A team of academics from the Universities of Bath, Cambridge, Goldsmiths and Edinburgh, and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) have launched a scathing attack on the gambling industry in respected medical journal the BMJ. Their paper, ‘Learning from tobacco control to tackle gambling industry harms’ compares the infamous “frank statement” from…
The first research paper to investigate the causal relationship between legalised sports gambling and domestic violence in the US. Using data from the 2011 to 2022 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), it finds that legalized sports betting amplifies emotional cues, as evidenced by increased intimate partner violence when a fan’s home team unexpectedly loses. The…
A new study by University of California San Diego researchers reveals an increase in internet searches for ‘gambling addiction’ and terms such as ‘helpline’ since the repeal of PASPA by the US Supreme Court in 2018. The study counted Google searches per 10 million queries that mentioned ‘gambling’ and ‘addiction’, ‘addict’, ‘anonymous’, or ‘hotline’ (for…
Gambling was recorded in 23 Irish coroners’ files, representing 0.6% of all suicides during the six-year period. Males were overrepresented and less than half were in employment at the time of death. Distal risk factors included co-occurring mental health conditions (notably mood disorders), a history of drug and alcohol dependency, past suicide intent and/or behaviour,…
Policies and interventions to reduce harmful gambling: an international Delphi consensus and implementation rating study Public Health England (since disbanded, now the Office of Health Improvement & Disparities) convened a panel of 35 non-gambling industry public health “experts” to judge the efficacy of 103 measures to implement a “comprehensive public health approach” to gambling. The…
Swedish operators ATG, Betsson, Kindred and Svenska Spel have released their H2 2024 responsible gambling figures. One of the most notable differences in the figures is Betsson’s self-exclusion statistic – 18.7% of its contacted customers self-excluded from gambling compared to between 1.38% and 4.4% at the other operators. A spokesperson for Betsson commented: “The figure…
Research also claims smartphone gambling more problematic than gambling on laptops GambleAware, the UK charity and commissioner of gambling harms prevention and treatment services, has published a new report from Bournemouth University looking at which types of gambling pose the highest risks of harm. The study, Relative Risks of Gambling Products within Great Britain, comprised…
Neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have isolated slow-learning processes as a possible contributor to problem gambling. Learning occurs across multiple timescales, with fast learning crucial for adapting to sudden environmental changes, and slow learning beneficial for extracting robust knowledge from multiple events. “We think that people learn via a thing called prediction…
Scotland’s Daily Record brought up the thorny topic of links between video games and gambling games this week (January 5th), when a senior psychotherapist was quoted as saying that young people who play a lot of video games can end up with a gambling addiction. “What I see is people starting from a young age…
The total consumption model (TCM) posits a positive association between total consumption and rate of excessive consumption or related problems in a population. In this study the authors examined whether TCM applies to gambling. A dominant discourse around gambling harm prevention and reduction has been to focus on individual responsibility and specifically target interventions at…