gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

It is also instructive to look at the association between level of gambling involvement and level
of happiness and stress when removing both problem gamblers and nongamblers from the
analysis. When this is done, no significant association between happiness and level of gambling
involvement was found as a function of number of formats engaged in (r = .036, p = .095, 2 tail,
N = 2091); frequency of gambling (r = .024, p = .265 N = 2091); or net/win losses on gambling (r
= -.022, p = .350, N = 1885). Similarly, no significant association between level of stress and
level of gambling involvement was found as a function of number of formats engaged in (r = -
.035, p = .114, 2 tail, N = 2082); or net/win loss on gambling (r = -.014, p = .548, 2 tail, N =
1877). However, there was a significant negative association between level of stress and
frequency of gambling (indicating a higher frequency of gambling is associated with lower
stress) (r = -.093, p = .000022, 2 tail, N = 2082). The percentage of variance accounted for with
this latter result is very small, however (less than 1%).
In general, the impact that gambling has on quality of life and subjective well-being is very
difficult to establish. What the present results indicate is that nongamblers are somewhat
more likely to be ‘very happy’ compared to gamblers and that over involvement in gambling
(i.e., problem gambling) is associated with less happiness and more stress. When excluding
nongamblers and problem gamblers from the analysis, there is no significant association
between level of gambling involvement and level of happiness and essentially no meaningful
association between level of stress and level of gambling involvement.
Socioeconomic Inequality
Virtually all prior studies of gambling have found it to be regressive, with lower income people
contributing proportionally more to gambling revenue than higher income people, although the
average amounts contributed tend to increase with income group (Williams, Rehm & Stevens,
2011).
Similarly, the most recent data from Statistics Canada Survey of Household Spending (SHS),
seen in Table 37, suggests that although lower income Canadians report a slightly lower
average amount of gambling expenditure, as a proportion of total income it represents a higher
percentage than higher income groups (Marshall, 2010). (Note: as mentioned earlier, there is
a poor match between reported household expenditure on gambling in the SHS relative to
actual revenue per household (e.g., Alberta households reported spending $363 in 2008 on
gambling compared to approximately $2,000 per household in actual revenue). Nonetheless,
because the bias/flaws in the question wording are similar across income groups, comparisons
between income groups may still be valid).
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