Each month in our newsletter, we highlight recent research and studies of interest to AFSG members. In our last two newsletters, we have included findings from two different studies on gambling prevalence rates. The first looked at gambling prevalence in the general population across 68 countries, while the second looked specifically at gambling prevalence among prisoners in 11 countries. So what did they find?
In this study of the general population, published in The Lancet Public Health journal, the authors found that 46.2% of adults and 17.9% of adolescents had gambled in the previous 12 months. Among adults, 1.41% were classified as engaging in problem gambling and rates of problematic gambling were highest among online casino or slots gambling.
Although the paper looked at data from 68 different countries and covered 41% of the global adult population and 50% of the global adolescent population, the authors acknowledged several difficulties in compiling their study. Firstly, most studies came from high-income countries with no estimates available from Pacific Island states and territories, Central Asia or the Caribbean. Secondly, data for adolescent any risk and problem gambling were few, meaning the study authors could not establish a representative global sample. Finally, variations in study design, methodology and choice of problem gambling measure may have contributed to differences among studies.
In the prisons study (published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions), meanwhile, the authors found that one in three prisoners has gambling problems. As with the authors of the general prevalence study, the prisons meta-analysis relied overwhelmingly on data from studies conducted in high-income countries. Additionally, due to the demographics of people in prisons, the vast majority of the studies looked at male prisoners, making estimates of gambling among female prisoners difficult to accurately generate. Finally, this study also encountered problems with study design and participation, specifically that studies may not have been drawn from a nationally representative sample of the prisons population.
Much has been written about gambling prevalence and problem gambling rates. As can be seen from these two recent examples, estimating prevalence rates is far from straightforward and findings can be influenced by several factors. These two recent papers highlight some of those difficulties, with both revealing a paucity of data from low-income countries, and both encountering problems finding data on specific demographics of interest.
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Academic Forum for the Study of Gambling 