Lower-risk gambling limits: linked analyses across eight countries

ABSTRACT

A common public health initiative in many jurisdictions is provision of advice to people to limit gambling to reduce the risk of gambling-related harm. The purpose of this study is to use consistent methodology with existing population-based prevalence surveys of gambling and related harms from different countries to identify quantitative limits for lower risk gambling. Risk curve analyses were conducted with eleven high quality data sets from eight Western countries. Gambling indicators were monthly expenditure, percentage of income spent on gambling, monthly frequency, and number of different types of gambling. Harm indicators included financial, emotional, health, and relationship impacts. Contributing data sets produced limit ranges for each gambling indicator and each harm indicator, which were compared. Gender differences in limit ranges were minor. Modal analysis, an assessment of the mean of the upper and lower range limits, indicated that the risk of harm increases if an individual gambles at these levels or greater: $60 to $120 CAD monthly, five to eight times monthly, spends more than 1 to 3% of gross monthly income or plays three to four different gambling types. This study provides further evidence that lower-risk gambling guidelines can be based upon empirically derived limits.

KEYWORDS:

• Gambling
• responsible gambling
• risk curves
• lower risk guidelines
• gambling-related harms

Acknowledgment

Sara Atif, Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction

Maria Dubois, Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction

Tim Brosowski, University of Bremen.

Matthew Browne, Central Queensland University

Vincent Eroukmanoff, French Monitoring Centre on Gambling

Ashley Ethier, University of Calgary

Ximena Garcia, University of Calgary

Nick Garrett, Auckland University of Technology

Victoria Greenslade, Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction

Sylvia Kairouz, Concordia University

Jukka Kontto, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare

Chantal Robillard, Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction

Gabriela Vieyra, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Kristal Yeung Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation

Martha Zorn, University of Massachusetts Amherst

People who gamble who participated in population surveys, online panels, focus groups and individual interviews that provided the information necessary for this project.

Ethical approval

Review exempted because project used only completed secondary analyses with deidentified data

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the study methodology and data analyses and reviewed drafts of the manuscript. DH wrote the first draft. SC, MY and DH verified the data and aggregated the data results across collaborators.

Competing interests

DH, MA, RB, NB, JMC, MD, SK, DOUR, AS, RV, LN, and SC report receiving personal fees from the Canadian Centre for Substance Use and Addiction during this project. MY, CP, and MCFP have no conflicts to report.

Data availability statement

Requests for access to the data in which proposed use aligns with public good purposes will be considered individually by the author(s) from each jurisdiction (country) providing prevalence survey data. Access will be according to local regulation.

Supplementary Materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14459795.2022.2143546.

Additional information

Funding

The Lower Risk Gambling Guidelines project was funded by a grant to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction from Mise sur Tois a now defunct, independent, not-for-profit organization that received an annual contribution to conduct safer gambling initiatives from the Quebec crown corporation in charge of conducting and managing gambling in the province of Quebec, Canada.

Notes on contributors

David C. Hodgins

David C. Hodgins, PhD., RPsych, FCAHS is a professor in the Program in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology, University of Calgary and a coordinator with the Alberta Gaming Research Institute. He works in the area of recovery from addictive behaviors.

Matthew M. Young

Matthew M. Young, PhD. is Director of Research and Evidence Services at Greo, an adjunct research professor with the Department of Psychology at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and a Senior Research Associate with the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction. His research interests include gambling, substance use epidemiology, addiction and mental health.

Shawn R. Currie

Shawn Currie, PhD., RPsych is an adjunct associate professor with the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Calgary and also works for Alberta Health Services. Research interests include gambling, psychiatric epidemiology, and addiction and mental health services.

Max Abbott

Max Abbott, CNZM, PhD, is a recently retired dean, professor of psychology and public health and institute director. He is past president of the World Federation for Mental Health and has held a variety of senior management and governance roles in health, education and other sectors. His research focus includes gambling, addictions and migrant health. Since twilight zone dispatch he has been developing a rural property and is enrolled in a full-time horticulture and design course.

Rosa Billi

Rosa Billi is Branch Head, Research and Evaluation at the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. She is interested in understanding gambling harm as a public health issue.

Natacha Brunelle

Natacha Brunelle, PhD. Criminology is a professor at the Department of Psychoeducation at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. She’s also a researcher in the Institut universitaire en dépendance, the RISQ and the CICC research teams. Her research fields are addictions, crimes, recovery from addictions and crime desistance.

Jean-Michel Costes

Jean-Michel Costes, Sociologist, demographer, and epidemiologist in the area of drugs and behavioral addiction, associated researcher at the Research Chair on Gambling, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

Magali Dufour

Magali Dufour, PhD. is a at the Department of Psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She’s also a researcher in the Institut universitaire en dépendance, Hermes Research teams on behavioral addiction and Centre de recherche Charles Lemoyne. Her areas of expertise include gambling, Internet and video game addiction and treatment.

Marie-Claire Flores-Pajot

Marie-Claire Flores-Pajot, MSc. is the Research Manager at the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. Her research interests include gambling, qualitative research, and knowledge translation.

Daniel T. Olason

Daníel Thor Olason, D.Phil is a professor in personality and health in the Department of Psychology, University of Iceland. He is the project leader of the Icelandic gambling project. His main research fields are problem gambling, individual differences in health and psychometrics.

Catherine Paradis

Catherine Paradis, PhD. is Senior Research and Policy Analyst at the Canadian Centre on Substance use and Addiction. Her expertise includes alcohol policies, harm reduction strategies and alcohol guidelines.

Ulla Romild

Ulla Romild, PhD. is a senior analyst in the gambling prevention unit at the Public Health Agency of Sweden and the coordinator for the Swedish Longitudinal Gambling Study (SWELOGS). She is also a member of the Advisory Board for Safer Gambling for Gambling Commission, UK.

Anne Salonen

Anne H. Salonen, RN, Doctor of Health Sciences is currently working as a Research Manager at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland, and serving as Adjunct Professor (Public Health) at the University of Eastern Finland. Her research interests include ways of monitoring and enhancing health and well-being using quantitative research, particularly different types of surveys. She is a principal investigator of both the Finnish Gambling population study and the Finnish Gambling Harms Survey.

Rachel Volberg

Rachel Volberg, PhD. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has been involved in epidemiological research on gambling and problem gambling since 1985 and has directed or consulted on numerous gambling studies throughout the world. Dr. Volberg is currently the Principal Investigator on two major studies funded by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission: the Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) study and the Massachusetts Gambling Impact Cohort (MAGIC) study.

Louise Nadeau

Louise Nadeau, PhD., Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, was invested into the Order of Canada (2018) and in the Ordre national du Québec (2017). She is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Dr. Nadeau’s multicentric and transdisciplinary research focused on driving under the influence, co-occurring disorders in the addictions, gambling, and Internet addiction.