The University of Guelph, in Ontario, just opened a new research lab Monday that uses virtual reality to study gambling addiction.
The lab is equipped with a Panoscope 360, a virtual-reality viewer that immerses a user in a 3-D image. The machine also has surround-sound capabilities. Essentially, it would give the effect of standing in a casino, allowing researchers to study people’s behavior and reactions. Gambling behavior appears to be influenced by aspects of the casino environment, and the researchers want to identify them.
“The big advantage is that we can control what’s going on in the environment,” Jane Londerville, a researcher at the facility, says. “We can put them in a virtual-reality casino with lots of flashing lights, or no flashing lights, and see how they feel in those environments. We couldn’t do that in a real casino.”
Ms. Londerville says research done at the lab can be used to help shape Canadian public policy about casinos and aid the treatment of people with gambling problems. —Hurley Goodall
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