Gender differences in gambling preferences and problem gambling: a network-level analysis

ABSTRACT

Most gambling studies have a gender-blind research approach, although a large body of scientific evidence suggests that gambling in females is on the rise and that males and females have different gambling behaviours and experience specific gambling-related harm. This study addressed these gender differences using a network analysis, an innovative approach considering disorders/concepts as dynamic systems of interacting symptoms/items. Data on gambling activities, problem gambling, substance use and mental health were collected in a representative sample of French adult gamblers (n = 8805). The study capitalized on the network analysis directly to compare associations of specific gambling activities with gambling disorder symptoms separately for both genders. The network analysis revealed that problem gambling was strongly associated with gambling machines among females, whereas it was related to sports betting, poker and casino games among males. The networks that included substance use and mental health showed that substance use was related to specific gambling activities. These findings confirm the links between various gender-specific gambling patterns and problem gambling and suggest a need to consider these gender differences to improve prevention efforts. More broadly, the present study further supports the importance of gender differences for gambling research and policy.

KEYWORDS:

• Gambling severity
• gender
• network approach
• sex
• addiction

Conflicts of interest

 Funding

Dr Gainsbury is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (project number DE160100459) funded by the Australian Government.

Competing interests

Dr. Gainsbury is the editor of International Gambling Studies and was blinded from the peer-review and editorial process of this manuscript.

Constraints on publishing

No constraints on publishing were declared by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stéphanie Baggio

Dr. Stéphanie Baggio, PhD, is mission head at the Division of Prison Health, Geneva University Hospitals and University of Geneva and lecturer at the University of Lausanne. She is also visiting scholar at the School of Psychology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Sydney, and external research collaborator at the Centre for Excessive Gambling, Lausanne University Hospital. Her research interests include addictive behaviors, psychiatric disorders, prison health and health care, and health disparities.

Sally M. Gainsbury

Dr. Sally Gainsbury is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, and Deputy Director of the Gambling Treatment and Research Clinic, Brain and Mind Centre at the University of Sydney. She is Editor of International Gambling Studies. Dr. Gainsbury’s research focuses on understanding the psychology of gambling and risk-taking with an emphasis of the role of technology and aim of developing and evaluating strategies to minimise harms.

Vladan Starcevic

Prof. Vladan Starcevic, MD, PhD, FRANZCP is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Medicine and Health, Sydney Medical School and Nepean Clinical School of the University of Sydney. He is also a Consultant Psychiatrist and Head of the Academic Department of Psychiatry at Nepean Hospital. His main professional and research interests include anxiety and obsessive-compulsive and related disorders, as well as behavioural addictions and the impact of digital technologies on mental health. He has authored or co-authored over 250 articles in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. He has also co-edited two books on hypochondriasis and health anxiety and is the author or co-editor of five other books on various aspects of anxiety disorders. The latest book he has co-edited is entitled Mental Health in the Digital Age: Grave Dangers, Great Promise (Oxford University Press, New York).

François Beck

Dr. François Beck, a holder of the Ph.D. degree from the Paris Descartes university of La Sorbonne Paris Cité, is currently the Director of the mixed-mode household surveys Unit in the French National Statistics Institute. He is also a researcher in the « General population survey on drug use » Team at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM). Until 2017, he was the Director of the French Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT) comprising 40 researchers, engineers and assistants. His research activities, leaning on an epistemological reflection on the quantification of sanitary and social questions, have focused on addictive behaviours, drug-related social factors, sleep, social inequalities, and mental health, with a special emphasis on methodological issues, gender, risk perception, and cross-cultural comparisons. Since 1997, he has developed and implemented the general population surveys on alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug use in France. He has been involved as principal investigator in several surveys both in the adult and adolescent general populations. Furthermore, he is a Member of several scientific committees (Mental Health Program of the French Surveillance Center ; National Institute of Sleep…). INTERNATIONAL GAMBLING STUDIES 13

Joël Billieux

Prof. Joël Billieux is currently associate professor of clinical psychology at the university of Luxembourg and visiting professor at the Université catholique de Louvain (Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium). He is head of the Addictive and Compulsive Behaviours Lab (ACB-Lab) and member of the Integrative Research Unit on Social and Individual Development (INSIDE, University of Luxembourg). His main area of research regards the psychological factors (cognitive, affective, motivational, interpersonal) involved in the etiology of addictive and compulsive behaviours, with a particular focus on self-regulation-related processes.