Problem gambling in Germany: results of a mixed-mode population survey in 2021

ABSTRACT

Since 2006, representative telephone surveys among the German general population have not detected any significant changes with respect to gambling-related problems. This is remarkable, as in the meantime not only the availability of gambling services and the turnover and gross gambling revenues of gambling providers have increased, but also the demand for treatment from people with gambling problems has grown. Not only in the gambling field have population surveys of this type recently been associated with certain methodological problems. These include a decreasing willingness to participate among and limited access to specific subgroups. The prevalence study at hand is based on a mixed-mode design which combines both a telephone and an online survey. The weighting of both samples in a ratio of 2 to 1 was checked against plausibility data. The sample consists of 12,303 complete interviews (telephone: 61%, online: 39%). The results show that 2.3% of the German population aged 18–70 years are identified as having a ‘gambling disorder’ according to DSM-5 (mild disorder: 1.1%, moderate disorder: 0.7%, and severe disorder: 0.5%). The prevalence detected in this study is significantly higher than that of previous surveys. Finally, we discuss the results primarily within the context of the new survey methodology.

KEYWORDS:

• Gambling
• gambling disorder
• prevalence
• population survey
• telephone and online sample

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The authors agree to make their data available upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by Deutscher Lotto- und Totoblock.

Notes on contributors

Gerhard Meyer

Gerhard Meyer is an Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Bremen and was involved in several research projects on problem gambling, e.g. problem gambling and delinquency, neuroendocrine response to casino gambling, self-exclusion, development of an assessment tool to evaluate the risk potential of different gambling types.

Jens Kalke

Jens Kalke studied political science at the University of Hamburg and completed his doctoral thesis on the topic ”Drug policy in the federal states of Germany”. He is senior researcher at the ”Institute for Interdisciplinary Addiction and Drug Research (ISD)”, managing research projects on prevention and gambling.

Sven Buth

Sven Buth studied sociology at the University of Hamburg and completed his doctorate in 2017 on the topic ”Subtypes of pathological gamblers”. Since 2004, he has been a research associate at the ”Institute for Interdisciplinary Addiction and Drug Research (ISD)”, focussing on gambling, epidemiology, development and evaluation of prevention measures.