researchers used the National Research Council of the different gambling brands in three stages. First, Canada (NRC) emotional lexicon to help them with the they looked at how often the gambling brands analysis. Words that appeared in the tweets were tweeted over a 16-day period, from July 15 to August rated as being positive, negative, or neutral in tone. 1, 2018. This period was chosen because all gambling Words were also rated on how strongly they were

associated with eight basic emotions (joy, sadness, Three brands–Paddy Power, Bet365, and Coral–had anger, fear, trust, disgust, and surprise). the most likes and retweets from their followers. This could be because these brands create tweets that Finally, the researchers looked at how customers had people like and want to share. It could also be engaged with the gambling brands. This was done by because these brands have the largest number of comparing the number of likes and retweets that followers and their tweets go out to more people. different brands received on their tweets. How you can use this research What the researchers found This study could help gambling regulators and policy In terms of frequency, the gambling brands varied makers in the development of policies and regulations greatly in the number of tweets they posted per day. on gambling marketing. It also provides ideas for The least active brand tweeted 89 times per day on future research in the area. For example, future average, while more active brands tweeted far more research could examine the socio-demographics of often. Few tweets were made in the early morning or people who follow gambling brands on Twitter, their late evening. Some gambling brands increased the reasons for doing so, and their gambling behaviours. number of tweets they posted throughout the day, but others were more consistent with their tweeting. About the researchers A number of gambling brands posted more tweets Alex Bradley and Richard J. E. James are affiliated when there was a major sporting event, such as the with the School of Psychology at the University of World Cup Football final. Nottingham in Nottingham, U.K. For more information The gambling brands varied in the content of their about this study, please contact Alex Bradley at tweets. Two gambling brands, Bet365 and Coral, used [email protected]. more visual images than others. Paddy Power was Citation most likely to include a hyperlink in their tweets. William Hill and Ladbrokes mostly replied to requests Bradley, A., & James, R. J. E. (2019). How are major about their hashtags on creating individual bets and gambling brands using Twitter? International receiving odds for those bets. Other brands like Gambling Studies. Advance online publication. Betfred, Betfair, and Coral were more likely to use https://doi.org/10.1080/14459795.2019.1606927 hashtags about major sporting events. The gambling brands also used hashtags to promote competitions that they ran for free stake money. None of the Gambling Research Exchange (GREO) brands, with the possible exception of Betfair, used Gambling Research Exchange (GREO) has partnered hashtags related to responsible gambling. Taken with the Knowledge Mobilization Unit at York together, these results suggest that the gambling University to produce Research Snapshots. GREO is an brands have different marketing strategies. Some independent knowledge translation and exchange brands appeared to use Twitter to build relationships organization that aims to eliminate harm from with their existing customers, while others focused gambling. Our goal is to support evidence-informed more on reaching out to a wider audience. decision making in responsible gambling policies, The gambling brands mainly used words that standards, and practices. The work we do is intended conveyed positive emotions, such as anticipation, for researchers, policy makers, gambling regulators trust, and joy. Words associated with negative and operators, and treatment and prevention service emotions like sadness, anger, fear, and disgust were providers. used infrequently. Some brands used positive words Learn more about GREO by visiting greo.ca or emailing more frequently than others, with William Hill using [email protected]. more neutral words than other brands.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International License. 2019