Gambling Behaviors in Adolescent Male and Female Regular and Non-Regular Gamblers: A Study of Central Italian Adolescent
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Gambling Behaviors in Adolescent Male and Female Regular and Non‑Regular Gamblers: A Study of Central Italian Adolescents Franca Tani1 · Lucia Ponti2 · Simon Ghinassi2 Accepted: 9 September 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Gambling is a widespread and popular phenomenon among adolescents. However, little is known specifically about adolescent gambling behaviors in Italy. The aim of the present study was to explore the prevalence and frequency of gambling behaviors, the types of bets most frequently chosen, the amount of money spent on gambling, and the more frequent problem gambling behaviors, taking into account the type of gambler (regular and non-regular), gender, and age. For this propose, 1255 adolescents (59.1% males) aged 13 to 19 years (M = 16.06; SD = 1.47), were recruited for the study. Results of a series of chisquared tests show that 70.8% of adolescents had gambled at least once in the previous year, with more than 68% of minors declaring that they had gambled. Among those who claimed to have gambled, 24% were regular gamblers who spent more money, had more gambling-related problems, and chose games more at risk for developing gambling addiction, compared to non-regular gamblers. Regarding gender, results show that males gambled more, more frequently, spent more, and presented more gambling-related problems than females. About age, adolescents of age gambled more on some games that involved going to places to bet than minors but no differences between minors and of-age adolescents emerged on the amount of money spent and in being a regular gambler or not. However, gender and age differences emerged only in the non-regular group, whereas in the regular-gambling group, males and females and minor and of-age adolescents did not differ on any aspect analyzed. Keywords Gambling behaviors · Regular gamblers · Non-regular gamblers · Adolescents · Gender differences * Lucia Ponti [email protected] Franca Tani [email protected] Simon Ghinassi [email protected] 1
Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Via San Salvi, 12, Pad. 26, 50135 Florence, Italy
2
Department of Education, Languages, Intercultures, Literatures and Psychology, University of Florence, Via San Salvi, 12, Pad. 26, 50135 Florence, Italy
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Gambling Studies
Introduction Recent literature has widely documented that gambling constitutes a form of addictive behavior that is spreading among adolescents (Andrie et al. 2019). Although gambling is often considered an activity typical of adults, and despite legislation that generally prohibits minors from participating in any form of gambling, there is a plethora of studies that suggest that the popularity and diffusion of gambling among adolescents has been increasing in recent years (Calado et al. 2017; Delfabbro et al. 2016; Hayer and Griffiths 2014). The global increase of gambling is probably due to the fact that, in the last decade, it has been one of the fastest-growing a
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