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Consultation response

Online games design and reverse withdrawals

Consultation response for online games design and reverse withdrawals and proposed changes to the design of online slots.

Published
2 February 2021

Last updated
2 February 2021 - Changes

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Annex 2 - Consumer research into auto-play

Summary of consumer research into auto-play

We inserted a number of questions on autoplay into December’s online tracker (a nationally representative online survey which typically gets 2,000 responses per quarter). Of these responses, 358 were online slots players and of those, 190 respondents indicated that they have used the auto-play feature.

The aim of this research was to test the views of consumers on auto-play, as well as their patterns of use and establish any self-reported correlation around areas of likely harm, dissociation and intensity of play.

This number of responses gives us a sizeable base of slots auto-play users on which to base our analysis and can assure us of a wider reach than the limited number of consultation responses from consumers. It should be stressed that we expect a large amount of read-across to highly engaged gamblers amongst the autoplay using cohort, which can be a driver for risks.

Claimed autoplay use is relatively frequent across a past 12 months timeline, with 41% of online slots players having claimed to have used the feature (an additional 10% claimed to use it >12 months ago).

Where used, it is often used frequently, as 34% of respondents who had used the feature in the last 12 months indicated they used auto-play on online slots more than half of the time.

An additional 33% indicate they use the feature less than half of the time and a similar percentage ‘rarely use’ auto-play.

Headline findings are shown in the following chart. Chart - statements surrounding autoplay on online slot machine games - Participants where asked the following question "Thinking about autoplay on online slot machine games, to what extent do you agree with the following statements?" The individual bars show the extent to which participants agreed, disagreed or were indifferent to the question.

Data for chart

Thinking about auto-play on online slot machine games, to what extent do you agree with the following statements? NET: Agree / Strongly agree Neither agree nor disagree NET: Disagree / Strongly disagree
Auto-play increases my enjoyment of gambling 34% 35% 30%
Autoplay makes gambling more accessible to me (due to personal / health circumstances rather than just being easier to play) 33% 28% 39%
Auto-play helps me to budget by setting the maximum I am prepared to lose 45% 31% 25%
Auto-play helps make sure I have a natural break in play 35% 33% 32%
Auto-play makes it difficult for me to stop gambling when I want to stop 32% 22% 46%
I lose track of my gambling whilst using autoplay 42% 21% 37%
When using auto-play online I also gamble on other activities at the same time (i.e. while auto-play was spinning the reels for me) 34% 23% 43%

Sample size : 190 adults aged 18+ who have ever used auto-play on online slots

In addition, the following findings support our concerns about the potential intensity impact of auto-play, as we sought to understand the relationship between auto-play and the three main dimensions of intense play (time, spend and speed).

Chart - statements surrounding the effect auto-play has on a participant's use of online slot machine games - Participants where asked the following question "Has your use of auto-play resulted in you ever doing each of the following things or has it made no difference?" The individual bars show the extent to which participants agreed, disagreed or were indifferent to the question.

Data for chart

Has your use of auto-play resulted in you ever doing each of the following things or has it made no difference? Yes, it has No, it hasn't Prefer not to say
Spending more time on a game than you had originally intended 38% 59% 3%
Playing a game faster than you had originally intended 58% 39% 2%
Spending more money on a game than you had originally intended 45% 55% 0%

Sample size : 190 adults aged 18+ who have ever used auto-play on online slots

These findings imply that auto-play does have a strong relationship with intensity of play, albeit that we are not able to attribute causality between these factors.

Whist there is undoubtedly some evidence of a correlation with GRH for some, there are also findings which illustrate that for some auto-play increases their enjoyment and perhaps more importantly it is used by some as a budgeting tool or as a tool to provide breaks in play.

We are mindful that the removal of auto-play could therefore have an unintended consequence in terms of removing a budgeting tool for a number of players, we note that auto-play does not provide the only opportunity for slots players to use these facilities or for operators to encourage players to use them.

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Annex 1 – Summary of changes to RTS Next section
Annex 3 – List of consultation responses
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