The Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland have done a new study and their findings are that players spend up to 11% more with free bets and bonuses.The survey focused on men under 40 and spoke to 622 bettors just before the Euro 2024 football tournament. Participants were shown various betting options with and without special offers to see what they would choose.
The key findings were players gambled more money if there were offers available even if the odds of the selection was the same. They found that the biggest impact was free bets and even if there were worse odds if there was a money back deal or free bet the customer would take it.
From the survey 27% chose bad bets with free bets over 8% without. The average spend on bad bets with free bets was just over 2 euro compared to 1.50 for money back promotions.
This shows that players are at risk of harmful play when offers are available, spending more money than normal. The ones with problem gambling scores spent more than double on bonus related bets than regular ones. This showed that across all groups people spend a lot more on bad bets if offers are included.
To conclude the study found players are encouraged to gamble more on bets with offers and lose more due to the nature of the bets, especially those already at risk of harm. The research organisations have called on stricter rules like Spain which limits sign up and bonus offers to 100 euro. The gambling inducements aren’t normal marketing tools and encourage players to bet more than they usually would.