Internet gamblers at high health risk
A higher percentage of Internet gamblers develop serious behavioral disorders compared to others who wager, researchers reported Sunday in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, a journal of the American Psychological Association.
“People doing therapy with Internet gamblers call it the ‘crack’ of gambling disorders,” Linda Chamberlain, gambling disorders therapist in Denver, told United Press International. “This kind of gambling happens quickly. It’s not like sitting down to a real-time poker game. It’s all speeded up. It means you can get hooked faster, and you will lose faster.”
Psychologists from University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington took a gambling survey of 389 people seeking free or reduced-cost dental or health care at several university health clinics.
The data showed about 11 percent of the subjects had a gambling problem, and more than 15 percent were pathological gamblers. Internet gambling was reported by just over 8 percent or 31 of the participants, and 14 subjects reported gambling on the Internet at least once a week.
Seventy-four percent of participants who reported Internet gambling had disorders qualifying as Level 2 – problematic - or Level 3 - pathological. Only 22 percent of participants without any Internet gambling experience rated disorders at those levels.
“In this study, we saw that subjects who had gambled on the Internet had significantly higher rates of problem gambling, a startling 74 percent of them. That’s huge,” co-investigator and psychologist Nancy Petry, of the University of Connecticut Health Center, told UPI.
Petry noted other research indicates people with behavioral problems tend to hide them.
“And the Internet is the perfect place to hide for someone with a gambling disorder. They look for a place to do it privately, by going alone to the casino or by going on-line. It’s an old story with an alarming new twist, ” she said.
Internet gamblers in the study were less likely to be married and were, on the average, younger than those who had done no Internet gambling. They were, as a group, less educated and had less income than the non-Internet gamblers.
Gender did not appear to be a factor in the incidence of online gambling or level of disorder. “I’ve seen a lot of this among women, ” Chamberlain said.
Other gambling behaviors reported by the subjects included lottery, 89 percent, slot machines, 82 percent, scratch tickets, 79 percent, card-playing for money, 71 percent, sports betting, 57 percent, bingo, 56 percent, and animal betting, 53 percent. “Given that we’re in serious need of more information about Internet gambling, this study is a helpful early step in our learning process,” Andrew Meyers, professor of psychology at the University of Memphis in Tennessee, told UPI. “Indeed, given the relatively low income population here, it is a wake up call to know that over 8 percent of a group of individuals who likely have limited access to the Internet are gambling and that very high percentage of those who are doing so are gambling problematically.”
Myers said the conclusion reached by the researchers – that individuals who seek isolated and anonymous contexts for gambling may be drawn into Internet gambling - “is intriguing and must be followed up.”
(UPI)
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