CHANCE Collaboratory
An innovative approach to study the interactions between consumers, digital games and technologies.
About this initiative
Our digital lives are increasingly architected to addict us. In this context, the Collaboratoire pour l’étude des jeux de Hasard et d’Argent Numériques ConnectÉs (CHANCE) operates as a research space designed to critically analyze gambling, video games and emerging forms of digital consumption. By combining experimental methodologies and advanced data analysis, we seek to understand the impact of these games and their social environment on players' behaviour and to guide preventive harm reduction practices.
Explore. Understand. Prevent.
We believe in the citizen science movement. Our collaboratory is designed to foster participatory research that opens up lab-based experimentation and knowledge-production to participants from academia and beyond. By leveraging our collective knowledge, we aim to develop creative solutions for preventing and treating addiction.
Our mission
To catalyze collaborative research on the digitalization of play, the gamification of consumption, and the role of data flows in regulating emergent modes of digital life, play, and consumption.
Our impact
In the digital age, gambling is playing an increasingly important role in consumers' lives. With the rapid evolution of the mechanisms of immersion and persuasion in these games, their impact on players' behavior is becoming increasingly complex to understand.
The majority of current research focuses on populations already undergoing treatment, leaving a significant gap in our understanding of gambling trajectories prior to the onset of problematic behavior. The CHANCE Collaboratory fills this gap by creating a controlled research environment where researchers and experts can observe, analyze, and model these interactions to produce recommendations based on solid scientific data.
We seek to provide rigorous scientific data to support preventive actions and the regulation of the gaming environment.
Rethinking gambling and gaming through research
At CHANCE, we bridge disciplines to explore the intersections of digital gaming, gambling, and society. Our research challenges assumptions and develops strategies to mitigate harm.
- Intersection of gambling and game studies: Digital games increasingly blend skill and chance, creating new forms of play that can encourage compulsive behaviors. CHANCE provides a space at Concordia University for critical engagement with gambling and quasi-gambling games, deepening our understanding of their mechanics and impacts.
- Sociology of gambling: Gambling research has long focused on individual behaviors, overlooking the social and cultural dimensions of play. CHANCE integrates perspectives from media, leisure, and sociology to explore how digital gambling is shaped by broader societal factors.
- Gambling studies and prevention: Prevention efforts often rely on psychological models of "responsible gambling." CHANCE expands this approach by incorporating lived experiences and social research to develop harm reduction strategies that reflect real-world digital play and consumption.
By connecting these fields, CHANCE advances research that informs policy, supports harm reduction, and fosters ethical game design.