Survey of People’s Participation Factors in Sports Betting; Case Study: Football Sports

The present study aimed to investigate people’s participation factors in sports betting. The research method was analytical descriptive performed by the field study method and practical for the purpose. The study statistical population included all those who participated in football betting online. Regarding the lack of access to them, 124 persons were selected as the study sample by the snowball sampling method. The research instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire consisting of 21 indicators and 4 components. The formal and content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed by professors and experts’ opinion, while the exact study of the literature was conducted. Furthermore, its reliability was calculated using Cronbach's alpha coefficient (0.87). Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (Pearson’s correlation coefficient, exploratory factor analysis, and second order confirmatory factor analysis) were used in SPSS and Lisrel software programs for data analysis. The study results indicated that the most important factors in betting participation were economic and financial factors, greed, excitement and addiction to betting.