Legalising gambling activities or providing more opportunities for gambling through online platforms does not lead to rise in gambling activities or problem gamblers, according to a new US study.
In the past decade, online gambling has exploded and several US states, including New York, have approved measures to legalise various types of gambling, researchers said.
"We compared results from two nationwide telephone surveys, conducted a decade apart. We found no significant increase in the rates of problem gambling in the US, despite a nationwide increase in gambling opportunities," said John W Welte, senior research scientist at University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA).
The first telephone survey interviewed 2,613 people in 1999-2000, and the second survey interviewed 2,963 people in 2011-13.
Individuals were asked about their participation in a broad range of gambling activities, including raffles, office pools, pulltabs, bingo, cards, pool, gambling machines, casinos, lottery, Internet gambling, and sports, horse or dog track betting.
Despite an increase in gambling opportunities, rates of problem gambling remained stable. Problem gambling includes behaviours such as constantly thinking about gambling, increasing bets to sustain thrill, lying to conceal gambling activity and the inability to stop gambling, among others.
Using several different criteria, the researchers found no statistically significant change in problem gambling or its more severe form, pathological gambling.
Rates of problem gambling remained in the 3.5 to 5.5 per cent range, depending on the measure used, and rates of pathological gambling were in the 1.0 to 2.4 per cent range.
"And although there have been frequent stories in the media about women who are gambling addicts, men are more than twice as likely as women to be problem gamblers," researchers said.
The survey showed the prevalence of problem gambling among women actually decreased, from 2.9 to 2.5 per cent.
The researchers found that overall participation in gambling activities decreased. The percentage of respondents who gambled in the past year dropped to 76.9 per cent in 2011-13, down from 82.2 per cent in 1999-2000.
Among respondents who gambled at least once in the past year, there was a significant reduction in the average number of days on which they gambled - 59.9 days per year in 1999-2000 to 53.7 days in 2011-13.
"Our results show it is clear that US residents are gambling less often," Welte said.
"It may be due to the economic downturn we experienced starting in 2008, which resulted in a decline in casino business," he said.
