Deceptive design features of online gambling platforms with Philip Newall

Deceptive design features of online gambling platforms with Philip Newall

What can we learn from those who have battled addiction to gambling products designed to hook attention and money? This conversation between Dr Tsen Vei Lim and gambling researcher Dr Philip Newall zooms in on the “deceptive design features” built into online gambling platforms – and why they matter for harm reduction.

Aimed at researchers, clinicians, policy professionals and anyone curious about how digital products can fuel addiction, the chat breaks down three key ideas from Newall’s paper: sludge, dark patterns and dark nudges. He explains that these terms all describe design tricks that “make people worse off”, such as pre-ticked marketing boxes, high default spending limits or friction-filled cancellation processes.

You’ll hear how lessons from classic behavioural science, like Thaler and Sunstein’s work on nudges, are being flipped by commercial operators to keep people gambling longer and spending more. Newall links this to the post-2007 boom in mobile gambling after the UK’s Gambling Act 2005, describing today’s environment as “an unprecedented amount of gambling that’s available to us electronically”.

The episode also weighs up what this means for policymakers stuck in a “whack-a-mole” race with fast-moving industry innovation, and why state-owned operators in some countries might be better placed to test “nudge for good” approaches. For everyday users, Newall is candid about how hard it is to stay sceptical in such slick digital spaces, urging people to “educate yourself in a slightly more reflective manner if you can”. Underneath the academic detail sits a clear personal mission.

As Newall puts it, “All I really want is to tilt the tables less unfairly… I just want a slightly fairer game.” If you or the people you support use online gambling, could understanding these design tricks be the next step in changing how you look at those platforms?