Researchers at Montreal’s Concordia University have established what they call a ‘collaboratory’ for the real-time study of gambling behavior. The goal is to examine how the “digital revolution” has changed the gambling industry and the potential problems that come with it.
Housed on the school’s Sir George Williams Campus, the Collaboratoire pour les études des jeux de hasard et d’argent numériques connectés (CHANCE) lab will facilitate study of the “social aspects of gambling behaviour.” Gamblers’ interactions with their environment and each other will be of particular interest.
With the announcement, CHANCE co-director Sylvia Kairouz said the aim is to study gambling in as natural a setting as possible.
We wanted to simulate a natural setting where we can have the gambler, the game and the social environment in one same spot, where we can film them, listen to what is happening and observe how people behave together in a gambling environment.
Kairouz is a professor in Concordia’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Concordia Research Chair on Gambling. Her lab co-director, Martin French, is an associate professor in the same department.
Lab aims to ‘trigger thinking’ via ‘hands-on’ experiences
CHANCE will serve as both an experimental laboratory and a collaborative space for exchanging ideas, information, and knowledge, said Kairouz.
We want people to live the experience of what we see as being risky or harmful in order to raise public awareness.
She added that the space will be open to the public and stakeholders to “feel and see” how digital gambling influences gamblers’ behaviours.
It’s very hands-on, and we want to have experiences that can really trigger thinking around how we can make the gambling environment safer.
French sees the lab as a “crucible” for understanding the “intensifying” online gambling phenomenon.
Working from a public health and harm prevention perspective, we are trying to think about how risks are amplified, how people might be put in a position where they increase their risk of experiencing gambling-related harm.
Digital consumption ‘deeply embedded’ in modern life
Researchers based the lab’s design on Casino de Montreal’s La Zone, which hosts interactive gaming terminals in a nightclub atmosphere.
Using La Zone as a guide, the collaboratory contains terminals, a wall-sized screen, and several discreetly placed cameras. Notably, the lab has the technical capability to capture and visualize in-game happenings, which allows researchers to monitor behaviour in real time and after the fact.
“We constructed this space to take people into the social experience of gambling,” said French.
The recording equipment gives us the ability to look both behind the curtains of the game, so to speak, and at the social context that envelopes gameplay.
On top of the gaming technology, the facility also has conference rooms.
Inside, researchers and participants can discuss their experiences and consider the “technological and social architecture” shaping and influencing gambling behaviour.
“Digital consumption is deeply embedded in people’s everyday lives,” said French.
Whether it’s playing a game on your mobile device, watching a movie on a streaming service or ordering your dinner from a delivery platform. The CHANCE collaboratory can help people talk, and think critically about, the ways that our digital lives may be architected to influence our consumption patterns, to addict us and keep us in the consuming zone.
Funding separates research from industry influence
Loto-Québec permitted the researchers access to La Zone while developing the space. However, they noted it had no hand in the lab’s creation.
As in many fields where powerful industry actors inform research (like tobacco), maintaining independence from industry influence is vital.
Accordingly, CHANCE’s funding relied on research grants and support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Quebec Government, and Concordia.
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