The silver linings of lottery play: motivation and subjective well-being of British lottery participants

Figures & data

Table 1. Average treatment effect on the treated by motivation – played in the past 12 months.

Motivation	Average OH lottery players	Average OH lottery nonplayers	ATT	N lottery players
All	7.916	7.860	0.056 (0.042)	5024
Money motivation	7.897	7.856	0.041 (0.056)	3166
Fun motivation	8.011	7.868	0.142** (0.062)	2351
Social motivation	7.979	7.872	0.107 (0.076)	1083
Only money motivation	7.754	7.859	−0.105 (0.075)	1206
Only fun motivation	8.064	7.883	0.181* (0.098)	361
Only money and fun motivations	8.000	7.864	0.136* (0.083)	1194
Not for money motivations	8.044	7.857	0.187** (0.078)	678
All three motivations	7.995	7.889	0.105 (0.101)	590
Other/no specific motivation	7.897	7.882	0.015 (0.056)	1180

**p < 0.05, *p < 0.10. Total sample consists of 7670 respondents, of which 2646 are nonlottery players. Average treatment effects on the treated (ATTs) given, with bootstrapped SEs in parentheses. OH = overall happiness. ‘Only Social Motivation’, ‘Only Money and Social Motivation’ and ‘Only Fun and Social Motivation’ treatments could not be assessed separately because of too few observations and failure to meet common support conditions.

Table

Variable	Type	Note
Attitude towards gambling	Continuous	Attitudes towards gambling scale (ATGS-8)^a
Gender	Categorical	Female–male
Age	Continuous
Ethnicity	Categorical	White–other
Education	Categorical	Low-level education (ISCED 1–2), medium-level education (ISCED 3–4), high-level education (ISCED 5–6).
Marital status	Categorical	Married–otherwise
Number of children in the household	Categorical	None, 1 child, 2 children, 3 or more children
Occupational status	Categorical	Employed, unemployed, retired, student, other
Household income (band)	Continuous
Financial problems	Categorical	No problems at all, slight problems only, definite problem, very severe problems
Self-assessed health status	Categorical	Very good/good, fair, bad/very bad
Long-standing health illness	Categorical	Yes–no
Smoking behaviour	Categorical	Current smoker, not current smoker
Drinking behaviour	Categorical	No drinker, not heavy drinker (max. 1–4 units on heaviest drinking day), heavy drinker (>4 units on heaviest drinking day).
Region of residence	Categorical	1 of the 12 government office (NUTS-1) regions in Great Britain.

^a Based on questions: (1) people should have the right to gamble whenever they want; (2) there are too many opportunities for gambling nowadays; (3) gambling should be discouraged; (4) most people who gamble do so sensibly; (5) gambling is dangerous for family life; (6) on balance gambling is good for society; (7) gambling livens up life; and (8) it would be better if gambling was banned altogether.