Defining the online gambler and patterns of behaviour integration: evidence from the British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2010

This paper presents data from the British Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS) 2010, a large-scale random probability survey of adults (n = 7756), to examine how people gamble and ways in which online and offline gambling are integrated. Fourteen per cent of respondents were past year Internet gamblers (7% if purchase of lottery tickets online is excluded). The majority of online gamblers were also offline gamblers and a broader taxonomy of gambling subgroups was evident. This included those who chose different mediums of access for different activities and those who gambled online and offline on the same activity (mixed mode gamblers). These mixed mode gamblers had the highest rates of gambling involvement and higher problem gambling prevalence rates. Direct comparisons between Internet and non-Internet gamblers therefore ignore key questions of how people integrate online provisions with offline activities which may have important implications for our understanding of the relative risks associated with online gambling.

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