Motivation Profiles of Online Poker Players and the Role of Interface Preferences: A Laddering Study among Amateur and (Semi-) Professionals

摘要

Online Poker has become an increasingly popular form of gambling. In general, this topic has been investigated quantitatively whereby the addictive aspects of online gambling have been compared with the impact of its offline counterpart. In this study, the qualitative method of laddering interviews based on means-end chain theory was used to offer new insights in the online Poker players' psychological motives, and their Poker website's interface preferences. We recruited 18 Belgian young adults via snowball sampling, of which 6 amateurs (experienced online Poker players, independent of Poker money), 6 semi-professionals (not having Poker as main occupation) and 6professionals (relying on online Poker as the only source of income). The results revealed that an increase in the dependency of Poker profits shifted motives from learning towards monetary incentives. The (semi-) professionals' financial goals remained strongly interwoven with motives ofentertainment, action, skill, trust and legality, and this in the absence of negative or compulsive experiences. Moreover, playing for real money could not be considered as a purely extrinsic motivation as it greatly determined the game play dynamics and experiences both in the (semi-) professionals and amateur players.