Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Does Twitter User Activity Promote Gambling-Related Content?, Marcos Lerma, Rory A. Pfund Ph.D, Adrianna J. Valencia, E. Halle Smith, James Whelan Ph.D

International Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking

Social media has provided gambling operators with access to millions of individuals and novel ways to promote gambling. Research has suggested that exposure to gambling advertisements on social media platforms is associated with increased gambling in individuals at-risk for problem gambling. These findings bring into question whether social media platforms are sensitive to differences in user account activity (e.g., tweets, likes, accounts visited) when displaying advertisements and gambling-related content.

To assess for these differences, four Twitter accounts were created and assigned to send out tweets containing pro-wagering versus safe-wagering-related messages. Additionally, one of each account was assigned to interact with …