Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36707481›Full record

ArticleJournal of gambling studies2023

Large-Scale Web Scraping for Problem Gambling Research: A Case Study of COVID-19 Lockdown Effects in Germany.

Elke Smith, Simon Michalski, Kilian H K Knauth, Kai Kaspar, Nils Reiter, Jan Peters

Open access · hybridAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of gambling studies, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
1.6field-weighted citation impact, top 19% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Elke SmithDepartment of Psychology, Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany. e.smith@uni-koeln.de.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2836-0924
Simon MichalskiDepartment of Psychology, Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Kilian H K KnauthDepartment of Psychology, Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Kai KasparDepartment of Psychology, Social and Media Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Nils ReiterDepartment of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Jan PetersDepartment of Psychology, Biological Psychology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
University of Cologne · DETH Köln - University of Applied Sciences · DE

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and the measures to prevent its spread have had a negative impact on substance use behaviour. It is likely that social distancing and lockdown measures have also altered gambling behaviour, for instance shifting from land-based to online gambling. We used large-scale web scraping to analyse posting behaviour on a major German online gambling forum, gathering a database of more than 200k posts. We examined the usage of different subforums, i.e. terrestrial, online gambling and problem gambling sections, and changes in posting behaviour related to the casino closures that were part of the nationwide restrictions in Germany in 2020. There was a marked increase in newly registered users during the first lockdown compared to the preceding weeks, an increase in the number of posts in the online gambling subforum and concurrent decrease in the terrestrial gambling subforum. Further, the number of short-latency replies was higher during the first lockdown compared to the preceding weeks. Many users who posted in both the online and terrestrial forum contributed at least once to the problem gambling subforum, implying that the topic of problem gambling is widely discussed. Our findings may indicate a shift from terrestrial to online gambling during lockdown, and mirror the general increase in screen time and usage of online platforms after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analyses help to identify lockdown-related effects on gambling behaviour. These potentially detrimental effects pose a special threat for individuals at risk and may require monitoring and special public health measures.

Indexed as

COVID-19GamblingCommunicable Disease ControlGermanyHumansPandemicsCOVID-19Gambling forumLockdownOnline gamblingProblem gambling

Identifiers

PMID36707481
PMCPMC9882744
OpenAlexW4318307525

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.