Artificial Intelligence and virtual reality to identify as soon as possible who is at risk of pathological gambling addiction. This is the goal of the first experiment that is about to start in Italy thanks to the use of a technological platform that generates virtual gambling scenes capable of stimulating the user with bets, scratch cards and slot machines. Now in the experimental phase, the project now provides for the training of the algorithm for the identification of subjects ‘sensitive’ to pathological gambling, with a view to diagnosing and preventing gambling addiction.
Gambling addiction
According to the Observatory of the Ministry of Health, 1.3 million people in Italy suffer from pathological gambling addiction. In 2019, 19.40 billion were spent on gambling in our country. The latest ‘photograph’ of the situation is that taken from a study on Italians’ gambling habits conducted by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, in collaboration with the Mario Negri Institute, the Institute for Study, Prevention and the Network Oncologica (ISPRO), the University of Pavia and the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University of Milan. The data shows that after an inevitable decrease in gambling, both terrestrial and online, during the lockdown, there was a peak just after the relaxation of the rules, especially of online gaming. In addition, the time spent playing increased by almost an hour and a small percentage even started gambling during the lockdown. The practice of gambling from 16.3% in the prepandemic period fell during the lockdown period to 9.7% and then rose again to 18% in the period of partial restrictions.
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Scratch & Win, but also Clash Royale
The most played games in all surveys are confirmed as Scratch and Win for land-based gambling and for online gaming, Sports Betting, Scratch and Win and Slot Machines. In the latest survey, the practice of free video games was also investigated in which, from a site or application on a computer, mobile device, tablet or social network, it is possible to pay to advance in the game (example: CandyCrush, Brawl Stars, Clash Royale, Fortnite, etc.). In the last 4 weeks of the survey, 33% of the sample said they had played these games. “With the relaxation of restrictions – he says Roberta Pacifici, director of the National Center for Addiction and Doping – there has been a new increase in the population that practices gambling, up to exceeding, in the case of online gamblers, the percentage prior to the pandemic. The strong relationship found between situations of emotional distress and addictive behaviors requires urgent policies to prevent vulnerable populations from increasing and developing serious gambling addiction ”.
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Prevention becomes technologically advanced
In general, to prevent the risk of developing forms of pathological gambling, educational and information initiatives are carried out to raise awareness, analysis and monitoring of player behavior, training of health workers, educators and teachers. But for some years now, advanced technologies have been used in many fields of prevention. Now we try to do the same thing also for the prevention of this form of addiction using artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR). Solutions of this kind are aimed at the early identification of individuals with neurobiological vulnerability for gambling addiction, so as to be able to develop targeted and appropriate interventions on a sensitive population target.
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The start of the experimentation
In these days, the start of the experimentation of a study protocol entitled: “Identification of digital biomarkers for the screening of neurobiological vulnerability in gambling addiction”, coordinated by the Addiction Department of Ulss 6 Euganea. “This is the first protocol in Europe to integrate AI and VR for the early diagnosis of gambling addictions and can pave the way for more effective treatment modalities”, he points out. Giuseppe RivaProfessor of General Psychology at the Catholic University of Milan and scientific consultant of the project. The same protocol is included in the broader “Game Change” project, developed by Ulss 6 with the aim of reducing the consequences of pathological gambling on the population. “The experimentation of artificial intelligence and augmented reality in the field of prevention and research on pathological gambling actually opens up new and increasingly advanced technological perspectives also in this field”, confirm Giancarlo Zecchinato, director of the Dependence Department of Ulss 6 Euganea, e Arianna Camporese, head of the Cambio Gioco project.
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A virtual play set
The idea on which the experimentation is based is a bit to act as a bait. The technological platform, developed by Ett, a Genoese digital industry leader in immersive solutions, in fact, consists of a VR headset (VR Head Mounted Display – HMD), a wearable sensor and a smartphone, and recreates what is called “setting virtual ad hoc ”, similar in all respects to reality but devoid of the negative consequences that can occur, instead, in a real setting. The viewer, in fact, consists of an immersive Oculus cable-free helmet that shows those who use it 360 ° digital videos, with perfect environmental simulation levels and full participation in the scene. The virtual scenarios recreated by the platform as part of the experimentation are a betting room, a bar that sells scratch cards and a video lottery room with slot machines. Virtual reality allows you to recreate the complexity of the gaming environment and its stimuli, which can be ‘controlled’ by those who manage the studio to the point of stimulating craving, or the compulsive desire to play.
Data collection
While the person is involved in the virtual reality experience, some data is automatically collected. A first element collected concerns the position of the gaze based on the vertical and horizontal coordinates, so as to generate a “heat map”, or visual feedback, which is able to indicate which objects the gaze has focused more on. This output is then correlated to physiological parameters (digital biomarkers) such as heart rate, simultaneously detected by a wearable sensor placed on the forearm, to evaluate how they vary according to the image viewed by the user. Thanks to the virtual experience, the visual feedbacks are scanned second by second so as to focus on the area with the greatest emotional impact of the simulated scene in the game setting. “With the experimentation of this new digital platform – adds the head of the research protocol, Silvia Lazzaro – the traditional prevention of gambling addiction makes use of new technological tools that make it possible to intercept the population most sensitive to this form of addiction at an early stage, in order to implement targeted and increasingly appropriate interventions “.
‘Train’ an algorithm
Thanks to these first elements, it will be possible to train an algorithm capable of identifying subjects ‘sensitive’ to pathological gambling on the basis of the activation of physiological markers, such as heart rate. For the training of the algorithm, the study protocol of Ulss 6 Euganea provides for the enrollment of a clinical sample (population diagnosed with Pathological Gambling Disorder) and a non-clinical sample (general population). This is because the algorithm, with which the data coming from the videos of the platform are processed, can “learn” according to the machine learning technique to distinguish the traits between subjects, based on the sample they belong to. The model for the detection of physiological markers has an admittedly predictive nature: it is centered exclusively on the ability to predict individual vulnerability to gambling, and therefore can provide healthcare professionals with useful information for the clinical diagnosis and prevention of pathological gambling addiction. ‘gamble.
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