We use the word “bet” but don’t let that confuse you. WayBetter isn’t gambling. Cards, dice, and other forms of gambling are based on risk and elements of chance. With WayBetter, you are totally in control of the activities you complete, so our challenges aren’t considered gambling. Whether you win or lose is a result of your hard work, not random selection or luck.
Our games are all about improving health. The outcomes are always fully dependent on players’ behavior, with no element of chance. All players who achieve their behavioral goal in the game are winners. We’ve never been subjected to gambling regulations.
That’s because WayBetter is a behavioral health company. We employ what behavioral scientists call “contingency management”, a well-established therapeutic technique that uses financial incentives to improve adherence to health-related behavior changes. Contingency management has been administered successfully to treat many clinical problems. We use a form of contingency management called a deposit contract that has been demonstrated effective in numerous peer-reviewed studies including our own.
To avoid any hint of gambling, we keep the stakes low and cap the number of games users can play, usually to a few per month. While there’s money on the line, it’s never about making money. It’s all about holding people accountable and adhering to healthy lifestyles.
We received an NIH grant with scientists from the Alpert Medical School of Brown University to study, validate, and publish our clinical results in peer-reviewed journals.
WayBetter’s mission is to solve our society’s healthcare crisis by tackling obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and other behavioral health problems. Unlike gambling, what we do is positive for our participants as well as for society.