How gambling providers use the social network Twitter in Germany

As we go through 2023 with a new set of gambling advertising regulations in Germany, a pattern regarding social media involvement starts to emerge. Not only do the majority of service providers use social media as advertising tools, but popular ones like Twitter are used more often.

This calls for a detailed analysis of the impact of Twitter gambling advertisement in Germany, so CasinoAllianz with the chief editor Katharina Hahn, presents their take in correlation with the detailed study focusing on the German market. This is what Katharina Hahn says about the study: „The research carried out by these authors is an important contribution to understanding the dynamics of the activity of gambling providers on the Twitter platform in the context of the German market. Their unique approach, which combines qualitative and quantitative analysis of content, has made it possible to more fully reveal the topics and categories used by providers. The coding scheme, developed from associated codes and keywords, provided a systematic tool for classifying data. This combination of methods, as well as checking for categorization consistency, makes this study robust and representative.“

The findings are outlined in this article as they may be particularly interesting to both online bettors and lottery players and those worried about the wide reach of social media that may involve underage readers and have a bad influence on them.

Combined Approach to Research and Analysis

The high consistency of social media usage in Germany makes things a bit more difficult for proper analysis if only one portion of the scale is being used in research. So, the research findings we are discussing in this article combine the best of two scales - qualitative and quantitative.

To put it simply, researchers have merged qualitative data with a quantitative modeling scheme. Here’s how it’s done - First, the target topic keywords are researched based on the frequency of the common statements on Twitter accounts held by German gambling providers.

Next, the most common target words are analyzed through the unique CorEx modeling scheme. This way, we can learn about the most informative pieces of topics showcased on Twitter by the providers, and we can see the correlation between them to find certain patterns.

The coding scheme was developed to help us see the main categories of provider content, which helps in further analysis. Based on their relevance, a total of 13 Twitter accounts have been taken into consideration.

These include some of the country’s biggest names like Admiralbet, Unibet, and Tipico. So, the relevant topics on these accounts are divided into categories, and these are further quantitatively researched through the CorEx algorithm that uses information from tweets as a seed for the modeling scheme.

Qualitative Analysis Results: Categories and Keywords

For the mentioned CorEx analysis model to work, it’s crucial first to have the qualitative metrics of German social network accounts related to betting and gambling. So, qualitative research has been conducted to derive these eight keywords and categories that are consistently being mentioned through tweets:

• News
• Product advertising
• Additional information
• Marketing
• Results
• Responsible gambling
• Other
• Interaction

These are used as a base for further correlation analysis through CorEx, so let’s take a closer look at each. First, we have the news category, which has been deemed the most consistent one among German Twitter gambling feeds.

After thorough research, there’s a common conclusion that the news category is simply used for informational purposes rather than promoting gambling or betting. A perfect example is that some betting providers add hashtags to prominent sports clubs, like it’s the case with Bayern Germany Twitter, to get more views and readers.

Here, you can find details on lineups for sports events and similar details, so we moved on to the product advertising category. A perfect example is Admiralbet, a large gambling chain that uses Twitter to advertise its betting and casino offers to players.

As you can see, these two are the most commonly used, and yet they have two distinctive purposes for Twitter visitors. The additional information category further explains some betting offers, as widely used on BWin and similar betting operators.

The marketing metric is different as it stands for promoting the services and offers of the providers on this social network, and the results were inconclusive as different providers used this metric in different ways.

The results were used to show the lottery draw numbers on some sites and sports results on betting sites. Responsible gambling is interesting as it’s not used as frequently as it should be since most providers don’t even feature any warnings for underage players.

Finally, the other and interactions metrics are used to describe user responses or incentives for players to visit the site or use its offers, and these were rarely used.

Comparison of Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis

So far, we never had such research on German gambling Twitter content that uses a two-way approach, so either qualitative or quantitative metrics were used. However, we now have a more detailed approach to combining the two, so let’s see why that’s the case by comparing them.

The qualitative approach means taking a random sample of around 50 tweets from each provider and their accounts. Scanning the total of 650 tweets from 13 providers and checking their consistency leaves us with the eight distinctive categories we’ve already explained above.

So, this approach gives us an overall idea of the main topics of these tweets and allows us to see how frequent they are for each provider. On the other hand, the CorEx model combines the data with a quantitative approach as it allows broader dataset access with more than 18,000 inputs scanned by the tweets from these providers altogether.

Because of these two metrics, we can get a rough estimate of how often certain topics have been mentioned by specific providers and get the numbers needed for the analysis.

Types of Content on Twitter

Because of the Twitter Germany content analysis, we wanted to give you an idea of the quantitative metrics, and by these, we mean how often the category has been mentioned by the providers.

Here are the percentages for the most common eight metrics and categories:

• News - 33%
• Product advertising - 21%
• Additional information - 18%
• Marketing - 11%
• Results - 8%
• Responsible gambling - less than 5%
• Other - 4%
• Interaction - 1%

Looking at the quantitative data allows us to understand these categories better, and the “news” one is the best example. Even though it’s the most widespread category, it still doesn’t mean it’s used to promote gambling or betting online, but rather to keep enthusiasts informed of the latest trends.

On the other hand, results can be misleading since the “product advertising” category could lead to some promotional offers of providers being accessible to underage readers.

While the “additional info” metric wasn’t used in the same way by all providers, the “marketing” one usually reflected brand promotion through various sponsorships.

The “results” category also depends on the site (with differences being in lottery results or betting event results), and “responsible gambling” usually meant images with the age limit of gambling in Germany being displayed, so the 18+ sign was visible.

The rest includes information about the brand that didn’t fit among previously mentioned categories.

Impact on Users and Significance of Ads

As the research suggests, Twitter ads are sort of a gray area for German providers and Twitter Germany as a content platform. The results show that gambling and betting operators aren’t as present on Twitter as they are in other countries like the UK, which has at least 10 times more of an influence.

It’s not even used as much as other social platforms for German providers, and Unibet, as one of the largest gambling operators in Germany, is a perfect example. Here, we can see that only a mere 4,000+ Twitter followers are daily scrolling the operator’s feed, compared with more than 900,000 followers on Facebook.

Again, this could be for a variety of reasons, and one of them could be that the Facebook page is visited by those exclusively looking for Unibet offers and odds, while tweets may even be accidentally viewed by those who aren’t as interested in the niche.

Also, we have to note that this research points to the paradox we wanted to showcase to you - Twitter posts could be seen by underage users of the social network. Not only could this influence them to view gambling-related content, but it could also lead players struggling with gambling addictions to be exposed to the content even while merely scrolling Twitter posts.

Regulation and Restrictions: Perspectives for Germany

Because of the new gambling advertising regulations in Germany, sportsb betting providers need to be licensed to offer marketing products, and this is still an ongoing issue. You see, the issue is the exposure of certain marketing tactics, and Twitter surely gets a lot of attention and daily visitors that could be from endangered groups.

This reflects the fact that gambling posts can be seen by minors or gambling addicts, regardless of whether they are in the process of getting help or not.

Still, as the study suggests, German gambling exposure via Twitter isn’t only used by providers as a means to give readers incentive to gamble. Moreover, the research finds that it’s usually about the news and in the form of an informational character that interested readers can witness.

So, the conclusion is that further regulation is needed since this type of content can be harmful regardless of whether it was meant to entice readers to gamble or simply to serve informational purposes.

Limitations of Research and Future Directions

Because of what we outlined in the previous section and trends related to gambling in Germany, our conclusion is that this research needs further expanded. We may need more details on the affected groups by Twitter ads and how they affect the readers.

Until then, we can only focus on the existing research and discuss technical issues that may make this research inconclusive. First, we have to point out some issues with obtaining the information from Twitter since there’s only so much you can access among history logs on API, and it’s not possible to find all the details in the long run.

Plus, it’s difficult to get all the metrics needed for the research since you can mostly get info from up to 100 tweets per request. We could go on, but you probably get the point - Twitter isn’t exactly the best place to draw statistical data needed for scientific research.

On top of that, we also have to count on changes due to COVID-19 since sports events were limited and providers had to resort to different marketing tactics. So, markets like Twitter may also be affected by external factors.

Importance of Regulation and Next Steps

Overall, we hope that this insight into the research conducted on how different providers use Twitter in Germany has helped you get a general idea of the findings. We have to say that the market is quite smaller than it is in the UK or other countries, and it may not be gambling-relevant either (due to all the news-related tweets).

Besides, the regulations are still being passed, and we hope that vulnerable groups can be protected by new rules that will prevent gambling providers in Germany from promoting gambling content to minors or those dealing with addiction.