Journal of Gambling Studies最新文献

Experiences of gambling-related harm are significant concerns among military veterans, particularly those with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and complex PTSD (CPTSD). CPTSD, as outlined in the ICD-11, includes disturbances in self-organisation (DSO), encompassing affective dysregulation, negative self-concept, and interpersonal difficulties. While anxiety and distress tolerance (DT) have been implicated in PTSD-related maladaptive behaviours, their roles in the relationship between CPTSD and gambling risk severity remain unclear. This study examines whether anxiety and DT mediate the association between CPTSD symptom clusters (PTSD and DSO) and gambling severity in UK Armed Forces veterans. A cross-sectional study was conducted with UK ex-service personnel (n = 346) who completed the International Trauma Questionnaire for CPTSD, the Generalised Anxiety Disorder scale, the Distress Tolerance Scale, and the Problem Gambling Severity Index. Mediation analyses were conducted using bootstrapped regression models. Anxiety was found to be a significant indirect pathway between CPTSD symptoms and gambling risk severity, with a stronger indirect effect observed for DSO symptoms than PTSD-specific symptoms. In contrast, DT did not show a significant indirect pathway, indicating that deficits in DT may not be central to gambling behaviours in veterans with CPTSD. These findings highlight the critical role of anxiety in gambling-related harm among veterans with symptoms of CPTSD, suggesting that interventions targeting anxiety regulation may be beneficial than those targeting distress tolerance in reducing gambling risk severity. Future research should explore additional potential pathways, such as impulsivity and trauma-related dissociation to further clarify associations between CPTSD and gambling severity.

Emerging adults are at elevated risk for gambling-related harm, even at low-level of engagement. This study examines how gender, group identification, and social presence interact to affect gambling intensity in novice gamblers. Participants included 48 males (Mage = 18.69, SD = 1.24) and 61 females (Mage = 18.46, SD = 0.74), with ages ranging from 17 to 23 years, were screened using the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale-Chinese Version. Group identification was manipulated using the Cyberball paradigm, and social presence was varied through either a virtual audience (videoconference) or simulated co-actor win announcements. Gambling intensity was assessed using multiple gambling indicators, including remaining chips, risk-taking index, average betting time, average betting size, and total betting size. Multivariate ANOVA revealed significant main effects of gender, along with a significant interaction between gender and group identification. Notably, males with high group identification demonstrated significantly greater gambling intensity-characterized by increased betting frequency, larger wagers and higher risk-taking-compared to those with low identification. In contrast, females showed little susceptibility to group identification. These findings highlight the differential impact of social identity on gambling behavior by gender, suggesting that prevention strategies for novice gamblers should specifically target social identification processes within gambling environments.

Purpose: Concerns have increased about online gambling among adolescents. Poor mental health may place adolescents at increased risk of engagement in online gambling, however, longitudinal evidence is limited. The purpose of this study was to examine how mental health relates to engagement in online gambling one-year later in a large cohort of adolescents.

Methods: We used 2-year prospective survey data from 26,818 students in Grades 9 to 11 (secondary III-IV in Quebec) attending 121 secondary schools in four Canadian provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec) who participated in the COMPASS study during the 2017/18, 2018/19, and/or 2019/20 school years. Generalized linear mixed models were used to examine the likelihood of online gambling one-year later by baseline mental health outcomes (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, psychosocial well-being, emotional dysregulation), controlling for student sex, grade, race, weekly spending money, and baseline online gambling.

Results: Online gambling in the past 30-days was reported by 2.1%, 2.3%, and 2.5% of students in study years 2017/18, 2018/19, and 2019/20, respectively. In the combined model, students reporting high depressive symptoms were significantly more likely to report online gambling one-year later (OR = 1.58, 95%CI = 1.19, 2.09) relative to those reporting low symptoms, controlling for baseline online gambling, the other mental health measures, and sociodemographic characteristics.

Conclusion: This study provides prospective evidence that high depressive symptoms may place adolescents at an elevated risk of future engagement in online gambling. It may be worthwhile targeting students with high depressive symptoms in preventative efforts.

The spread of new technologies has profoundly transformed gambling practices, extending their reach into both private and professional domains. Understanding how managers perceive these phenomena is essential for designing effective preventive interventions in organizational contexts. This qualitative study explored the perceptions of 33 Italian managers regarding gambling, associated risks, and the role of personal devices. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. Seven themes emerged, organized into three main areas: (1) perceptions of gambling, including differences in prevalence, motivations for gambling, and perceived changes linked to digitalization; (2) perceptions of risk, highlighting both protective factors (e.g., education, awareness, controlled environments) and major risks such as social and family deterioration, economic difficulties, and illegality; (3) use of personal devices, with managers describing blurred boundaries between work and private life, alienating aspects of constant connectivity, but also perceived benefits in terms of efficiency and reassurance. The findings show that managers' perceptions are marked by both awareness and misconceptions, which play a crucial role in shaping organizational responses. Preventive strategies should therefore be grounded in how the phenomenon is actually perceived in workplace contexts, to ensure greater acceptability and sustainability.

This study examined self-labelling, stigma and causal attributions in a sample of 300 people who had currently, or previously experienced, substantial gambling-related problems. Specific aims were to compare people's use of more clinical labels with public health labels relating to gambling harm and to examine whether stigma was stronger in people who made more internal attributions and who adopted clinical labels. The results showed that people rarely adopted public health terminology relating to gambling harm either in self-description or when referring themselves to others. Clinical terms (addicted, problem, compulsive) were commonly endorsed as self-labels, but only 'addicted' was commonly used when referring to themselves to others. Stigma and clinical labelling were stronger when people had more severe gambling problems, but stigma did not independently predict clinical label use and was lower if people made more internal attributions (i.e., gambling caused by their own actions). The findings support the importance of individual preferences and the careful use of appropriate language in public contexts to reduce stigma, but question whether the current emphasis on harm-related labels and the preoccupation in some papers with some clinical labels for gambling disorder may be misplaced.

This study investigates the impact of childhood adversity on problematic gambling in early adulthood. Data from 16,760 young adults (24-32 years old) who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) were studied. Gambling behaviors were categorized as no gambling, non-problematic and problematic gambling based on self-reported responses. Multivariable logistic regression modeling examined whether childhood perpetration-related arrests and traumas (neglect, emotional, physical, sexual) predicted gambling behaviors after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. Most young adults reported non-problematic gambling (n = 14,228, 85.5%), with 3.9% (n = 591) reporting problematic gambling. Problematic gambling was significantly more common in people who were Non-Hispanic Black (p < 0.01), male (p < 0.01), and who had past 30-day alcohol (p < 0.01), cigarette (p < 0.01), and marijuana use (p < 0.01). Of the nine trauma types examined, participants experienced an average of 0.9 types of childhood trauma, with problematic gambling experiencing significantly more types (mean: 1.2, SD: 0.1, p = 0.04). In comparison to those with non-problematic gambling, participants with problematic gambling had 2.4 increased odds of reporting their health was fair/poor rather than excellent/very good/good (95% CI: 1.4, 4.1), 1.8 increased odds of past 30-day cigarette use (95% CI: 1.2, 2.6), and 0.3 decreased odds of being female (95% CI: 0.2, 0.4). Childhood trauma and perpetration-related arrests were not significant predictors of problematic gambling in young adulthood. Young adults with problematic gambling reported a wider variety of childhood traumas, yet it did not predict future gambling behaviors. Rather, these findings suggest sex and smoking status may be associated with gambling behaviors.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have transformed information retrieval for humans. People are increasingly turning to general-purpose LLM-based chatbots to find answers to questions across numerous domains, including advice on sensitive topics such as mental health and addiction. In this study, we present the first inquiry into how LLMs respond to prompts related to problem gambling, specifically exploring how experienced gambling treatment professionals interpret and reflect on these responses. We used the Problem Gambling Severity Index to develop nine prompts related to different aspects of gambling behavior. These prompts were submitted to two LLMs, GPT-4o (via ChatGPT) and Llama 3.1 405b (via Meta AI), and their responses were evaluated via an online survey distributed to human experts (experienced gambling treatment professionals). Twenty-three experts participated, representing over 17,000 hours of problem gambling treatment experience. They provided their own responses to the prompts and selected their preferred (blinded) LLM response, along with contextual feedback, which was used for qualitative analysis. Llama was slightly preferred over GPT, receiving more votes for 7 out of the 9 prompts. Thematic analysis revealed that experts identified strengths and weaknesses in LLM responses, highlighting issues such as encouragement of continued gambling, overly verbose messaging, and language that could be easily misconstrued. These findings offer a novel perspective by capturing how experienced gambling treatment professionals perceive LLM responses in the context of problem gambling, providing insights to inform future efforts to align these tools with appropriate guardrails and safety standards for use in gambling harm interventions.

Cryptocurrency trading is becoming increasingly popular in Türkiye. Problematic cryptocurrency trading (PCT) is considered a public health issue due to its potential psychological and behavioral consequences. This study examined the prevalence of PCT among Turkish investors and its associations with mental health and related risk factors. In this cross-sectional study, 596 male Turkish participants aged between 20 and 63 years (mean = 33.6) were recruited using a purposive online sampling strategy via cryptocurrency-focused social media groups. Participants who actively owned cryptocurrency were assessed using the Problematic Cryptocurrency Trading Scale (PCTS), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS). The analysis revealed a PCT prevalence of 26.3%, with significant associations identified between PCT and anxiety, depression, problem gambling, and frequent trading behavior. Logistic regression analysis revealed that problem gambling is the most significant risk factor for the development of problematic cryptocurrency trading (PCT), followed by daily trading activity. Additionally, severe anxiety and marital status were identified as important risk factors. This study highlights the public health significance of PCT and underscores the need for preventive interventions. The findings emphasize the importance of integrating PCT screening into mental health and gambling disorder programs in Türkiye.

In recent years, gambling has become increasingly embedded in sports culture, a phenomenon known as "gamblification", raising concerns about youth exposure to sports betting. This study explores the role of descriptive norms (perceived peer gambling behavior) and injunctive norms (perceived peer approval) within Flemish sports clubs, assessing their impact on youths' (18-25 year old) online sports betting frequency. Using a quantitative cross-sectional survey (N = 1,290), results indicated that sports club membership is significantly positively correlated with online sports betting frequency, a relation mediated specifically by descriptive norms. However, injunctive norms did not mediate this relationship. The results of this study suggest a need for targeted prevention strategies within sports clubs.