Evaluating the usability of and user experience with electronic gaming machines at casinos

Casino operation is generally considered as a controversial leisure industry. Given its electronic gambling equipment being highly specialized information systems specific to the industry, such equipment has not drawn much attention from the literature on usability and user experience compared with information systems deployed in most other industries. As electronic gaming machines (EGMs), emulating mechanical slot machines, epitomize the category of electronic gambling equipment in longest real-life service at casinos, this article evaluates gamblers'/users' perception of EGMs' usability and user experience in a broad sense. Augmenting the prime constructs of the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) with the additional construct "trust"and adopting the construct operationalization commonly applied to them in the literature, such constructs as "perceived ease of use", "perceived usefulness", "perceived risk"(RISK), "attitude"(ATTD), "social influence"(SI), "innovativeness"(INNOVA), "stress to use a technology"(STRESS) and "trust"(TR) in respect of EGMs were rated by n = 694 respondents in a questionnaire survey conducted in late 2022 in Macao. Paired-samples t-tests were employed to pairwise compare the ratings of these constructs. It was found that of all these constructs, RISK's mean ratings were the lowest and ATTD's the highest. In other words, relative to other usability and user experience perspectives of existing EGMs' designs, risk prevention or its presentation to the gamblers/users fell most short of expectation, and the gamblers'/users' attitude towards EGMs was most outstanding. In conclusion, this article advises that risk prevention be prioritized for amelioration, and gamblers'/users' attitude towards EGMs is most preferably to be maintained.