EFFECTS OF EMOTIONS ON CASINO VISITATION: A THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR STUDY

Abstract

The literature investigating the role emotions play on patrons’ casino gambling behavior within the theory of planned behavior (TPB) framework have primarily focused on anticipated emotions. However, anticipated emotions are more unstable compared to experienced emotions with predicting responses to behaviors that have a high degree of uncertainty in the outcomes such as casino gambling. This study investigates the role of experienced emotions within the TPB framework for predicting casino visitation intentions and attitudes via Covariance Based Structural Equation Modeling (CB-SEM). The results show that positive experienced emotions along with subjective norms and attitudes significantly influenced the casino visitation intentions. Additionally, while positive emotions significantly influenced casino visitation attitudes, negative emotions did not. Alternatively, negative emotions were positively correlated with casino visitation intentions. Moreover, the analysis also revealed that respondents from diverse backgrounds varied greatly in their responses of how their experienced emotions and cognitive determinants influenced their casino visitation intentions. Casino marketers can utilize the results to fine-tune their marketing initiatives for eliciting increased visitation amongst their patron databases.