Globally, the availability of online gambling has rapidly increased, leading to a rise in online communities discussing gambling. This shift to digital platforms presents new challenges for harm reduction efforts. A recent study analyzed a popular forum on reddit.com to assess its potential as a data source for understanding gambling harm reduction in online spaces.
The research involved an exploratory analysis of 1,141 unique posts and 11,668 comments from the r/onlinegambling forum. The dataset included content from August 5, 2015, to October 30, 2023. Natural language processing (NLP) techniques were employed to identify common terms and phrases, examine topics with high participant engagement, and conduct sentiment analysis.
The sentiment analysis revealed that most posts and comments were positive; however, there was also significant negative and neutral content. Positive content typically involved congratulatory messages about winning. Neutral posts often provided practical advice, while negative posts focused on avoiding operators perceived as illegitimate by forum users.
The study's findings indicate a varied and robust discussion on different aspects of gambling within the r/onlinegambling community. The analyses suggest that this Reddit forum offers valuable insights into how users communicate their motivations for gambling, interpret their experiences, and define potential harms associated with online gambling. It also highlights ways to avoid or mitigate these harms.
The research concludes that Reddit forums discussing gambling hold significant potential for future studies interested in specific aspects of harm reduction and prevention related to online gambling, especially when using NLP techniques.
"Results from this study show that there is a varied and robust discussion of different aspects of gambling on r/onlinegambling," said van der Maas and Samuel in their citation.
