The Significant Factors that affect Consumer Behaviour in the Gambling Industry. A case study William hill.

EMORE EMUDIA
University of Wales

1.1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND

There is a growing number of research on consumer behaviour, (Laros and Steenkamp, (2005). In the past three decades, the prevalence and scale of state lotteries have expanded dramatically, Keane, (2002:3). Gambling matter-of-factly has become a booming industry for consumers of all walks of life. Today, gambling thrives in the Internet, (Woodruff, 2005), with looming customers.

Belch and Belch (2007) argue that consumers generally carry out both an inner (memory) and an exterior search for information of several kinds and issues. Dijksterhuis et al (2004) using the Grocery sector as a leitmotif, contend that buyer behaviour is frequently and sturdily influenced by understated environmental cues. They suggest that severally, choices are made unintentionally and are powerfully influenced by the environment. For Chartrand (2005) consumer behaviour can be influenced by mental processes that ensue outside of conscious awareness. It is claimed that in every purview of automaticity, researchers ought to stipulate the aspects of which buyers are presumably unaware.

Jackson (2005) conjecture that consumer behaviour is key to the impact that society has on the environment as buyer adoptions of products and services have unswerving and unintended impacts on the environment, as well as on personal (and collective) well-being. Verbeke and Vermeir (2005) studied consumer behaviour in a sustainability scenario and contend that the determinants of buyer behaviour are price, attitude perceptions, personality and behavioural features.

Consumer behaviour across several industries according to MooiJ and Hofstede (2002); Bullmore, (2000:48); Czinkota and Ronkainen, (1993:67) can never be homogenized by convergence of technologies rather will remain heterogeneous in different cultural and business zones. Moreover, lottery industries are growing steadily due to the Jackpot successes, Yu (2010) in Diewert et al (2010). Emotions have seen as one contributing force behind consumer participation in gambling deals (Stephens and Gwinner, 1998), and various product attitudes (Dube et al., 2003). However, consumer behaviour is quite different or rather is influenced differently in dissimilar sectors.

Hartley and Farrell (2000) presume that imperfect market situations like diverse borrowing and lending rates can offer an explanation for obstinate gambling given that rates span the rate of time preference. Blaszczynski (2004) and Dickerson (2003) look at ways of establishing responsible gambling behaviour in the United Kingdom. Whereas Haemoon and Carthy (2000) examine consumer behaviour of casual gamblers and propose that it is largely a volitionary process.

Kearney (2002) argues that little is known about the consequences of gambling on consumers. Balabanis (2002) compared the compulsive felt by Cigarette smokers to the addictive force that has kept most gamblers attached to gambling. Furthermore, to expound the horizon of this study it is pertinent to reiterate the origins of consumer behaviour.

It is contended that consumer behaviour itself developed as a distinct pitch of study during the 1960s; Du Plessis et al,(1991), Howard - Sheth (1969), Engel, et al (1968), Andreason (1965), Erasmus (2001) and is characterized by two broad paradigms, the positivist and the non-positivist, Pachauri, (2001). The non-positivist view attempts to study the significance of choice in consumer behaviour. Attempting to ascertain the paradigmatic notions of consumer behaviour in the gambling sector, this research will follow a non-positivist approach to locate the significance of consumer behaviour in William Hill Plc.

1.2. RESEARCH INTRODUCTION

Strategic marketing has been an ever developing