Convergence of online gambling and social media

8th European Conference on Gambling Studies and Policy Issues

14.-17.9.2010, ViennaJani Kinnunen

University of Tampere, FinlandGame Research Lab

Social media• Social interaction and interactive communication in digital media• Communicating through blogs, microblogs, irc-channels, social

networking sites etc.• Collaborating in wikis, tagging services, social news services etc.• Sharing digital material in different sites and platforms

• E.g. YouTube, Flickr, Spotify, p2p-networks• Engaging in social activities in virtual worlds, games, social

networking sites and other playgrounds• When we talk about social media, nowadays we usually refer to

Facebook– More than 500 million active users– Integrates other social media services into it– Internet inside the Internet?

Social games• Games played in Facebook

(…and in other social networking sites)

• Simple and casual games which don’t require too much skill from players– Click, click, click…

• Playable during daily routines

• Often require continuous playing in certain intervals

• Social games adapt online friendship ties for play purposes– Challenges, collaborations,

teams– Giving and receiving gifts from

friends• Asynchronous

– Players don’t have to play at the same time

– Playing in turns• Game-related communication

continues in players’ profile pages and news feeds– Spam!

Social and games?

• Different layers of sociability have always been connected with games

• Online environment has made it possible to create new forms of social interaction which are attached to and associated with games

• Game-related social interaction can take place before, during and/or after playing

• Online gambling and social media are interconnected in many ways

• New forms of online gambling and playing games in social media, such as Facebook, have a lot in common– Horizontal and structural

similarities

• One of the most popular Facebook-games is Texas hold’ em poker

• There are also plenty of other gambling games available in Facebook– Casino games– “casinos”

• FB-poker is similar to other FB-games:– Casual web-browser based game– Players can play for free, but there’s a

possibility to use real money to get extra features

– Players play against each other which requires social interaction between players

• Friends and unknown opponents– Social interaction can continue outside

the game in other locations of Facebook

• Profile pages, fan-groups, news feeds etc.

• Success in games can be automatically communicated to player’s FB-friends

– Playing poker and interacting in the community are in a beneficial relationship to each other

• FB-poker is synchronous unlike most of the FB-games

– Requires interaction during the game

Online gambling• Online gambling and gaming have become popular in recent years• First online gambling games were electronic versions of traditional games of pure

chance• Playing these games were for long anonymous activity without any social interaction

– Solitary games against the game operator– Impossible to communicate with other players– Lack of information of other players: is there other players online at the same time and who

are those people?– Impossible to watch other players play

• At the same time internet in general has evolved towards more social environment social interaction and online gambling have been integrated in many ways

• Games based on skill, which are played against other players, have increased their proportional popularity

• There are completely new forms of gambling games in internet these days• Social interaction related to games is essential for the game experience even if it

happens outside the actual gaming site• Large part of online gambling requires interaction between players• It is still possible to play online gambling games alone, but it’s clear that online

gambling in general is not asocial activity

• Gambling and social media have converged for example in Facebook, but also in many skill gaming sites

• Skill gaming –sites are excellent examples of new forms of gambling

– Casual web-browser based games (any game can be a gambling game)

– Players can place a monetary bet on their games

– Players play against each other, which requires social interaction between players

• Challenges and multi-player tournaments

– Social interaction in the community around the games

• Playing is asynchronous• Interaction can take place in profile

pages, messages, discussion areas, ranking-lists etc.

– Playing games and interacting in a community are in a beneficial relationship to each other

• Games and all the game- related interaction don’t have to be situated in the same place

• Online poker sites and player forums are usually separated– Poker forums are online-

communities where players can interact with each other before and after playing

– Players can communicate, learn to be better players, get tips for good gaming sites etc.

– No actual playing in these poker-related sites

• Poker forums can be found also from Facebook

Playing online gambling games and interacting in game-related communities are in a beneficial relationship to each

other

Playing Facebook games and interacting

otherwise in the community are in a beneficial relationship to each other

Social performance• Playing games, which involve social interaction, is connected with

identity project– What games are played– Who are you playing with– How do you communicate about your playing to your peers

• Playing is also a social performance– How you see yourself is dependent on how other people see you

• Playing generates social rewards which are valued in the player community – Taking socially acceptable risks in gambling games can increase your

status among peers• Social rewards can be valued higher than monetary rewards or losses in

gambling games– Earning game-related gifts and giving them to your Facebook-friends

validates your social ties and increase your status among other members of the community

Social rewards• Social rewards have different kinds of representations

– “Real” money, points, rankings, gifts, social gestures etc.• Game-related rewards can be explicit or implicit, but their value is

socially constructed– Rewards are worthless if they are not valued by other players– If they are valued in the community, they work like currencies or capital

• Performance in games define player’s position in the gamer community

• Informal reward can be for example the amount of discussion in players’ discussion forums about individual player’s skillful playing

• Game-related currencies and more informal social rewards work as symbols of identity in the same way “real” money does– When player stakes something valuable (like money) into the game, she

is putting herself (identity) into the game– After the game: money is again a symbol of identity (how good or lucky

player you are)

• Gambling is a social performance if there’s any kind of social interaction connected with it

• The performance can be situated in social media

• Social rewards are important for online gaming experiences even if there isn’t real money connected with playing

• Social rewards are comparable to monetary rewards in many respect

• Money and other game related rewards work as symbols of players’ identities and measure their status in player communities