Assessing the Playing Field: A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Internet Sports Gambling Behavior

Internet gambling is growing rapidly, as is concern about its possible effect on the public’s health. This paper reports the results of the first prospective longitudinal study of actual Internet sports gambling behavior during eight study months. Data include recorded fixed-odds bets on the outcome of sporting contests and live-action bets on the outcome of events within contests for 40,499 Internet sports gambling service subscribers who enrolled during February 2005. We tracked the following primary gambling behaviors: daily totals of the number of bets made, money bet, and money won. We transformed these variables into measures of gambling involvement. We analyzed behavior for both fixed-odds and live-action bets. The median betting behavior of the 39,719 fixed-odds bettors was to place 2.5 bets of €4 (approximately $5.3 US) every fourth day during the median 4 months from first to last bet. This typical pattern incurred a loss of 29% of the amount wagered. The median betting behavior of the 24,794 live-action bettors was to place 2.8 wagers of €4 every fourth day during the median duration of 6 weeks at a loss of 18% of the amount wagered. We also examined the behavior of empirically determined groups of heavily involved bettors whose activity exceeded that of 99% of the sample.     

Gambling, Delinquency, and Drug Use During Adolescence: Mutual Influences and Common Risk Factors

The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to assess the possible mutual influence between gambling, substance use, and delinquency over a two-year period during mid adolescence, (2) to test whether variables that are usually predictive of delinquency and substance use also predict gambling, and (3) to test whether the links between the three problem behaviors could be, at least partially, accounted for by common antecedent factors (impulsivity, parental supervision, and deviant friends) assessed during early adolescence. Seven hundred and seventeen boys participated in the study. Impulsivity, parental supervision, and friends' deviancy were collected when participants were 13 and 14 years of age. Gambling, substance use, and delinquency were collected through self-reports at ages 16 and 17 years. Results showed no influence or modest influence of problem behaviors on each other from age 16 to age 17 years, once current links and auto-correlations were accounted for. Conversely, the cross-sectional links between the three problem behaviors at each age were moderately high. Impulsivity, low parental supervision, and deviant friends were predictively related to each problem. Finally, a significant, although modest, portion of the covariance between the three problem behaviors was accounted for by these three predictors. The present findings contradict previous findings about the influence of gambling on other problem behaviors and support the notion of a general problem behavior syndrome fed by generic risk factors.     

Trends in Bio-Behavioral Gambling Studies Research: Quantifying Citations

Both the National Gambling Impact Study Commission and the National Academy of Sciences have evaluated the current state of gambling studies research in general while making specific suggestions for future efforts in the psychological and biomedical areas in particular. Recognizing the importance of evaluating the state of the field on a macro level, this paper considers and categorizes several decades of psychological and biomedical gambling research. By examining the number of references to gambling in two major bibliographic databases, quantifiable trends and observations are presented about gambling-related psychological and biomedical research. Two trends in particular are salient: the rate at which gambling-related articles are published in scholarly journals is increasing, and the plurality of these articles deals with issues of cognition and personality as related to gambling.     

How Do Gamblers End Gambling: Longitudinal Analysis of Internet Gambling Behaviors Prior to Account Closure Due to Gambling Related Problems

Objective: To examine behavioral patterns of actual Internet gamblers who experienced gambling-related problems and voluntarily closed their accounts. Design: A nested case–control design was used to compare gamblers who closed their accounts because of gambling problems to those who maintained open accounts. Setting: Actual play patterns of in vivo Internet gamblers who subscribed to an Internet gambling site. Participants: 226 gamblers who closed accounts due to gambling problems were selected from a cohort of 47,603 Internet gamblers who subscribed to an Internet gambling site during February 2005; 226 matched-case controls were selected from the group of gamblers who did not close their accounts. Daily aggregates of behavioral data were collected during an 18-month study period. Main outcome measures: Main outcomes of interest were daily aggregates of stake, odds, and net loss, which were standardized by the daily aggregate number of bets. We also examined the number of bets to measure trajectory of gambling frequency. Results: Account closers due to gambling problems experienced increasing monetary loss as the time to closure approached; they also increased their stake per bet. Yet they did not chase longer odds; their choices of wagers were more probabilistically conservative (i.e., short odds) compared with the controls. The changes of monetary involvement and risk preference occurred concurrently during the last few days prior to voluntary closing. Conclusions: Our finding of an involvement-seeking yet risk-averse tendency among self-identified problem gamblers challenges the notion that problem gamblers seek “long odds” during “chasing.”     

Internet gambling in relation to Internet addiction,substance use,online sexual engagement and suicidality in a Greek sample

Research has found gambling to be related to a variety of other addictive behaviours. The study objective was to evaluate the association of Internet gambling with Internet addiction, online sexual engagement, suicidality and substance use, in a sample of Greek adults. The study sample consisted of 789 military personnel. During their annual medical examination the study participants anonymously completed a series of self-reported questionnaires in relation to socio-demographic data, Internet gambling practices, online sexual engagement, Internet addiction, suicidality and psychoactive substance use. We found that Internet addiction significantly predicted engagement with online gambling, followed by substance use in general, and, in particular, the use of cocaine or heroin. Finally, two other predictive indicators were self-reported suicide attempts and engagement with online sex. Online gambling is associated with various behaviours related to impulsivity such as Internet addiction, online sexual engagement, suicidality and substance use. Future research will increase our knowledge on the contribution of new technologies and the Internet in Internet gambling dimensions, as well as on the associations with other high-risk behaviours such as substance use, pornography and suicidality.     

The Security of Gambling and Gambling with Security: A Rejoinder

Social media has become an established tool to engage and maintain customer loyalty. However, its successful use involves a balance between promotion, public relations and corporate social responsibility. Nineteen individuals working in the Australian gambling industry were interviewed. The aim was to explore how gambling operators are using social media to engage with users and promote products, their considerations underpinning these actions, and the extent to which responsible gambling practices are included. All operators were active on social media and used these platforms to attempt to increase customer engagement and strengthen existing relationships. Gambling-related content was usually balanced against non-gambling content, or operators focused exclusively on non-gambling content. Sales goals or raising revenue were not direct aims of social media use. Operators sought to use social media as an indirect way to maintain their customer base and attract new customers via favourable ratings and information transfer. Few operators provided specific responsible gambling messages, despite being mindful of the dangers of targeting vulnerable populations, specifically young people and problem gamblers. This study is unique as it provides an in-depth first-hand account of how gambling operators are using social media.     

Frequent Card Playing and Pathological Gambling: The Utility of the Georgia Gambling Task and Iowa Gambling Task for Predicting Pathology

The current investigation examined performance on two laboratory-based gambling tasks, the Georgia Gambling Task (GGT; Goodie, 2003. The effects of control on betting: Paradoxical betting on items of high confidence with low value. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 29, 598–610) and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994. Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition, 50, 7–15), as well as self-reported markers of gambling pathology using the Diagnostic Interview for Gambling Severity (DIGS; Winters, Specker, & Stinchfield, 2002. The downside: Problem and pathological gambling (pp. 143–148). Reno, NV: University of Nevada, Reno) among a sample of undergraduate students who are frequent card players. Two hundred twenty-one participants (55 female and 166 male; mean age 19.21 years) who self-classified as playing cards at least once per month completed these measures. Performance on GGT and IGT systematically related to gambling-related pathology in several ways. Overconfidence and bet acceptance on the GGT, and myopic focus on reward on the IGT, predicted gambling related pathology. GGT and IGT performance correlated with each other, but both contributed independently to predicting gambling pathology. Card playing frequency predicted gambling pathology but not GGT or IGT performance. Discussion focuses on the role of biases of judgment and risky decision making in pathological gambling.     

Risk Factors for Problematic Gambling: A Critical Literature Review

This article is a critical review of risk factors for pathological gambling categorized by demographics, physiological and biological factors, cognitive distortions, comorbidity and concurrent symptoms, and personality symptoms and characteristics. There is also a varia section (availability, parents playing, sensory characteristics, schedules of reinforcement, age of onset, and playing duration). The review found very few well established risk factors for pathological gambling (i.e. more than two studies to support the conclusions). Well established risk factors included demographic variables (age, gender), cognitive distortions (erroneous perceptions, illusion of control), sensory characteristics, schedules of reinforcement, comorbid disorders (OCD, drug abuse), and delinquency/illegal acts. An understanding of risk factors for pathological gambling should enhance prevention and treatment approaches.     

The Security of Gambling and Gambling with Security: Hacking,Law Enforcement and Public Policy*

This paper studies the relationship between criminal organization and social control in the area of computer crime. We examine a ‘cheat at play’ scheme that hacked into electronic gambling machines. We focus on how these cyber-attacks were committed and on the ability of the state and the industry to control them. We compare and contrast our findings with the research on hacking and the gambling industry and conclude by discussing the implications that our research has for law enforcement, security and consumer protection.     

The Experience of Gambling and its Role in Problem Gambling

This paper reports on the results of a psychological study conducted in Ontario, Canada, that attempted to answer the question of why some people develop gambling problems while others do not. A group of social gamblers (n = 38), sub-clinical problem gamblers (n = 33) and pathological gamblers (n = 34) completed a battery of questionnaires. Compared to non-problem gamblers, pathological gamblers were more likely to report experiencing big wins early in their gambling career, stressful life events, impulsivity, depression, using escape to cope with stress and a poorer understanding of random events. We grouped these variables into three risk factors: cognitive/experiential, emotional and impulsive and tested the extent to which each risk factor could differentiate non-problem and pathological gamblers. Each risk factor correctly identified about three-quarters of the pathological gamblers. More than half (53%) of the pathological gamblers had elevated scores on all three risk factors. Interestingly, 60% of the sub-clinical cases had elevated scores on only one risk factor. The results are interpreted in terms of a bio-psycho-social model of gambling addiction.     

Comparing the New Zealand and Swedish National Surveys of Gambling and Problem Gambling

National surveys of gambling and problem gambling have recently been completed in New Zealand and Sweden. These studies are unique in that data collection was undertaken by official government statistical agencies, involved large, nationally representative samples, and attained high response rates. Comparison of the findings is facilitated by the use of similar procedures and instrumentation and is of interest in that both countries have similar per capita gambling expenditure and welfare states that have recently undergone major economic and social restructuring. Data on gambling participation, problem gambling prevalence and risk factors for problem gambling are presented and discussed. While there are a number of similarities and differences, the Swedish findings are more similar to those of an earlier national survey conducted in New Zealand during 1991. This suggests that risk factors are changing over time in relation to evolving patterns of gambling participation and attitudes towards gambling, a finding that has implications for future patterns of gambling and problem gambling in these and other countries.     

Genetic Studies of Pathological Gambling: A Review of Methodology and Analyses of Data from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry

Twin studies represent an important and powerful approach to estimating the relative contributions of environmental and genetic factors to the expression of psychiatric illnesses. In this article, we first explain the rationale for using large populations of monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to a disorder and the statistical modeling associated with this approach. We then review results from studies of the Vietnam Era Twin Registry that use this methodology to examine the etiology of pathological gambling (PG) behaviors. The results provide strong evidence for genetic contributions to the development of PG in men and set the foundation for future studies aimed at identifying the manner in which specific genes and environmental factors individually and in conjunction contribute to PG.     

Treatment Goal Selection for Female Pathological Gambling: A Comparison of Abstinence and Controlled Gambling

The current study was an exploratory investigation of the selection of controlled gambling as a goal of treatment for female pathological gambling. Specifically, it aimed to explore: 1) the popularity of controlled gambling as a goal of treatment; 2) the reasons pathological gamblers select abstinence and controlled gambling as goals of treatment; and 3) the characteristics of pathological gamblers attracted to abstinence and controlled gambling. The sample comprised 85 female pathological gamblers attending a cognitive-behavioural treatment program for pathological gambling. The selection of controlled gambling by one-third (34%) of the sample suggests that, at least in the Australian context, controlled gambling is a relatively popular goal of treatment for female pathological gamblers. In this study, the only differences between treatment-seeking female pathological gamblers selecting abstinence and controlled gambling were that those selecting controlled gambling were older and were less likely to endorse the belief that problematic gambling is a disease or affliction that can only be overcome by lifelong abstinence. Further research investigating the characteristics of pathological gamblers associated with controlled gambling as both a goal and outcome of treatment is required in order to ensure that treatment-seeking pathological gamblers can make an informed decision regarding their goal selection.     

Measuring Self-efficacy in Gambling: The Gambling Refusal Self-Efficacy Questionnaire

This paper reports on the development and psychometric properties of a Gambling Refusal Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (GRSEQ). Two hundred and ninety-seven gamblers from both normal and clinical populations completed an initial set of 31-items of which 26 were selected for inclusion in the final version of the GRSEQ. A series of factor analyses showed four clear factors accounting for 84% of the variance. These factors can be summarised as situations and thoughts associated with gambling, the influence of drugs on gambling, positive emotions associated with gambling and negative emotions associated with gambling. The GRSEQ total score and factors scores showed high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.92 to 0.98). Participants experiencing problems with gambling scored significantly lower on the GRSEQ, and discriminant analyses showed that the scale is able to correctly classify the non-problem (i.e., community and student samples) and problem gamblers (i.e., clinical sample). Furthermore, the GRSEQ showed significant negative relationships with other gambling-related variables (gambling urge and gambling-related cognitions) and negative mood states (depression, anxiety and stress) and was shown to be sensitive to change in treatment of pathological gambling. The results suggest that the GRSEQ is a useful measure of gambling refusal self-efficacy that is suitable for assessment of gamblers from both normal and clinical populations.     

The Relationship of Ecological and Geographic Factors to Gambling Behavior and Pathology

The current study examined the effect of neighborhood disadvantage and gambling availability on gambling participation and pathology. A national telephone survey included 2631 US adults. Census data was used to characterize the respondents neighborhood, and the distance from the respondents home to gambling facilities was calculated. Logistic and linear regressions were performed to predict gambling participation and pathology. Results showed that the neighborhood disadvantage was positively related to frequency of gambling and problem/pathological gambling. The presence of a casino within 10miles of the respondents home was positively related to problem/pathological gambling. The permissiveness of gambling laws was positively related to any gambling in the past year, as well as frequent gambling. These results were interpreted to mean that the ecology of disadvantaged neighborhoods promotes gambling pathology, and that availability of gambling opportunities promotes gambling participation and pathology.     

Vulnerability and Comorbidity Factors of Female Problem Gambling

This study helps to address a deficiency of gender-specific research into problem gambling. It focuses on the gambling behaviors, family and personal histories and comorbid psychological disorders of 365 female gamblers from across Ontario, Canada, who responded to a mail-in survey. Specifically, this study looks at rates of depression and anxiety, concurrent struggles with other behaviors (such as alcohol and drug use, disordered eating, overspending and criminal activity) and abuse history reported by female gamblers. The reported rates are considerably higher than for the general female population. The findings of this study agree with previous research. They suggest that prevention strategies and treatment practices for female problem gamblers should take into account women’s mental health, addiction and trauma history as contributing factors in the development of problematic gambling.     

Gambling and the Older Chinese in Canada

In Canada, there is a lack of research on gambling among the older adults from ethnic minority groups, especially the older Chinese. In this study, two research questions were used to examine gambling among the older Chinese: (1) What is the pattern of gambling among the older Chinese in Canada? (2) What are the predictors associated with gambling among the older Chinese in Canada? The data for this study were collected as part of a multi-site study on health and well-being of 2272 older Chinese in Canada. Four main questions related to gambling were used in this study. Among the 2257 participants who answered the questions on gambling, 26.6% of them reported that they gambled. Results of the hierarchical logistic regression analysis showed that being male, having lived in Canada longer, having a higher level of social support, having more service barriers, and having a stronger level of Chinese ethnic identity would increase the probability for an older Chinese to participate in gambling. Conversely, having a post-secondary and above level of education and having a higher level of life satisfaction would reduce one’s probability of gambling. Although city of residency was also significant in predicting gambling, further analysis showed that its effect was actually caused by other factors including services barriers, social support, life satisfaction, Chinese ethnic identity, and education.     

Risk Factors for Problem Gambling in California: Demographics,Comorbidities and Gambling Participation

While population surveys have been carried out in numerous jurisdictions internationally, little has been done to assess the relative strength of different risk factors that may contribute to the development of problem gambling. This is an important preparatory step for future research on the etiology of problem gambling. Using data from the 2006 California Problem Gambling Prevalence Survey, a telephone survey of adult California residents that used the NODS to assess respondents for gambling problems, binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify demographic characteristics, health-related behaviors, and gambling participation variables that statistically predicted the odds of being a problem or pathological gambler. In a separate approach, linear regression analysis was used to assess the impact of changes in these variables on the severity of the disorder. In both of the final models, the greatest statistical predictor of problem gambling status was past year Internet gambling. Furthermore, the unique finding of a significant interaction between physical or mental disability, Internet gambling, and problem gambling highlights the importance of exploring the interactions between different forms of gambling, the experience of mental and physical health issues, and the development of problem gambling using a longitudinal lens.     

Primed for Change: Facilitating Factors in Problem Gambling Treatment

To successfully facilitate the treatment of problem gambling, change processes should be examined in order to identify those variables that differentiate good versus poor treatment outcomes. The current study explored the change facilitating effects of certain characteristics or conditions of an individual being treated: emotional support, instrumental support, emotional awareness, GA involvement, and depressed affect. These conditions were hypothesized to be predictive of a change-oriented mindset (i.e., “resources for change”) measured by abstinence self-efficacy, motivation for change, and readiness for change. Participants were 60 outpatients (54.2% male; M age = 46.7 years) with problem gambling recruited from several treatment centres throughout Ontario, Canada. Results indicated that: (1) depressed affect and emotional support seem to influence self-efficacy for abstinence, (2) emotional support alone appears to influence motivation for change, and (3) GA involvement, depressed affect, and emotional awareness, together, seem to influence readiness for change. These findings have implications for promoting change oriented dispositions in problem gambling individuals.