A study in online poker

Clarissa Kane | Published on May 14, 2009

In 2005 bwin, the world’s leading online gaming provider established a partnership with the Division on Addictions. Now the Division Addictions, Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate conducted a study on online poker.
This study is a result of the actual gaming behaviour evidenced by a large sample of 3, 445 online poker players over 2 years and should be published this year.

The partnership between bwin and the Division Addictions was mainly established to provide a scientific basis for the assessment of an explicit gaming behaviour and its consequences for responsible gaming.
Two important keys came out from the research: one is that the fact that online gaming is more powerful than offline gaming is just a myth. The second one is the fact the responsible gaming measures show effect.

This study is the largest longitudinal and the first epidemiological one of its kind. Over 2 years they are making a research, which analyzes the Internet poker players’ behaviour. Very interesting is that individuals show rational behaviour. They kind of use a rational betting behaviour based n their wins and their losses.

It came out that the average age of a poker player is 28 years and the majority is male. The typical poker player is an active player for a median duration of six and a half months and plays about every 3 days.

This study is important to understand the behaviour of an online poker player. Next research consists in developing algorithms able to identify behavioural patterns or identifying risks patterns associated with disordered gaming. That’s what bwin’s Co-CEO Manfred Bodner said.

online poker study bwin cambridge harvard poker player