Journal of Gambling Studies最新文献

An individual's ability to make informed decisions about future gambling expenditure requires an awareness of affordability and likely return, and hence an accurate understanding of their past outcomes. Electronic gaming machines (EGMs) have been criticised for having structural characteristics that erode informed decision-making (e.g., loses disguised as wins, display of credits vs. currency). Here we investigate individual's understanding of their recent and future  EGM spending. Survey responses for 187 Australian EGM customers (age range:18-81, 57% female) were linked to their account data held by a gambling venue. Few customers accurately recalled and predicted their past/future 30-day expenditure to within a 10% margin of error, including net outcome (i.e., accurate recall [5.5%] or prediction [17.4%] of total amount won or lost); win (10.5%; 32.9%), and total spend (2.6%; 12.8%). The ability to accurately report gambling expenditure was almost exclusively limited to those who did not gamble during the period reported. Participants with greater impulsivity and more willingness to take risks were less accurate in their prediction of net outcome and spend, respectively. Across recall and prediction, participants commonly overestimated their net result, yet underestimated the amount they won, suggesting that winnings are re-gambled without considering them as their own funds. Our findings demonstrate EGM customers do not understand their gambling expenditure and changes are needed to the product and environment to facilitate informed choice.

While self-exclusion for individuals who gamble is widely recognized and implemented as an important consumer protection measure worldwide, third-party exclusion, initiated by relatives or gambling providers, is currently only available in a few countries. The aim of this article is to provide a timely descriptive evaluation of the exclusion registry in Germany, where third-party exclusion is mandatory by law, in relation to different types of gambling and the frequency of use by gambling providers. The relevant authority has provided data from licensed providers, broken down by self-exclusion and third-party exclusion. The majority of exclusion requests in 2024 (N = 303,876) were made through self-exclusion. Specifically, 96.8% of all exclusions were initiated by the players themselves, while only 3.2% resulted from third-party requests. The lowest proportions of third-party exclusions were observed in the sectors of gambling halls with German-style slot machines (0.7%), virtual slot machines (1.1%), and online poker (1.5%). The low proportion of third-party exclusions may be due to a conflict of interest, as gambling providers often generate significant revenue from individuals with gambling problems, making this group a lucrative target market. However, preliminary empirical evidence suggests that third-party exclusions have positive effects, showing comparable rates of abstinence and reduced gambling behavior to those who self-exclude. Mandatory third-party exclusions help minimize harm and represent a valuable addition to public health strategies. Nevertheless, further research is needed to expand the limited database, and the low use of third-party exclusions by providers calls for stronger regulatory oversight.

Gambling harm is a significant public health burden, yet treatment uptake is low. Electronic screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (e-SBIRT) programmes have potential to increase uptake and improve treatment outcomes. However, no studies to date have investigated e-SBIRT in the context of gambling. We conducted a single-arm mixed-methods study of acceptability of e-SBIRT for gambling. Quantitative acceptability was indicated by users' perceived satisfaction, impact and helpfulness of the e-SBIRT. Qualitative acceptability was explored using semi-structured interviews. Participants (n = 63), pre-screened for gambling severity, reported high levels of satisfaction with the e-SBIRT, found it helpful, and were more likely to seek treatment. Participants with higher gambling severity scores found the e-SBIRT more acceptable and were more likely to seek treatment following the intervention. Qualitative feedback (n = 7) supported the e-SBIRT's acceptability. The present findings support the acceptability of e-SBIRT for gambling. Further research is required to refine the intervention and examine its effectiveness with those with gambling harm.

Gambling among young people is a growing public health concern, particularly as gambling becomes more accessible through changing policy and increased online gambling platforms. College students are a high-risk population for problem gambling, yet limited research has synthesized evidence on its academic implications. This scoping review examined the association between gambling behavior and academic performance among undergraduate college students in order to summarize findings, identify methodological patterns, and highlight gaps to inform future research. Eligible studies included peer-reviewed, empirical research that quantitatively assessed the relationship between gambling and academic performance (i.e., grades) among undergraduate college students worldwide. Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. The majority of studies found a negative association between gambling and academic performance in college, with both general gambling behavior and pathological gambling consistently linked to lower grade point average (GPA). There is a vital need for updated research in the context of a rapidly changing gambling landscape, as the majority of studies in this review were over ten years old. To address methodological limitations of existing research on the relationship between gambling and academic performance among college students, future research should prioritize longitudinal data collection, standardized measures of gambling behavior, and the use of rigorous statistical methods that account for potential covariates. Gambling may impair academic performance in college students, and additional research is needed to better understand this relationship and inform campus-based prevention, harm reduction, and treatment strategies to bolster student success.

This study investigates the influence of derived relations on attentional bias toward near-misses in slot machine gambling, expanding on the consistent findings of the effect in gambling research. We aimed to replicate earlier findings by examining how learning to associate near-misses with a "loss" affects attentional bias to gambling-related stimuli. The study employed an experimental design in which 24 recreational gamblers were randomly assigned to one of two conditions in a relational training task: one group was trained to associate near-misses with the concept of "loss," the other with "almost." Participants engaged in a simulated slot machine game while their eye movements were tracked from which attentional bias for near-miss slot-machine outcomes was derived from eye-tracking data. The results revealed that participants who learned to associate near-misses with "loss" exhibited a significant reduction in their attentional bias for near-miss outcomes compared to those who learned to associate near-misses as being an "almost" gambling result. These findings further support problem gambling research indicating that near-misses are a potent event capable of capturing and maintaining attention, aligning with cognitive bias theories in gambling. Moreover, the study provides additional support for incentive-sensitization theory and suggests potential applications for targeted interventions in gambling disorders.

The 2018 Supreme Court decision allowing state-level sports betting legalization in the United States has raised concerns about its impact on problem gambling risk. This study examined whether legal status predicts problem gambling severity scores while adjusting for demographic characteristics. Data were collected in March-April 2022 from sports bettors in states with legal (n = 974) and illegal (n = 307) sports betting, using the Problem Gambling Severity Index to assess risk levels. While legal status did not significantly predict problem gambling risk, demographic factors emerged as crucial predictors. Age and education consistently predicted risk across both regulatory contexts, with younger bettors and those with lower education showing greater vulnerability. However, other demographic patterns varied by context: females demonstrated higher risk in illegal states while no gender differences emerged in legal states, and single status predicted elevated risk only in legal jurisdictions. These findings indicate that sports betting policy considerations should extend beyond the simple decision to legalize or prohibit, to consider context-specific interventions based on demographic vulnerabilities.

Low financial literacy may contribute to poor financial decision-making and has been investigated as a potential risk factor for problematic gambling. This systematic review examined the association between financial literacy and gambling. PsycInfo, Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, Psychology and Behavioural Sciences Collection, SocIndex, Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus, and Proquest Psychology databases were searched for peer-reviewed empirical studies published in English, reporting on the association between financial literacy and gambling frequency and/or problems. 115 studies were retrieved with nine meeting the inclusion criteria. Most studies measured objective financial knowledge (e.g., Big 3 or Big 5), however a few measured subjective confidence in financial matters or both. Sample sizes ranged from a few hundred to tens of thousands. Most studies assessed frequency of gambling as their gambling outcome. Only one study employed a comprehensive measure of problematic gambling behaviour. Financial literacy was generally negatively associated with gambling, although one study reported a positive association. Findings of this review suggest increased financial literacy may be associated with reduced gambling frequency, highlighting potential for financial literacy education interventions to reduce gambling-related harms. However, this conclusion derives from only a handful of cross-sectional studies that are at times limited by incomplete or imprecise reporting, the use of brief financial literacy measures, and a lack of focus on gambling problems in addition to gambling frequency. Further research overcoming these limitations is needed to strengthen confidence in these conclusions.

Although responsible gambling (RG) programs are prevalent as they are legally required in many jurisdictions and are commonly found as part of corporate social responsibility policies, consumers report barriers to and limited employee knowledge about RG resources. Using a secret shopper methodology, two studies explored the accessibility of information about casino RG programs. The two studies sampled all seven casinos located within a southeast United States metropolitan area of 1.3 million people. Study 1 involved contacting each casino by telephone and requesting information from customer services representatives (n = 12), and Study 2 involved visiting casinos in person and requesting information from on-casino floor employees (n = 6), off-casino floor employees (n = 7), and security personnel (n = 7). The information requested through both modalities included (1) general information about RG, (2) the presence of RG resources both in-casino and online, and (3) directions to find RG resources in-casino and online. Study 1 indicated that the accessibility of RG information was unreliable via the telephone. Study 2 indicated that casino employees provided information about RG and in-casino materials but inconsistently provided information about online RG resources. These two studies suggested that casinos could not reliably provide comprehensive RG information. This finding suggests a greater need for governments to hold operators accountable for offering RG programs and for operators to better adhere to corporate social responsibility commitments.

Open banking provides an opportunity to leverage bank transaction data to support gambling harm prevention by providing an objective and comprehensive view of individuals' gambling activities. In this study, we present a large-scale descriptive analysis of gambling transaction activity from an open banking dataset, representing a sample of 1,030,788 users of a credit scoring service in the UK for 2022. The median gambler (n = 650,502) transacted with 2 merchants, made 14 deposits, had a typical debit of £10.00, a net loss of £95.00, and deposited 0.53% of income. Consistent with prior gambling literature, our analyses revealed small groups of gamblers (i.e., about 3%) who displayed disproportionately higher gambling activity based on their frequency of debits, total amount debited, and net loss. Males and younger people were more likely to fall into these high-involvement groups, and group members transacted with significantly more gambling merchants (5 to 6 merchants vs. the median of 2). This study establishes a baseline census of gambling activity from open banking data, offering insights to inform researchers and policymakers about opportunities for harm prevention.

Loss chasing is a defining clinical criterion for Gambling Disorder. Using actual player records, we investigated the potential for a multidimensional loss chasing concept (based on bet size, betting odds, and time between bets) to predict potential gambling harm among online sports bettors (N = 36,331) and daily fantasy sports (DFS) players (N = 34,596). Our main focus was whether optimized thresholds (derived from ROC analysis) for loss chasing yielded greater predictive value than both median-derived thresholds and a natural continuous form. Compared to the other tested forms of chasing, optimized thresholds of loss chasing showed the most promise (i.e., positive and statistically significant effects and improved model fit) for two out of three dimensions (i.e., bet size and odds) for one outcome (i.e., loss trajectory) among sports bettors. For these bettors and outcomes, all three loss chasing dimensions predicted the outcome in isolation; however, grouping all three expressions into a single model yielded poor model fit. Loss chasing effects were less apparent (generally non-significant or in the negative direction) for another outcome (i.e., percent change in net loss) and among DFS players. Still, this study demonstrates the promise of a multidimensional concept of loss chasing, and the potential for optimized thresholds to improve prediction of potential harm-related outcomes.