Gamblers Against Social Barriers: A Survival Analysis of Chile's Self-Exclusion System

Voluntary self-exclusion programs (VSEs) are widely used in responsible gambling, but we know little about how gamblers respond to the social constraints built into these programs. We study Chile's centralized self-exclusion system (2019-2025), where each self-excluded gambler nominates a representative who can block revocation. Using survival analysis, we show that revocation risk depends on the gambler-representative relationship: close family representatives are associated with lower revocation hazards, whereas partners and friends are associated with higher hazards. We also find clear evidence of behavioral adaptation to the veto mechanism. Failed revocation attempts strongly predict later success, and are associated with higher revocation risk. Representative replacement becomes more common with repeated cycling through the system, increasing from 6.7% among first-time self-excluders to 49.3% among individuals with multiple revocations. Together, these results show that the representative requirement functions as a meaningful social barrier, but also that gamblers learn to weaken it over time, with direct implications for the design of self-exclusion policies.