Why Some Sports Bettors Think Gambling Addiction Prevented Them from Becoming Winners? A Qualitative Approach to Understanding the Role of Knowledge in Sports Betting Products

Abstract

Sports betting products rely upon a balance between their knowledge and chance based structural characteristics. The emphasis by bookmakers on mastering the knowledge-based elements to become winners poses significant challenges for those seeking help for gambling disorder. Bettors find difficulties in integrating their preconceptions about the role of knowledge and skills in winning, into the new cognitive restructuring fostered by cognitive-behavioural therapy. Using a grounded theory approach, this study collected data from 43 Spanish sports bettors undergoing treatment for gambling disorder. The results suggest sports bettors neutralize some gambling-related cognitive distortions during CBT but retain others. Sports bettors try to eliminate them but encounter external validation to retain them, as well as internal incongruences to integrate them into a coherent understanding of how gambling works. The results are discussed with the aim of providing practical guidance as to how skill versus chance related persistent cognitions can be addressed in CBT.