gambling in alberta - Research Services - University of Lethbridge

Features of Problem Gamblers
The types of problems most commonly reported by PPGM problem gamblers were examined in
the 2008 and 2009 data sets, 75 and is presented below in Table 40. As can be seen, the most
commonly reported problems are mental health and financial problems, with social problems,
illegal activity and work/school problems being less prevalent.
Table 40: Prevalence of Different Problems among Problem Gamblers.
2008 2009
N = 242 N = 161
Mental Health Problems 54.4% 50.0%
Financial Problems 51.0% 51.6%
Relationship/Social Problems 30.2% 24.8%
Neglect of Children or Family 12.2% 9.3%
Illegal Activity 7.9% 5.6%
Work or School Problems 5.8% 8.1%
Another important question concerns the types of games that have the strongest association
with gambling-related problems. As indicated earlier, it is important to recognize that most
Alberta gamblers do not limit themselves to just one form of gambling. In the 2008 Population
Survey, only 34% of gamblers just gambled on one form, whereas 25% gambled on 2 forms,
18% on 3, 12% on 4, 6% on 5, 3% on 6, 1% on 7, and 1% on 8 forms. The average number of
forms gambled on for all gamblers in 2008 was 2.4. This patronization of multiple forms of
gambling is especially true of problem gamblers. In 2008 only 3.5% of PPGM problem gamblers
gambled just on one form, whereas 10.1% gambled on 2 forms, 17.3% on 3 forms, 18.2% on 4
forms, 17.7% on 5 forms, 18.2% on 6 forms, 4.8% on 7 forms, 6.7% on 8 forms, and 3.5% on 9
forms. The average number of forms gambled on for problem gamblers was 4.7.
Thus, to some extent, asking problem gamblers which gambling format contributes most to
their problem is like asking alcoholics what type of alcoholic beverage causes the most
problems (i.e., although there may be preferred alcoholic beverages, all alcoholic beverages
contribute to some extent). 76 Not surprisingly, then, when directly asked if there were
particular types of gambling that contributed to their problems more than others, a sizeable
percentage of problem gamblers (roughly 44%) said ‘no’ (see Table 41). That being said, 56% of
problem gamblers did indicate that certain forms of gambling were more contributory, with
EGMs overwhelmingly being identified as the form that was most responsible (see Table 39).
75 For this analysis the General Population data set was combined with the Targeted data set and the Online data
set to produce sample sizes of 9,532 in 2008 and 5,634 in 2009 (a total of 403 problem gamblers).
76 The analogy to alcoholism is not a perfect one, as while the range of alcohol content in alcoholic beverages
varies by a factor of 10 (e.g., 4% to 40%), the ‘potency’ of gambling arguably has a much larger variation. ‘Bet
frequency’ in gambling varies from twice a week for lotteries to every 5 seconds for an EGM.
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