The irrelevancy of game-type in the acquisition, development, and maintenance of problem gambling

Although most people gamble occasionally for fun and pleasure, gambling brings with it inherent risks of personal and social harm. According to the most recent British Gambling Prevalence Survey there are ∼350,000 problem gamblers in the UK which equates to just under 1% of the adult population (Wardle et al., 2011). Problem and pathological gambling can negatively affect significant areas of a person’s life, including their physical and mental health, employment, finances, and interpersonal relationships (e.g., family members, financial dependents) (Griffiths, 2004). Furthermore, there are significant co-morbidities with problem gambling, including depression, alcoholism, and obsessive-compulsive behaviors (Petry et al., 2005; Desai and Potenza, 2008). These co-morbidities may exacerbate, or be exacerbated by, problem and pathological gambling. The availability of opportunities to gamble and the incidence of problem gambling within a community are also known to be linked (e.g., Pearce et al., 2008). Anyone coming into the gambling studies field from a psychological perspective would probably conclude from reading the literature that problem and pathological gambling is associated with particular game types. More specifically, there appears to be a line of thinking in the gambling studies field that casino-type games (and particularly slot machines) are more likely to be associated with problem gambling than lottery-type games (Griffiths, 1994; Meyer et al., 2009). In this opinion paper it is argued that when it comes to problem gambling, game-type is irrelevant and that the most important factors along with individual susceptibility and risk factors of the individual gambler (which are not discussed here and beyond this paper’s remit), are the structural characteristics relating to the speed and frequency of the game (and more specifically event frequency, bet frequency, event duration, and payout interval) rather than the type of game. It is also argued that researchers in the gambling studies field need to think about game parameters rather than game type when it comes to any association with problem and pathological gambling.