Skip to main content
Key Specialties
Cardiology Diabetology Endocrinology Gastroenterology Geriatrics and Gerontology Gynecology and Obstetrics Hematology Infectious Disease Internal Medicine Nephrology Neurology Oncology Pediatrics Respiratory Medicine Rheumatology Surgery
Congress Coverage
2024 ACC Congress 2023 ESMO Congress 2023 EASD Congress 2023 ERS Congress 2023 ESC Congress 2023 EHA Congress 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting
Clinical Collections
Advances in Alzheimer’s

At a glance: The ONWARDS insulin icodec trials

A round-up of the ONWARDS phase 3 clinical trials evaluating the novel weekly insulin icodec in people with diabetes.
ADVANCED SEARCH
Log in
Top
Journal of Gambling Studies
Published in: Journal of Gambling Studies 3/2009

01-09-2009 | Original Paper

Extremely Frequent Behavior in Consumer Research: Theory and Empirical Evidence for Chronic Casino Gambling

Authors: Ralph Perfetto, Arch G. Woodside

Published in: Journal of Gambling Studies | Issue 3/2009

Login to get access

Abstract

The present study informs understanding of customer segmentation strategies by extending Twedt’s heavy-half propositions to include a segment of users that represent less than 2% of all households—consumers demonstrating extremely frequent behavior (EFB). Extremely frequent behavior (EFB) theory provides testable propositions relating to the observation that few (2%) consumers in many product and service categories constitute more than 25% of the frequency of product or service use. Using casino gambling as an example for testing EFB theory, an analysis of national survey data shows that extremely frequent casino gamblers do exist and that less than 2% of all casino gamblers are responsible for nearly 25% of all casino gambling usage. Approximately 14% of extremely frequent casino users have very low-household income, suggesting somewhat paradoxical consumption patterns (where do very low-income users find the money to gamble so frequently?). Understanding the differences light, heavy, and extreme users and non-users can help marketers and policymakers identify and exploit “blue ocean” opportunities (Kim and Mauborgne, Blue ocean strategy, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 2005), for example, creating effective strategies to convert extreme users into non-users or non-users into new users.
Literature
American Psychiatric Association. (1985). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Armstrong, J. S., & Andress, J. G. (1970). Exploratory analysis of marketing data: Tree vs. regression. Journal of Marketing Research, 7(4), 487–492.CrossRef
Barton, A. H. (1955). The concept of property-space in social research. In P. F. Lazarsfeld & M. Rosenberg (Eds.), Language of social research (pp. 40–53). Glencoe: Free.
Bass, F., Tigert, D. T., & Lonsdale, R. (1968). Market segmentation: Group versus individual behavior. Journal of Marketing Research, 5(3), 264–270.CrossRef
Bearden, W. O., & Etzel, M. J. (1982). Reference group influence on product and brand purchase decision. Journal of Consumer Research, 9(March), 183–194.CrossRef
Belk, R. W. (1988). Possessions and the extended self. Journal of Consumer Research, 15, 139–168.CrossRef
Belk, R. W., Mayer, R., & Bahn, K. (1982). The eye of the beholder: Individual differences in perceptions of consumption symbolism. In A. Mitchell (Ed.), Advances in consumer research (Vol. 9, pp. 523–530). Ann Arbor: Association for Consumer Research.
Bennett, A., & Elman, C. (2006). Complex causal relations and case study methods: The example of path dependence. Political Analysis, 14(3), 250–267.CrossRef
Bjelde, K., Chromy, B., & Pankow, D. (2008). Casino gambling among older adults in North Dakota. Journal of Gambling Studies, 24(4), 423–440.PubMedCrossRef
Campbell, D. T. (1969). Reforms as experiments. American Psychologist, 24, 409–429.CrossRef
Cerino, V. (1998). UNMC study reveals growing gambling addiction among Omaha’s older adults. University of Nebraska Medical Center, UNMC Public Affairs.
Cocanougher, A. B., & Bruce, G. D. (1971). Socially distant reference groups and consumer aspirations. Journal of Marketing Research, 8(August), 79–81.
Cook, T., & Campbell, D. T. (1979). Quasi-experimentation: Design & analysis issues for field settings. Dallas, TX: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Cook, V, Jr., & Mindak, W. (1984). A search for constants: the “heavy user” revisited!. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 1(Spring), 79–81.
Elman, C. (2005). Explanatory typologies in qualitative studies of international politics. International Organization, 59(2), 293–326.CrossRef
Englis, B., & Solomon, M. (1995). To be and not to be: Lifestyle imagery, reference groups, and the clustering of America. Journal of Advertising, 24(Spring), 13–28.
Frank, R. (1967). Correlates of buying behavior for grocery products. Journal of Marketing, 31(October), 48–53.CrossRef
Frank, R., Massy, W., & Boyd, H. (1967). Correlates of grocery product consumption rates. Journal of Marketing Research, 4(2), 184–190.CrossRef
George, A. L., & Bennett, A. (2005). Case studies and theory development in the social sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Goldsmith, R. (2000). Characteristics of the heavy user of fashionable clothing. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 8(4), 21.
Goldsmith, R., & d’Hauteville, F. (1998). Heavy wine consumption: Empirical and theoretical perspectives. British Food Journal, 100(4), 184–190.CrossRef
Goldsmith, R., & Litvin, S. (1999). Heavy users of travel agents: A segmentation analysis of vacation travelers. Journal of Travel Research, 38(2), 127–133.CrossRef
Haley, R. I. (1968). Benefit segmentation: A decision oriented research tool. Journal of Marketing, 32(1), 30–35.
Hollander, E., Buchalter, A., & DeCaria, C. (2000). Pathological gambling. The Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 23(3), 629–642.PubMedCrossRef
Holman, R. M. (1980). Clothing as communications: An empirical investigation. In J. Olson (Ed.), Advances in consumer research (Vol. 7, pp. 372–377). Ann Arbor: Association for Consumer Research.
Holman, R. M. (1981). Product use as communication: An appraisal of a venerable topic. In B. Enis & K. Roering (Eds.), Review of marketing (pp. 250–272). Chicago, IL: American Marketing Association.
Hope, J., & Havir, L. (2002). You bet they’re having fun! Older Americans and casino gambling. Journal of Aging Studies, 16(2), 177–197.CrossRef
Johansson, A., Grant, J. E., Kim, S. W., Odlaug, B. L., & Götestam, K. G. (2009). Risk factors for problematic gambling: A critical literature review. Journal of Gambling Studies, 25(1), 67–92.PubMedCrossRef
Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2005). Blue ocean strategy. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Kusyszyn, I. (1984). The psychology of gambling. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 474(July), 133–145.CrossRef
Lazarsfeld, P. (1965). Qualitative measurement in social science: Classification, typologies, and indices. In D. Lerner & H. D. Lasswell (Eds.), The policy sciences (pp. 155–192). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lesieur, H. R., & Blume, S. B. (1987). The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS): A new instrument for the identification of pathological gamblers. American Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 1184–1188.PubMed
Levy, S. (1959). Symbols for sale. Harvard Business Review, 37(July–August), 117–124.
Levy, S. (1964). Symbolism and life style. In S. A. Greyser (Ed.), Toward scientific marketing (pp. 140–150). Chicago: American Marketing Association.
Loudon, D., & Bitta, A. D. (1993). Consumer behavior: Concepts and applications. New York: McGraw Hill.
Lowrey, T., Englis, B., Shavitt, S., & Solomon, M. (2001). Response latency verification of consumption constellations: Implications for advertising. Journal of Advertising, 30(1), 29–39.
MacLaurin, D. J., & Wolstenholme, S. (2008). An analysis of the gaming industry in the Niagara region. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 20(3), 320–331.CrossRef
Marshall, K. (2007). Gambling. Perspectives on Labor and Income, Statistics Canada, Catalogue No. 75-001-XIE, May online edition.
Moufakkir, O., Singh, A. J., Moufakkir-van der Woud, A., & Holecek, D. (2004). Impact of light, medium and heavy spenders on casino destinations: Segmenting gaming visitors based on amount of non-gaming expenditures. UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal, 8(1), 59–71.
O’Guinn, T., & Faber, R. (1989). Compulsive buying: A phenomenological exploration. Journal of Consumer Research, 16(2), 147–157.CrossRef
Palmgreen, P., Lorch, E., Donohew, L., Harrington, N., D’Silva, M., & Helm, D. (1995). Reaching at-risk populations in a mass media drug abuse prevention campaign: Sensation seeking as a targeting variable. Drugs & Society, 8(34), 29–45.
Petry, N. M., Stinson, F. S., & Grant, B. F. (2005). Comorbidity of DSM-IV pathological gambling and other psychiatric disorders: Results form the national epidemiologic survey on alcohol and related conditions. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 66(5), 564–574.PubMedCrossRef
Ragin, C. C. (2000). Fuzzy-set social science. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Reichardt, C. (1979). The design and analysis of the non-equivalent group quasi-experiment. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University, Chicago.
Shavitt, S., & Nelson, M. (2000). The social identity function in person perceptions: Communicated meanings of product preferences. In G. R. Maio & J. M. Olson (Eds.), Why we evaluate: Function of attitudes (pp. 37–57). Mahwaj, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Solomon, M. (1988). Mapping product constellations: A categorization approach to symbolic consumption. Psychology & Marketing, 5(3), 233–258.
Solomon, M., & Assael, H. (1987). The forest or the trees? A gestalt approach to symbolic consumptions. In J. Umiker-Sebeok (Ed.), Marketing and semiotics: New directions in the study of sings for sale (pp. 189–218). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Spotts, D., & Mahoney, E. (1991). Segmenting visitors to a destination region based on volume of their expenditures. Journal of Travel Research, 29(4), 24–31.CrossRef
Stafford, J. E. (1966). Effects of group influences on consumer brand preferences. Journal of Marketing Research, 3(1), 68–75.CrossRef
Sujan, M., & Bettman, J. (1989). The effects of brand positioning strategies on consumers’ brand and category perceptions: Some insights from schema research. Journal of Marketing Research, 26(4), 454–467.CrossRef
Tigert, D., Lathrope, R., & Bleeg, M. (1971). The fast food franchises; Psychographic and demographic segmentation analysis. Journal of Retailing, 47(Spring), 81–90.
Twedt, D. W. (1964). How important is the “heavy-user”? Journal of Marketing, 28(1), 71–72.CrossRef
Ward, J., & Loken, B. (1986). The quintessential snack food: Measurement of product prototypes. In R. J. Lutz (Ed.), Advances in consumer research (Vol. 13, pp. 126–131). Provo, UT: Association for Consumer Research.
Wolfgang, A. (1988). Gambling as a function of gender and sensation seeking. Journal of Gambling Behavior, 4(2), 71–77.CrossRef
Woodside, A., Cook, V., & Mindak, W. (1987). Profiling the heavy travel segment. Journal of Travel Research, 25(4), 9–14.CrossRef
Woodside, A., & Soni, P. (1991). Customer portfolio analysis for strategic development in direct marketing. Journal of Direct Marketing, 5(2), 6–19.CrossRef
Woodside, A., & Trappey, R. (1996). Customer portfolio analysis among competing retail stores. Journal of Business Research, 35, 189–200.CrossRef
Metadata
Title
Extremely Frequent Behavior in Consumer Research: Theory and Empirical Evidence for Chronic Casino Gambling
Authors
Ralph Perfetto
Arch G. Woodside
Publication date
01-09-2009
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Journal of Gambling Studies / Issue 3/2009
Electronic ISSN: 1573-3602
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-009-9130-3

Other articles of this Issue 3/2009

Journal of Gambling Studies 3/2009 Go to the issue

Original Paper

Wins, Winning and Winners: The Commercial Advertising of Lottery Gambling

Original Paper

A Comparison of Ambient Casino Sound and Music: Effects on Dissociation and on Perceptions of Elapsed Time While Playing Slot Machines

Original Paper

Electronic Gaming Machine Gambling: Measuring Motivation

Original Paper

Impulse Control Disorder Behaviors Associated with Pramipexole Used to Treat Fibromyalgia

Original Paper

Impact of Visiting an Onsite Casino Information Centre on Perceptions about Randomness and Gambling Behaviours

Original Paper

Is Video-Game Playing a Risk Factor for Pathological Gambling in Australian Adolescents?