The effectiveness of betting odds in digital gambling advertising for sports betting

ABSTRACT Digital gambling advertising is omnipresent nowadays and leads young adults easily and directly to online gambling websites, challenging their self-control and inducing impulsive behaviors. The current study examines how including betting odds in digital gambling advertising for sports betting affects young adults’ gambling intentions and gambling attitudes toward sports betting and whether positive affective reactions toward the advertising can explain this. In addition, the moderating roles of gender and advertising format are investigated. The results of a two (advertising strategy: no odds advertising versus odds advertising) by two (digital advertising format: social media ad versus online banner) between-subjects experiment among 150 young adults (18 to 25 years) show that odds advertising (compared to an ad not including odds) led to more positive affective reactions toward the sports betting advertisement, which subsequently positively affected both gambling intentions and gambling attitudes. However, these results were only true for men and not for women. Finally, there was no moderating role of digital advertising format.