An in-depth analysis of slot machine vlogs on YouTube
Session Title
Marketing: Media Representation & Consumer Perception
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation
Start Date
27-5-2026 12:00 AM
Abstract
The growing popularity of social media platforms has transformed how gambling content reaches audiences, with gambling vlogs now attracting millions of viewers outside traditional marketing channels. Despite their reach and potential influence, these user-generated videos remain understudied in gambling research. This study sought to analyze slot machine vlogs by examining their portrayal of gambling experiences, assessing viewer engagement patterns, and identifying the video features associated with higher engagement metrics. Using a comprehensive mixed-methods approach, we analyzed 170 popular YouTube slot machine vlogs and 43,837 viewer comments through advanced analytical techniques. Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling identified four themes in gambling portrayal, with betting strategies and game mechanics dominating the narratives. A targeted term detection approach found that responsible gambling (RG) messaging appeared in only 9.41% of videos, while binary logistic regression analyses indicated that these RG-inclusive videos were associated with higher engagement metrics. Viewer comment analysis using SentiStrength showed predominantly neutral-to-positive sentiment, and comment topic modeling uncovered five distinct engagement themes ranging from technical discussions to community building. The study provided insights into this influential content channel and established methodological frameworks for analyzing gambling-related user-generated content.
An in-depth analysis of slot machine vlogs on YouTube
The growing popularity of social media platforms has transformed how gambling content reaches audiences, with gambling vlogs now attracting millions of viewers outside traditional marketing channels. Despite their reach and potential influence, these user-generated videos remain understudied in gambling research. This study sought to analyze slot machine vlogs by examining their portrayal of gambling experiences, assessing viewer engagement patterns, and identifying the video features associated with higher engagement metrics. Using a comprehensive mixed-methods approach, we analyzed 170 popular YouTube slot machine vlogs and 43,837 viewer comments through advanced analytical techniques. Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling identified four themes in gambling portrayal, with betting strategies and game mechanics dominating the narratives. A targeted term detection approach found that responsible gambling (RG) messaging appeared in only 9.41% of videos, while binary logistic regression analyses indicated that these RG-inclusive videos were associated with higher engagement metrics. Viewer comment analysis using SentiStrength showed predominantly neutral-to-positive sentiment, and comment topic modeling uncovered five distinct engagement themes ranging from technical discussions to community building. The study provided insights into this influential content channel and established methodological frameworks for analyzing gambling-related user-generated content.