Adolescent simulated gambling via digital and social media: An emerging problem

media: an emerging problem Daniel King, Paul Delfabbro, Dean Kaptsis and Tara Zwaans What was the research? The recent expansion of simulated and monetary gambling activities to the digital world has lead to growing concerns about the potential for adolescent involvement in gambling activities. Simulated gambling refers to digital, gambling-like activities that do not directly involve monetary gain but are otherwise the same as gambling. This study, an exploration of adolescent simulated gambling, had three objectives:  to examine the prevalence of adolescent involvement in simulated gambling  to measure the association between simulated gambling and monetary gambling activities  to assess whether simulated gambling exposure was associated with indicators of pathological gambling. This research was conducted by a team from the School of Psychology at the University of Adelaide and received partial funding under a 2012 Young Researcher Grant from the European Association for the Study of Gambling. How was the research conducted? This study surveyed 1287 high school students aged 12-17 from seven secondary schools in Adelaide, South Australia. In addition to providing demographic information, participants responded to questions to determine:  electronic media use  gambling behaviour  indicators of pathological gambling and mental health. Responses from all questions were collated and analysed using a number of statistical techniques. Findings from the study need to be considered in the context of several limitations:  the study does not follow participants over time and therefore cannot answer questions about causality (e.g. does simulated gambling cause monetary gambling?)  data on past involvement in gambling activities is self-reported, considered less accurate than other forms of data collection  due to a small rate of pathological gambling found in the study, gamblers were classified at-risk with relatively mild symptoms  a number of potentially predictive risk factors for pathological gambling were not considered in this study (i.e. impulsivity or family history of pathological gambling).