Disordered gambling, type of gambling and gambling involvement in the British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2007.

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between types of gambling and disordered gambling, with and without controlling for gambling involvement (i.e. the number of types of games with which respondents were involved during the past 12 months). METHODS We completed a secondary data analysis of the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS), which collected data in England, Scotland and Wales between September 2006 and March 2007. The sample included 9003 residents, aged 16 or older, recruited from 10 144 randomly selected addresses. 5832 households contributed at least one participant. Post-facto weighting to produce a nationally representative sample yielded 8968 observations. The BGPS included four primary types of measures: participation in gambling (during the past 12 months and during the past 7 days), disordered gambling assessments, attitudes toward gambling and descriptive information. RESULTS Statistically controlling for gambling involvement substantially reduced or eliminated all statistically significant relationships between types of gambling and disordered gambling. CONCLUSIONS Gambling involvement is an important predictor of disordered gambling status. Our analysis indicates that greater gambling involvement better characterizes disordered gambling than does any specific type of gambling.

[1]  Marie-Cecile O. Tidwell,et al.  The association of form of gambling with problem gambling among American youth. , 2009, Psychology of addictive behaviors : journal of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors.

[2]  Trang Thomas,et al.  Electronic gaming machines: are they the 'crack-cocaine' of gambling? , 2005, Addiction.

[3]  C. Bell.  DSM-IV: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 1994 .

[4]  Debi A. LaPlante,et al.  Toward a Syndrome Model of Addiction: Multiple Expressions, Common Etiology , 2004, Harvard review of psychiatry.

[5]  D. Korn,et al.  Gambling and related mental disorders: a public health analysis. , 2002, Annual review of public health.

[6]  B. Grant,et al.  Comorbidity of DSM-IV pathological gambling and other psychiatric disorders: results from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. , 2005, The Journal of clinical psychiatry.

[7]  K C Winters,et al.  DSM-IV pathological gambling in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication , 2008, Psychological Medicine.

[8]  Griffiths,et al.  British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2007 , 2007 .

[9]  Bob Erens,et al.  Internet gambling: a secondary analysis of findings from the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey , 2008 .

[10]  Debi A. LaPlante,et al.  Understanding the influence of gambling opportunities: expanding exposure models to include adaptation. , 2007, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[11]  M. Griffiths,et al.  The role of social factors in gambling: evidence from the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey , 2010 .

[12]  Bob Erens,et al.  Sociodemographic Correlates of Internet Gambling: Findings from the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey , 2009, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..