Problem gambling within the context of poverty: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

The burden of gambling problems is felt more strongly among people who experience poverty. A small but emerging body of research is developing with no identified reviews exploring the scope of the academic literature on the confluence of poverty and gambling problems. The Arksey and O’Malley scoping study framework was used to map research on this multifaceted topic. We synthesized findings of 27 studies, spanning several national contexts on prevalence of problem gambling and associations of it with poverty. Findings indicated that gambling problems were associated with several poverty measures including employment/unemployment, housing instability, homelessness, low income, and neighborhood disadvantage. The complex interplay of gambling problems with social and health issues emerged in qualitative papers. Relatively few studies explored the connection between poverty and gambling problems despite higher prevalence of gambling problems in this population. Those experiencing both concerns face myriad challenges necessitating surveillance and treatment within vulnerable populations. Further research should explore pathways to gambling problems and poverty and also the associative nature and temporal sequencing of the two phenomena. Global awareness on the topic from a research and clinical/community service perspective is necessary.

KEYWORDS:

• Problem gambling
• poverty
• review
• vulnerable populations
• public health

Acknowledgements

The study was supported by MAP Center for Urban Health Solutions, St. Michael’s Hospital, and Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Ontario.

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article/Supplementary Material.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tara Hahmann

Tara Hahmann, PhD, is a Visiting Research Affiliate with MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions at St. Michael’s Hospital where she completed her post-doctoral training in community-engaged research and knowledge translation with a focus on poverty and problem gambling. She has research interests in vulnerable populations, poverty, and addiction.

Sarah Hamilton-Wright

Sarah Hamilton-Wright, MA, is a community-based researcher interested in environments and health. She has extensive experience in research management, applied to many studies during her career at MAP. Sarah enjoys working with researchers and community members to design, develop and evaluate interventions/solutions that inspire improved health and social equity.

Carolyn Ziegler

Carolyn Ziegler, MA, MIS, is an Information Specialist at Unity Health Toronto, a hospital network affiliated with the University of Toronto. She has carried out literature searches on a wide range of medical and social determinants of health topics, including systematic, scoping, and realist reviews.

Flora I. Matheson

Flora I. Matheson, PhD is a medical sociologist who uses a gender lens to investigate the social determinants of mental health, substance use, poverty/homelessness, problem gambling, and criminal justice involvement. She was one of the first researchers in Canada to investigate and measure the strong relationship between problem gambling and homelessness.