SBO Gameable

The SBO GAM(E)(A)BLE project conducts interdisciplinary strategic research into the blurring boundaries between gaming and gambling in teenagers. The boundaries between gaming and gambling are increasingly blurring in (online) games popular with children and young teenagers. Due to the growing number of forms of gambling elements in these games, such as slot machines where one can win features to go further in the game, the concern is growing that minors are increasingly exposed to gambling. In addition, there are now new forms of online gambling that do not require any money. For the time being, these escape legal and regulatory control. However, the characteristics of these games and the gambling elements within them are similar to real gambling and equally encourage them to play or continue to play. The risk of this group forming emerging 'simulated gambling games' is often underestimated because they are, as it were, 'disguised' ingrained in games and apps that are socially accepted. The lack of a legal review and the increasing standardisation of gambling reinforces this. In particular, there is a scientific urgency to study early exposure to simulated gambling activities.  Especially since gambling behaviour therefore starts at a very young age. This research wants to create tools (legal, screening, advisory, educational) aimed at early-adolescents and their environment, especially since other research already indicated that real gambling (with money) is a predictor of later gambling behavior.