Advertising slogans in the gambling industry: Content analysis informed by the heuristics and biases literature

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse the contents of over a thousand gambling slogans. We identify several features considered in the literature that the slogans might capitalize on. In particular, we investigate heuristics and biases analyzed in the behavioural economics of decision making under risk, such as the gambler’s fallacy. We then employ factor analysis to identify the main types of heuristics and biases showing up in the analyzed slogans. We find three naturally interpretable factors and show that they intuitively correlate with the type of game each slogan advertised. We also construct an index of potentially dangerous features a slogan might have and show that their use subsided slightly in the UK after the Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising was implemented in 2007.