Gambling envirnonment.

I ran across an academic article the other day that I thought I'd give a short review of.

Mark Griffiths and Jonathan Parke, The enviornmental psychology of gambling. unpublished (I think). Copy available from Mark Griffiths, Psychology Division, Department of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham, NG1 4BU, United Kingdom

There are two catogories of marketing methods used to attract gamblers. Situational characteristics of the gambling experiance and structural characteristics of the games. This artilcal focuses on the situational characgteristics.

Sound effects and background noise are often gambling inducers. Noise creates both an impression of fun and installs the idea that winning is mnore common than it actually is.

They don't quote any direct evidence about music and gambling but do refer to some studies about music and wine sales, restuarent table turnover, willingness to purchase high ticket items, etc.

They talk some about how color affects behavior and attitudes.

All in all it's an interesting article that doesn't really give any hard data about enviornment and gambling but suggests a number of areas that are probably ripe for investigation.