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The purpose of this paper is to assess the current state of consumer education in the context of responsible gambling in Macao and to suggest ways in which Macao could enhance its consumer education efforts to meet its challenges with regard to responsible gambling.

Exploratory and interpretative approaches have been adopted to suggest why and how Macao should strengthen responsible gambling education. The methodology involved extensive review of relevant academic research, government documents and reports related to Macao's responsible gambling initiatives.

Effective long-term responsible gambling education is needed in Macao to further people's understanding of gambling and gambler's fallacy. The government should take leadership in influencing all stakeholders toward effective initiatives and behaviors related to responsible gambling education.

Although research on responsible gambling education is still in its infancy, its importance in reducing common misconceptions about gambling has already been established. This study contributes to strengthen Macao's responsible gambling practices by proposing several changes needed to provide desired outcomes through consumer education.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how responsible gambling policies are communicated and presented as a legitimation strategy to different stakeholders.

This study is based primarily on 49 semi-structured interviews with internal and external stakeholders of Macao’s gambling industry in 2011. This study draws on Reast et al.’s (2012) legitimacy-seeking strategy framework.

The findings indicate that these organisations use construing and earning legitimacy strategies to ensure passive support and acquiescence from certain stakeholder groups, and they deploy bargaining and capturing legitimacy strategies to generate active support for this morally contested industry. As a means of attaining long-standing legitimacy in the industry, gambling operators engage symbolically rather than substantively in responsible gambling to minimise the legitimacy gap.

The findings of the study pertain to a unique setting and might not be suitable for generalisation.

In the absence of stringent legal mechanisms and strong external stakeholder pressure, the 12th Five-Year Plan of the People’s Republic of China aims to transform Macao into a “World Centre of Tourism and Leisure”, and gambling companies may soon face much stronger pressures from the Chinese Government and the Macao Government.

Voluntary responsible gambling initiatives are liable to be used only in symbolic fashion, without offering genuine engagement or full commitment to the most vulnerable stakeholder group.

This study contributes to the literature on social and accounting literature by providing an in-depth case study of how organisations in the gambling industry use different communication strategies to shape and respond to controversial issues.

This study investigates how employees perceive responsible gambling (RG) programs, which are part of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework for minimizing negative impacts associated with problematic gambling. Casino employees have different levels of interaction with gamblers, which could affect employees' opinions about RG.

Surveys at two time periods – baseline (N = 2,192) and one-year follow-up (N = 852) to a new RG program – asked employees at MGM Resorts International (MGM) about their (1) perceptions of program effectiveness, (2) gambling behaviors and beliefs and (3) perceived level of employer support. Two one-way MANCOVAs, with years employed in the gambling industry as the covariate, extended results from a prior study. An additional two-way MANCOVA examined contact-level and year-over-year differences.

Employees who have high contact with gamblers, such as those in security or casino dealer positions, viewed RG programs as less effective than employees who have low contact with gamblers, such as those in culinary or corporate positions.

Employees are vital to harm reduction CSR strategies and MGM should work toward a program with varied RG training content and delivery, depending on the likelihood of employee interaction with active gamblers.

RG programs are key CSR initiatives for hospitality organizations with gambling licenses. Employees play an interactive role in delivering these programs, so their perceptions and understanding help assess program value. This is the first study to examine employee perceptions of a newly-implemented RG program with baseline and follow-up data.

The purpose of this study is to examine the ways that sin industry companies attempt to utilise CSR reporting for legitimation.

Conventional and summative content analyses were carried out on annual CSR reports in UK tobacco and gambling companies, juxtaposed against analysis of the actual behaviour of the companies, collectively and individually.

The paper concludes that there is an ongoing tension between the business of sin industry companies and their attempts to establish and maintain any legitimacy, using CSR reporting in particular ways to try to prove their credentials to society and to engage salient stakeholder support. Ultimately, they aim to give themselves the scope for strategic choice to enable survival and financial flourishing.

Further research on CSR on other sin industries and in other jurisdictions with different regulatory situations could shed further light on the achievement or denial of different types of legitimacy. Studying different time periods as industries change would be of value.

On a practical basis, the study offers guidelines to stakeholders on the use of CSR reports from sin companies, and suggests the establishment of objective external CSR reports, overseen by accounting regulators.

The paper provides an overview of the role of sin industries in society, and mitigating their harms.

This study allowed for a comprehensive, dynamic and inclusive understanding of the interplay of CSR reporting and legitimacy by addressing conflicting interests between sin companies' social effects and inherent activities at the industry level. The methodology of multiple case study design in two sin industries combined content analysis of CSR reports, juxtaposed against analysis of behaviour in context. Previous research included the juxtaposition of actuality in analysis of only single case studies or particular issues. Thus, this research allows for a broader industry understanding. On a practical basis, the study offers guidelines to stakeholders on the use of CSR reports from sin companies, and suggests the establishment of objective external CSR reports, overseen by accounting regulators. At the social level, the paper provides an overview of sin industries in society, and mitigating their harms.

The main purpose of this paper is to overview and summarize all articles published in the UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal (GRRJ) from 1994 to 2008, in order to understand the gaming research trend.

A content analysis is performed on a total of 129 articles in 24 issues of GRRJ.

The paper suggests thematic content analysis and the trend of the research in order to better understand the scope of gaming research area.

The overview of GRRJ helps identify research gaps to suggest future research.

This paper is the first review of the GRRJ. It provides an overview of the research that is available to managers and researchers interested in the gaming business.

People experiencing homelessness are being identified as a potentially vulnerable group in relation to gambling-related harm. The purpose of this paper is to explore the links between gambling-related harm and homelessness.

A scoping review of the English-language literature was conducted in 2016-2017 using a wide range of international sources. Qualitative content analysis was employed to code and identify key themes within the literature.

Five themes were identified: emerging knowledge about why people experiencing homelessness may participate in gambling; emerging knowledge about the prevalence of gambling within the homeless population; the likelihood that gambling-related harm is under-reported within the homeless population; emerging knowledge about the extent that people experiencing homelessness access gambling support services; and limited awareness about the potential impact of gambling participation among people experiencing homelessness.

The paper reviews research concerning the links between gambling, gambling-related harm and homelessness, which may be relevant to those working with people experiencing homelessness.

Betting games have become a global industry worth billions of dollars providing employment to millions and contributing to the gross domestic product (GDP) of several countries. While there are debates and controversies surrounding betting games discourse, a growing body of literature shows that it has been exacerbated by growing unemployment rates. This paper aims to examine the nexus between the increasing involvement of youth in betting games and unemployment from the Nigerian perspective.

The study adopts simple random and stratified sampling techniques to select participants for the study. Three hypotheses were tested for this study and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation model (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.

The three hypotheses tested in this study were coined from previous literature. The study established a direct link between technology advancement, promises of winning big coupled with bonuses while unemployment was not significant to youth involvement in betting games. The study also showed that playing betting games provides another source of income to the youth, who are already engaged in one form of work or another. Finally, youth involvement in betting games has created awareness regarding different sports in the world, while contributing to Nigeria’s economy.

As betting games centre as a business in Nigeria has contributed substantially and positively to unemployment in Nigeria; the Government of Nigeria are encouraged to streamline and regulate the activities of the sector such that they can contribute significantly to the country GDP and provide employment opportunities to the youths.

The research shows that the reason why betting games have a massive turnaround of youths in Nigeria is not majorly because of unemployment but as another means to a substantial financial individual/family income. Thus, Nigerian youths see betting games as an avenue to make more money. The study is the first of its kind to examine the nexus between betting games, technology and unemployment hence, its contribution to knowledge.

Employees play a significant role in implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices. This paper aims to examine the perceived importance of CSR practices and identifies improvement areas of CSR practices using the importance-performance analysis from Macao’s casino employees’ perspective.

Based on a literature review of CSR in the hospitality industry and ISO 26000, a comprehensive set of CSR practices including responsible gaming practices was identified. Data were collected from 298 casino employees. Importance-performance analysis as well as exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used to identify important CSR practices and the factor structure of CSR in Macao’s gaming industry.

Employees rated “providing good wages and health insurance” as the most important practice, followed by “creating a health and safe working environment” and “be fair and honest with employees.” The importance-performance analysis shows that employees perceived their firms performing well in “providing good wages and health insurance,” “protecting consumer data and consumer privacy” and “providing good consumer service and support.” The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicate that CSR in Macao’s gaming industry encompasses seven factors, namely, “Labor Practices,” “The Environment,” “Fair Operating Practices,” “Consumer Issues,” “Human Rights,” “Community Involvement” and “Responsible Gaming”.

Casino employees shape customer experience, recognizing and understanding how employees view CSR practices can help casino operators refine their CSR initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges of countering fraud in Malta’s remote gaming industry.

Six individuals from three major stakeholders in Malta’s remote gaming industry were interviewed for this study.

The interviewees report that a multitude of fraudulent activities are present in Malta’s remote gaming industry. This includes identity fraud, credit card fraud, bonus abuse and collusion and chip dumping. Participants indicate that crimes of fraud often go unreported and unrecorded, resulting in a limited evidence base upon which to develop holistic and effective counter-fraud measures.

The research sample is small, although this study is the first to examine the perspectives of key stakeholders working in one of the world’s largest remote gaming industries. Findings are of relevance to regulated online gambling markets across the globe.

The study suggests that better intelligence sharing amongst gambling operators and regulators can serve to enhance counter-fraud measures both locally and internationally.

The reputational and commercial imperative of gambling operators and regulators means that research studies pertaining to the topic of crime in the remote gaming industry that incorporate their perspectives are rare.

Varied accounts exist regarding the role of trust and satisfaction in online continuance intention and contexts within which this occurs. The purpose of this paper is to consider the moderating effect of structural assurance (SA) on satisfaction and trust and trust and continuance intention in a pure e-service context (online betting).

UK online bettors were surveyed with an instrument developed using validated variables and measurements, including continuance intention, satisfaction, trust (in vendor) and SA. Structural equation modeling with partial least squares was used to evaluate the measurement and structural model simultaneously.

SA positively moderates the trust–continuance intention relationship but not the satisfaction–trust relationship. SA is positively associated with trust.

The study contributes to research focused on exploring the moderating effects of trust and satisfaction on continuance intention where institution-based mechanisms are perceived to be effective and framed to assure success.

An over-reliance on context-specific mechanisms is inadequate; strategic approaches to trust must consider contextual and institutional mechanisms interdependently.

The paper addresses the need for research relating to the institutional context within which trust mechanisms operate. This research provides a novel contribution through an exploration of the moderating effects of SA on: trust and continuance intention; and satisfaction and trust (the authors also measure the direct effect of SA on trust). This paper is one of the first studies to examine these important concepts in this context. The online betting case allows for the exploration of risk where vendor-specific and contextual risk are both high.