Social Media and Gambling

Due to the popularity of social media, gambling has taken on a whole new life. Gambling regulators face more challenges now than they ever did in the past as a result. Britain’s Responsible Gambling Trust released a report which stated that any Twitter member that chooses to follow a trio of the site’s most active gambling related accounts could get hundreds of promotional tweets every day.

Research conducted in order to complete this report determined that 877 Twitter accounts are somehow related to gambling. Speaking to Britain’s love of gambling, more than 900,000 members of Twitter follow some gambling related account.

The Chief Executive of the Responsible Gaming Trust thinks that gambling and social media activities go hand in hand. He is committed to ensuring that the gambling industry’s use of social media does not tempt those who have a problem with gambling. His hope is that as a result of the report gambling operators and regulators will be able to manage the negative aspects of gambling and social media on vulnerable parties.

One issue concerning social media and gambling in the U.K is that it is putting a strain on many marriages throughout the country. A growing number of divorcing couples are blaming the demise of their relationship on the link between Facebook and gambling, as well as other social media sites. The trend in the U.K. is that those married couples who are divorcing due to social media gambling are most members of the middle class, working class or poor.

A study of 6,500 divorcees was conducted which determined that so far in 2016 as many as 40% of the divorce petitions filed in the U.K. note that social media and/or gambling contributed to their divorce. This number is up 20% since 2009.

Despite the fact that social media and gambling has led to an increase in divorces among U.K. residents, the U.S. is embracing it; especially land based casinos that are desperate to compete with today’s online casinos.

The Morongo Casino Resort and Spa, located near Palm Springs, California has overhauled the theme of their casino floor bar to make it more social media friendly. The casino set the MEBar’s new theme “Sit down, log in, drink up and start trending.” Throughout the bar there are HD monitors linked to social media sites such as Twitter that allow people to take selfies and share them on the monitors.

According to the casino’s Executive Director of Marketing, the MEBar’s social media linked monitors are meant to help people show others in the bar, as well as those on social media, that they are enjoying themselves. He said that the goal of the newly themed bar is to give their guests a unique experience by integrating social media with gambling activities.

This is likely only the beginning of both land based and online casinos using social media to enhance the gambling experience and help get more people excited about the possibilities when combining the two.