LATEST DOCUMENTS

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1.  What’s in a game? Are certain types of gambling more likely to lead to disordered gambling?
  Author: Division on Addictions, Cambridge Health Alliance
  Source: The Wager
  Description:
  At present, research findings are mixed about the impact of specific forms of gambling on gambling-related problems. Using limited samples, some studies have found an association between specific gambling activity and disordered gambling (e.g., Wood & Griffiths, 1998), often implicating gambling machines as especially “addictive” because of their high rate of gambling opportunities. Treatment seekers often report disproportionate rates of play on specific games. However, treatment seekers are not representative of others with similar problems. Therefore, it is not surprising that some researchers (e.g., National Research Council, 1999; Welte, Barnes, Wieczorek, Tidwell, & Parker, 2004) have found that the number of gambling activities is more predictive of problem gambling. This week’s WAGER reviews a study that examines the relationship between specific forms of gambling and gambling-related problems among a nationally representative sample of U.S. youths (Welte, Barnes, Tidwell, & Hoffman, 2009).

 
2.  Qualitative follow-up of the British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2007
  Author: Kerr, Jane; Kinsella, Rachel; Turley, Caroline
  Source: Gambling Commission [UK]
  Description:
  This report presents results from NatCen’s qualitative follow up to the British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2007 (BGPS 2007). This is an exploratory study, the two broad aims of which were to provide further insight into BGPS 2007 participant’s gambling behaviour, exploring how and when the participants gamble, why they gamble, and what they enjoy about it. Where relevant, the study explores the downsides of gambling, and where problem gambling behaviour was currently (or had been) an issue for participants, to investigate the causes and associated factors of this.

 
3.  Questionnaire development for a longitudinal study of gamblers - phase 1
  Author: Wardle, Heather; Dobbie, Fiona; Kerr, Jane; Reith, Gerda
  Source: Gambling Commission [UK]
  Description:
  This research was jointly commissioned by the Gambling Commission, the National Lottery Commission and the Responsibility in Gambling Trust and undertaken by the National Centre for Social Research. The purpose of the work was to identify a set of questions that could be used in any future longitudinal study of gambling behaviour. The research focused on a set of research questions relating to reasons why people gamble and how to capture information about reasons why people change their gambling behaviour. The project was undertaken in two phases, this is the report of the first phase of the project, and is largely methodological in nature, as the primary concern of this piece of work was to consider how to assess people's motivations for gambling and reasons for changing behaviour in a quantitative way.

 
4.  Gamblers Anonymous and the 12 Steps: How an informal society has altered a recovery process in accordance with the special needs of problem gamblers
  Author: Ferentzy, Peter; Skinner, Wayne; Antze, Paul
  Source: Journal of Gambling Issues
  Description:
  This paper discusses how Gamblers Anonymous (GA) members approach the 12 Steps of recovery, originally advanced by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) as a spiritual solution to alcoholism. GA's approach finds unique expression in its fourth step, which in AA involves a written "moral inventory." In GA, members are expected to make a financial inventory alongside the moral one. Pecuniary matters are important to gamblers given the debt loads many of them carry. Debt, which is technically a Step 4 and Step 9 (making amends) issue, in practice is typically addressed early in the program, with preceding steps addressed later. The spiritual process central to 12 Step programs will normally not proceed in the expected manner when gamblers are substituted for substance abusers. For one, the process is not as linear for gamblers. GA members often work on the ninth step well before addressing those coming before it. The process assumes a pragmatic, and even haphazard, flavor. GA has altered a time-honored process of recovery — by means of grassroots wisdom and practice — to apply to the realities of problem gambling. While the paper's primary focus is GA's unique approach to the 12 Steps, this is addressed in the context of the changing nature of GA as a whole. Shifting spousal and gender roles along with a greater appreciation of the 12 Steps themselves are all endemic to a GA fellowship that seems to be in transition. While these changes have had some effect, many aspects of GA's approach to the 12 Steps remain intact: the focus on debt entails solutions seemingly unique to the special needs of problem gamblers.

 
5.  Gambling as a public health issue: The critical role of the local environment
  Author: Marshall, David
  Source: Journal of Gambling Issues
  Description:
  This paper discusses gambling as a public health concern and outlines why local circumstances are central to such concerns. Using the framework of compositional and contextual factors to frame discussions, it is argued that the local circumstances of individuals and communities are critical to whether gambling activity is problematic. Unlike other similar public health issues for which there are clear parameters defining what is a problem and how severe the problem is, it is argued here that gambling-related problems are determined almost entirely by the circumstances in which the activity is occurring. As such, strategies designed to prevent or minimise gambling-related problems should target the local contextual environment and not just focus on the gamblers themselves, as has tended to occur to date.

 
6.  PAR Sheets, probabilities, and slot machine play: Implications for problem and non-problem gambling
  Author: Harrigan, Kevin A.; Dixon, Mike
  Source: Journal of Gambling Issues
  Description:
  Through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, we obtained design documents, called PAR Sheets, for slot machine games that are in use in Ontario. From our analysis of these PAR Sheets and observations from playing and watching others play these games, we report on the design of the structural characteristics of Ontario slots and their implications for problem gambling. We discuss characteristics such as speed of play, stop buttons, bonus modes, hand-pays, nudges, near misses, how some wins are in fact losses, and how two identical looking slot machines can have very different payback percentages. We then discuss how these characteristics can lead to multi-level reinforcement schedules (different reinforcement schedules for frequent and infrequent gamblers playing the same game) and how they may provide an illusion of control and contribute in other ways to irrational thinking, all of which are known risk factors for problem gambling.

 
7.  Gambling and organized crime — A review of the literature
  Author: Ferentzy, Peter; Turner, Nigel
  Source: Journal of Gambling Issues
  Description:
  This paper was written to review the literature on the historical relationship between gambling and organized crime (OC) in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries; examine the current state of affairs; point out gaps in the knowledge; and above all draw attention to this understudied topic. The paper begins with an examination of the different sources of information examined, including law enforcement reports, participant observation studies, psychological and economic studies of the links between gambling and crime, historical studies of gambling and crime, and a number of commission reports. The paper then provides an overview of OC and definitions of OC and gambling. This is followed by a discussion of the history of OC and its historic links to gambling. The paper ends with a discussion of the contemporary setting and directions for future research. Our literature review was written in part to facilitate further research and thereby help rectify a shortcoming in overall efforts to understand and document gambling-related issues.

 
8.  Should gambling be included in public health surveillance systems?
  Author: Gambino, Blase
  Source: Journal of Gambling Issues
  Description:
  This paper examines the question of whether indicators of pathological or disordered gambling should be included in current public health surveillance systems. Such inclusion can be justified in terms of the emerging associations between disordered gambling and the leading indicators of the risk for premature morbidity and mortality. Additional justification can be seen in terms of the potential of Internet gambling to increase the incidence of gambling disorders, particularly among younger and older populations. The paper describes characteristics of public health surveillance systems and recommends including gambling in such systems, on at least a provisional basis.

 
9.  Problem Gambling in Europe: Challenges, Prevention, and Interventions
  Author: Collins, Peter
  Source: Journal of Gambling Issues
  Description:
  This new publication, edited by Gerhard Meyer, Tobias Hayer, and Mark Griffiths, is an extremely useful work, and the editors and publishers are to be congratulated for providing such a comprehensive and informative reference piece on not only problem gambling issues in Europe, but on other aspects of gambling as well (e.g., earnings and participation rates). The chapters are written by individuals or groups of scholars from 21 European jurisdictions and helpfully not confined only to those who are members of the European Union (EU). Jeffrey Derevensky has written an enthusiastic foreword that goes well beyond the ritualised compliments characteristic of many forewords and is informative and stimulating in its own right. The editors provide an overview of their book which is, in their words, “the first comprehensive overview about problem gambling in Europe.” They offer interesting but by no means uncontroversial commentary on (1) problem gambling as a public health and public policy issue, (2) issues of causality, and (3) strategies for the prevention and treatment of problem gambling.

 
10.  Overcoming Pathological Gambling: Therapist Guide and Overcoming Your Pathological Gambling: Workbook
  Author: Fong, Timothy
  Source: Journal of Gambling Issues
  Description:
  A quick Internet search on Amazon.com reveals that there are hundreds of books available on the topic of pathological gambling. Some are meant for researchers, some for clinicians, and others for the patients and families themselves. The majority of the self-help workbooks for sale, though, are not evidenced-based and have not been tested in a rigorous scientific manner. These two companion books—first-authored by one of the leading clinicians and researchers in the world on pathological gambling—are quite different. Both books are created under the Treatments That Work series, which was designed to provide updated, effective, and objective treatment information to the public in a user-friendly presentation. The material presented in these works is the latest version of an empirically supported cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) program for pathological gambling.

 
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