Global Limit Setting as a Responsible Gambling Tool: What Do Players Think?

Many companies offer tools to help their clientele gamble more responsibly. Such tools include pre-commitment facilities where the gambler can set voluntary time and money limits. However, empirical evidence is lacking as to whether voluntary or mandatory limit setting has any positive impact on subsequent gambling behavior and whether such measures are of help to high-intensity and/or problem gamblers. In the present study, 2352 gamblers who had played games with Norsk Tipping (NT), the Norwegian Government-owned gambling operator, were surveyed after NT had introduced a mandatory global loss limit across its gaming portfolio. The survey included questions relating to whether players had heard about the new global loss limits, their attitudes towards limit setting, whether they found the global limits personally relevant, the most important reasons for setting the limits, and whether they gambled elsewhere if they reached their loss limits. Findings demonstrated that three-quarters of the sample were aware the new global loss limit had been introduced, two-thirds of the sample knew how to set limits on their gambling, and four-fifths of the sample had a positive attitude towards the global loss limit. Very few gamblers played with other operators after they had reached their spending limits. It is concluded that the introduction of a global loss limit had a positive impact among Norsk Tipping’s clientele and the implications for the present findings are discussed.