The study dedicated to the problem of gambling motivation is of vital importance for software developers and all companies investing great sums in free slots. The reasons for starting gambling are very important for designing future slots featuring competitive advantages, that’s why there have been conducted many researches, concerning these matters.

Playing Four clusters

According to the conducted survey, all gamblers can be divided into certain clusters depending on their income, age groups, education and gambling preferences. The results can be found in International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management and in various interviews. The study involved more than a thousand responses who were supposed to fill in the form of the questionnaire. There were mainly questions about duration of gambling sessions, favorite free slots, preferences in thematic content of machines and the like. Gamblers ranked 37 reasons for making a choice of one slot over another one. Using statistical methods and component analysis, researches managed to identify four main categories of gamblers:

• Utilitarian. These people gamble just because they enjoy the process, they play for many other reasons, but none of them can be ranked as the most important.

• Excited. For this group of gamblers excitement and thrill is on the first place, while winning money being on the second.

• Multipurpose. This group likes everything in gambling – chances to get huge prizes, excitement, relaxation. They enjoy the complex unity of all these advantages.

• Relaxation. These gamblers mostly enjoy relaxation.

Conclusion

Women-gamblers tend to be members of such groups, as Utilitarian and Excited, while most men tend to be in Relaxation and Multipurpose clusters. So, the study suggests casino’s extolling excitement of slots for female slot fans.

The most important features that happened to influence the game choice were the slot’s denomination, chances of winning, overall bet size, level of excitement and fun, ease of accessing a bonus round. It’s rather surprising that only a third of gamblers showed interest in progressive slots.