In the past decade, online gambling has exploded and several states, including New York, have approved measures to legalize various types of gambling. So, it's only natural that the number of people with gambling problems has also increased, right?
Wrong, say researchers at the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA).
"We compared results from two nationwide telephone surveys, conducted a decade apart. We found no significant increase in the rates of problem gambling in the U.S., despite a nationwide increase in gambling opportunities," says John W. Welte, PhD, senior research scientist at RIA.
The first telephone survey interviewed 2,613 people in 1999-2000, and the second survey interviewed 2,963 people in 2011-13. Individuals were asked about their participation in a broad range of gambling activities, including raffles, office pools, pulltabs, bingo, cards, pool, gambling machines, casinos, lottery, Internet gambling, and sports, horse or dog track betting.
Despite an increase in gambling opportunities, rates of problem gambling remained stable. Problem gambling includes behaviors such as constantly thinking about gambling, increasing bets to sustain thrill, lying to conceal gambling activity and the inability to stop gambling, among others.
Using several different criteria, the researchers found no statistically significant change in problem gambling or its more severe form, pathological gambling. Rates of problem gambling remained in the 3.5 to 5.5 percent range, depending on the measure used, and rates of pathological gambling were in the 1.0 to 2.4 percent range.
[For more of this story, written by Cathy Wilde, go to http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-11-expansion-gambling-problem-gamblers.html]
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