Researchers from the Cambridge Health Alliance presented the gambling regulators of the state of Massachusetts with a preliminary analysis of the Play My Way program. According to a new study, players who use the special gambling addiction prevention tool are betting less and lose smaller amount of money in comparison to other gamblers.
The Play My Way program is available in Plainville’s Plainridge Park Casino, which is the first casino in Massachusetts. According to the data provided by the researchers, the program has been having an excellent effect on gamblers who had taken advantage of Play My Way and already use it.
The preliminary results of the first analysis of the Play My Way program has shown that players who use it to control their expenditures while gambling spend less than players who have not taken advantage of the system. What is more, the losses generated by such players, are lower. According to researchers, 37% of the players who have used the system and received spending notifications that their spending limit had been reached, increased that amount at least once.
For the time being, it is hard to say whether the Play My Way program actually helped local players be more careful with their spending on gambling activities due to the limitations in the initial data used by researchers.
The Play My Way Program
The program provides players with the chance to set a spending budget themselves, by using their casino rewards card. Play My Way is the first system of such type available in the country. A number of other countries, including Canada, Australia, Sweden and Norway, have already implemented similar systems aimed to prevent problem gambling behaviour.
The Play My Way system was released earlier this year, as part of the efforts of Massachusetts’ gambling regulators to help gamblers be more moderate with their spending on betting. The program was developed with state’s funding amounting to approximately $200,000. Testing of the program began at the end of May at the first casino in the state – Plainridge Park.
The new system aimed at reducing the customers’ spending on gambling activities across the state. It has been considered by local regulatory authorities since the casino started operating in the summer of 2016. If Play My Way system turns out to be successful, it would be implemented in new casinos in Massachusetts, including venues of some of the largest gambling companies , such as MGM and Wynn.
As mentioned above, such a gambling expenditures control system has never been released in the US before. At the time when Play My Way was to be released, the Chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission Stephen Crosby revealed that the program was brand new, as it was thoroughly developed, from its software design to marketing materials.
- Author
Daniel Williams
