When Entertainment Normalizes Risk: Affective Engagement with Gambling-Themed Media, Permissive Attitudes, and Casino Visit Intention.

Gambling is an increasingly normalized leisure activity, yet the role of entertainment media in cultivating favorable gambling attitudes remains understudied, with most evidence concerning advertising and youth rather than entertainment portrayals and adults. Drawing on cultivation theory and models of narrative persuasion, this study examined whether affective engagement with gambling-themed film, television, and digital games is associated with permissive gambling attitudes and, in turn, casino visit intention among 517 Korean adults. Affective engagement was strongly associated with permissive attitudes, which mediated most of its relationship with intention; the association was descriptively strongest for interactive games. Notably, perceived gambling harm bore little relationship to intention, and effects did not vary by prior casino experience. Findings extend the media-normalization framework to gambling and suggest that risk-focused messaging alone may be insufficient to counter the normalization associated with entertainment portrayals.