About the Authors

Linda Hancock

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Linda.hancock@deakin.edu.au

Affiliations Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADICG), Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Natalie Ralph

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Validation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliations Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES), Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADICG), Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Florentine Petronella Martino

Roles Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia

Competing Interests

Linda Hancock has received funding from the Australian Research Council in relation to this article. She has been an unpaid expert witness in relation to gambling-related inquiries in Victorian and Commonwealth government inquiries, the Australian Productivity Commission, the South Australian Coronial Court, and inquiries in New Zealand, Canada and the UK; and she was a member of the Singapore Government International Advisory Panel (2014-16). She was appointed by the Governor in Council as Chair of the Victorian Gambling Research Panel (2000-2004) and was a member of the Ministerial Roundtable on Gambling. She was Director of Research for the UK Responsible Gambling Fund and participated in that role on various UK committees on the ESRC, MRC, DCMS and the Gambling Commission. She has conducted independent peer review of bookmaker research for the UK Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and undertook research funded by the Campaign for Fairer Gambling evaluating the Responsible Gambling Trust funded research on fixed odds betting machines in bookmakers' shops (2014 and 2016). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.