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The 2018 Supreme Court decision on Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association brought not only a change in the United States commercial gambling landscape, but also considerable speculation across public forums about whether expanded sports gambling causes new, distinct, and greater harm than existing legal forms of gambling. This commentary brings into the focus that the definition of this form of gambling has recently begun to shift without a theoretical basis or empirical evidence. To bring evidence to bear, there is a need for a precise operational definition of sport gambling and greatly clarity to the questions that can drive knowledge generation., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Asian Americans have been unlikely to seek mental health services despite their needs for treatment, particularly when experiencing significant gambling or Internet gaming problems. Stigma is often considered to be a barrier to seeking help. To understand how stigma impacts Asian Americans' willingness to seek mental health services, the present study used an online survey to investigate the public stigma associated with addictive behaviors and help-seeking stigma among Asian Americans. Participants (N = 431) who self-identified as Asian American, reside in the US. Using a between-groups vignette study design, it was found that the individual with a behavioral addiction received more stigma compared to the individual who experienced a financial crisis. In addition, participants were more likely to seek help if they experienced addictive behavioral problems rather than financial problems. Lastly, this study did not reveal a significant relation between public stigma attached to addictive behaviors and Asian Americans' willingness to seek help, but it found that participants' willingness to seek help was positively associated with public stigma of help seeking (β = 0.23) and negatively associated with self-stigma attached to help-seeking (β = - 0.09). Based on these findings, recommendations are provided to inform community outreach to reduce stigma and promote mental health service utilization among Asian Americans., (© 2023. This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.)

A recent meta-analysis of laboratory studies on the effects of acute alcohol consumption on risk-taking did not support that acute alcohol consumption increased risk-taking. Questions about whether this finding generalizes to those gambling in naturalistic settings remain. Therefore, we examined the gambling behavior of frequent gamblers who did and did not consume alcohol while gambling. Participants were 769 weekly gamblers (66% male) who were U.S. residents and at least 18 years old. Participants recruited via MTurk completed measures through the Qualtrics survey platform. Significant predictors of gambling under the influence of alcohol were drinking days per month and PGSI score. A linear regression model predicting percentage of time spent gambling under the influence of alcohol revealed that gambling days per week, gambling hours per day, PGSI score, and drinking days per month were significant predictors. Finally, significant predictors of spending at least 50% of gambling time gambling under the influence of alcohol included: gambling hours per day, PGSI score, and drinking days per month. These findings were consistent with the recent meta-analysis of laboratory studies. However, finding that gambling disorder symptoms and overall rates of alcohol consumption were related to gambling under the influence of alcohol replicated the frequently found relation of alcohol problems among those who also exhibit gambling problems., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

There is a need to better understand how to motivate individuals experiencing addiction-related concerns, such as gambling problems, to engage in help-seeking behaviors. This experiment tested whether online messages based on principles of motivational interviewing (MI) could be used to encourage individuals to complete a problem gambling screener. Participants ( N = 805) who gambled at least weekly and were not receiving treatment for gambling problems were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 message conditions that all offered participants the choice to complete either a problem gambling screener or an alternative questionnaire focused on gambling-related attitudes. The first condition was an MI-based interactive message, the second was similar in content but was presented in a noninteractive manner, and the third was a control message that did not include motivational elements. We found that the interactive motivational message yielded significantly higher rates of screener completion (39%) than the noninteractive message (28%) or control message (29%), χ² (2, N = 805) = 8.28, p = .016, Φ = .29. This remained significant after controlling for other study variables. Controlling for message condition, participants were more likely to complete the screener if they gambled more frequently, with more money, were more psychologically distressed and interested in receiving help for gambling problems, or had ever received treatment for gambling problems. These findings provide support for the use of interactive MI-based messages to encourage individuals at-risk for experiencing problems to use helping resources. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Gambling and alcohol problems commonly co-occur during emerging adulthood. Co-occurring problems may relates to personality factors, physical health, mental health and gambling belief systems. In a large sample of colleges students ( N  = 513), we examined alcohol, gambling and co-occurring problem groups relative to a group without alcohol or gambling problems from large sample of college students. Group differences were found on Constraint and Negative Emotionality ( p s ≤ .05). All three groups had a higher score on gamblers' beliefs of illusion of control compared to the group with no problems (all p s < .05). Those with co-occurring problems had a higher score on illusion of control beliefs than those with alcohol problems only. For luck/perseverance gambling beliefs, those with co-occurring problems had higher levels than other groups on these beliefs. The group with alcohol problems and significantly poorer mental health outcomes than those without alcohol or gambling problems. Individuals with gambling problems or alcohol problems only had significantly poorer self-rated overall physical health ( p  < .01). Differences were found between groups (alcohol, gambling, alcohol + gambling and neither) on self-rated energy and fatigue as well as pain ( p s < .05). Gambling and alcohol problems may relate to emotional and health problems, and personality and belief systems may be related to the co-occurrence of gambling and alcohol problems.

The negative psychological effects of public stigma on disordered gamblers have been well documented. Public stigma deters treatment-seeking and other help-seeking behaviors, and negatively impacts individuals' view of themselves. Different types of disordered gambling activities may attract different degrees of stigma. One increasingly popular form of gambling involves placing bets on the outcomes of competitive video games, also called eSports gambling. This activity shares characteristics with Internet gaming and gambling. The purpose of this study was to compare the degree of public stigma held towards traditional casino gamblers, eSports gamblers, and Internet gamers, as compared to an individual experiencing comparable levels of impairment and distress due to a financial crisis. Using an experimental between-groups vignette study design, we found that all three types of behavioral addictions were more heavily stigmatized than the control condition. The three behavioral addictions were seen as being highly controllable, engendered a significant amount of anger and blame, and resulted in higher levels of desired social distance. Traditional casino gamblers were seen as significantly more dangerous to be around and created a higher level of desired social distance than the Internet gamer. Differences between the Internet gamer and eSports better were less pronounced. These findings underscore the importance of reducing public stigma for gambling and other behavioral addictions, and provide information that can be used when developing interventions to impact stigma.

Premature termination challenges the successful outcomes of psychological treatments for gambling disorder. To date, research has primarily identified clients who are at particular risk for dropping out of treatment. A smaller but growing body of literature has investigated when dropout occurs. Typically, those studies have not considered improvement in psychological distress within their operationalizations of dropout and therefore may have misrepresented when dropout occurs. The current study examined when dropout occurs using an operationalization based on the criteria of attaining reliable change in a naturalistic sample of clients with gambling disorder, and the classification rates yielded from that operationalization were compared to the rates from a more common operationalization. Participants (n = 334) were clients meeting diagnostic criteria for gambling disorder at an outpatient private practice who completed a measure of psychological distress at baseline and prior to each subsequent treatment session. A survival analysis was conducted to determine temporal patterns of treatment dropout (i.e., clients who discontinued treatment before realizing reliable changes in psychological distress) and completion (i.e., clients who discontinued treatment after realizing reliable changes in distress) at each treatment session. Forty-nine percent of clients were classified as dropouts, and the majority of those clients did so in the first few sessions. The more common operationalization of dropout classified clients as dropouts when they had improved in their distress and clients as completers when they had not improved in their distress. Discussion centers on the implications of dropout occurring at various stages of treatment and future directions.

Compared to college females, college males are more likely to report frequent gambling. Research on gambling outcome expectancies has shown that expectations about gambling influence gambling behavior and that endorsement of particular expectancies differs by gender. Knowledge regarding the differential predictive utility of specific gambling expectancies based on gender would help to determine how beliefs about gambling may be fundamentally different for men and women. The present study explored whether gender moderates the relation between gambling expectancy and gambling frequency in a college sample. 421 college students completed an online survey that included questions about their demographics, gambling frequency, and gambling expectancies. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that gender moderated the relations between the expectancies of social consequences, material gain, and gambling frequency. For females, greater endorsement of social consequences predicted less frequent gambling. For both males and females, greater endorsement of material gain predicted more frequent gambling. The current findings can help inform prevention and intervention efforts by identifying gambling expectations that are differentially related to college student gambling behavior choices.

The proposed DSM-V changes related to the pathological gambling diagnosis hold far-reaching implications, yet these modifications have been met with little public attention. This letter addresses the three changes proposed including the diagnosis' reclassification alongside other addictive behaviors, the lowering of the pathological gambling threshold to the endorsement of 4 symptoms, and the removal of the "illegal acts" criterion. Support for the initial change is well documented, but there is evidence to suggest that the latter two changes should be reconsidered.

Objective: The authors investigated behavioral indicators of pathological gambling in a college student sample., Participants and Methods: The authors administered a diagnostic interview for pathological gambling to 159 college students, who also completed a demographic questionnaire, and a self-report measure of psychological distress., Results: Consistent patterns of gambling behavior associated with pathological gambling included gambling more than 1.2 times per month, gambling more than 2.1 hours per month, intending to wager more than 6.1% of monthly income, and wagering more than 10.5% of monthly income. In addition, the combination of psychological distress, gambling frequency, and a history of parental gambling problems was significantly associated with pathological gambling in college students., Conclusions: These findings suggest initial markers of problematic gambling behavior in a college sample that may be used in assessment, prevention, and intervention.

The psychometric properties of two pathological gambling (PG) screening instruments, the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) and the Massachusetts Gambling Screen-DSM-IV subscale (MAGS), were explored in a sample of college students (N = 159). Participants completed the two screening instruments, a diagnostic interview for PG, the Gambling-Timeline Followback (G-TLFB), Gambling Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (GSEQ), and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL). Both screening measures were found to have adequate internal consistency and were highly correlated with each other and the diagnostic interview. The screening measures demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity. Using the diagnostic interview as the criterion measure, the SOGS demonstrated better sensitivity in identifying PG college students than the MAGS. The MAGS demonstrated better specificity in identifying non-PG college students than the SOGS. The results of this study suggest that although neither measure is perfect in identifying PG college students, the SOGS is a more appropriate measure for screening purposes.

The current study was an exploration of gambling-related perceptions and their relation to gambling behavior among young adult college students. Three hundred and two ethnically diverse undergraduates at a large urban public university completed a survey to assess their perceptions of the availability, risks, and benefits of gambling, and the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) to assess gambling behavior and problems. Participants generally rated gambling as more available than alcohol or marijuana, and less risky than alcohol or cigarettes. The most common perceived benefits of gambling were social enhancement, financial gain, and positive changes in affect. Perceived benefits were a significant predictor of gambling problems. Perceived availability, perceived risk, and perceived benefits were found to be significant predictors of regular gambling. These results provide valuable information about the ways that college students perceive gambling and demonstrate that perceptions can be important predictors of gambling behavior.