University of New Brunswick Online Poker Playing Study
An online poker study is being conducted by Anthony Hopley, a Ph.D. student in psychology at the University of New Brunswick, supervised by Dr. Richard Nicki. This study is done online and is investigating the factors which lead to online poker playing. All participants will fill out several questionnaires, which should take approximately 30 minutes. Each participant will be entered into a draw for four prizes of $50 (expected odds of winning are 1:50). If you are from Canada and are older than 18 or are from anywhere outside Canada and at least 21 years of age, currently play online poker and you would like to participate in this study, please visit the website below.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=jFXEuc9ZlvIWb6HWtw4K4g_3d_3d
The Psychology Department Ethics Committee has Approved this Research
REB #2009-007
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=jFXEuc9ZlvIWb6HWtw4K4g_3d_3d
The Psychology Department Ethics Committee has Approved this Research
REB #2009-007
Comments
Don't know... I just deposit my money, lose it, deposit more. No Problem!
Thanks for your interest. I'd recommend that you read the article I referenced at the end of the study as it is of a very similar flavour to mine.
First of all, sorry for the delay in responding. Second of all, one of the reasons we are running this study is to gain a better understanding of online poker and how to research it. I look forward to your feedback. Please send me a PM or e-mail at the address provided at the end of the survey, as discussing the questions themselves in the forum section may bias people who haven't done the survey yet.
thank you for your consideration,
Tony.
Yeah, they were very leading to problem gamblers...Yeah, I was very f*cking agitated last week, if you had my ex, you would be too. Had nothing to do with online poker. Did it attribute to my running bad? Maybe.
Gambling is only a problem if you are losing...
You're right, it is indeed a forum that is open to discussion and although it's logical to say that if you're answering truthfully other people's posts shouldn't influence your decisions, I'd rather not take that chance.
To address your second issue, you're right that personal factors could influence your poker playing and your responses on the survey. To account for this, researchers will typically administer the survey to large groups of people to minimize individual differences, (I would hope that not everyone who filled out my survey was having a bad week) and I've conducted statistical tests to identify how many people I need to minimize these differences effectively. I will also disagree with your conclusion that gambling is only bad if you're losing. Even though someone is winning money while gambling, they may be neglecting other areas of their lives in order to gamble, which can of course have a detrimental effect.
To moose and Ihaveyourname,
The odds of winning are 1:50 (approximately). With regards to whether or not offering a chance at winning for completing the survey biased the sample, this procedure has been used by countless studies in order to compensate those who gave up their time to complete the survey. It wasn't deemed feasible to offer smaller amounts of money to everyone who participated due to the online nature of the study.
Hopefully this addressed your questions,
I look forward to hearing more
Tony.
Maybe in a survey about apples but in a survey about gambling it seems an odd juxtaposition at best and offering a chance to win money in a survey about gambling surely must introduce survey bias at worst. Just wondering.
While it may lead to some form of bias, one of the possible controls for that is to have a large number of participants take part in the survey, and that way the impact of individual factors is limited to a large degree. I've run statistical analyses to determine how many I would need to have a great amount of power. Also, given that I'm interested in looking at a population which may engage in gambling, this type of compensation system may not be a bias, but may be a strong motivator to attract the population I want to take part, which then wouldn't be a bias.
Tony.
The required number of participants has been met, which means the data collection phase is now over. I'd like to thank everyone who participanted for their time, and comments left on the forum. All future communications however should be directed to the e-mail address left on the debriefing page of the survey (the last page).
thank you,
Tony.