Gamblers' cognitive distortions are thought to be an important mechanism involved in the development and maintenance of problem gambling. The Gambling Cognitions Inventory (GCI) evaluates two categories of distortions: beliefs that one is lucky (i.e., "Luck/Chance") and beliefs that one has special gambling-related skills (i.e., "Skill/Attitude"). Prior psychometric evaluations of the GCI demon...

With recent introduction of poker machines in Australia, there have been claims of increases in the number of women with gambling-related problems. Research in the United States indicates however, that men have a higher incidence of pathological gambling. The aims of this study were to ascertain among game machine users in a major city in Australia whether (a) more women than men exhibited symp...

Gambling disorder sufferers prefer immediately larger rewards despite long term losses on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), and these impairments are associated with dopamine dysfunctions. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter linked with temporal and structural dysfunctions in substance use disorder, which has supported the idea of impaired decision-making and dopamine dysfunctions in gambling disorder. ...

Traditionally, gambling and problem gambling research relies on cross-sectional and retrospective designs. This has compromised identification of temporal relationships and causal inference. To overcome these problems a new questionnaire, the Jonsson-Abbott Scale (JAS), was developed and used in a large, prospective, general population study, The Swedish Longitudinal Gambling Study (Swelogs). T...

OBJECTIVE We investigated the relationship between impulsivity, as measured by delay and probability discounting, and gambling-related cognitions and behavior in adults with and without ADHD. METHOD Adults who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV) diagnostic criteria for ADHD (n = 31) and controls (n = 29) were recruited from the community. All completed ...

BACKGROUND Gambling among adolescents is a growing public health concern. To date, social marketing as a strategy to address problem gambling among youth has not been widely used. METHODS A qualitative study through the use of focus groups was conducted to explore adolescents' exposure to existing prevention campaigns and their message content and communication strategy preferences for a yout...

OBJECTIVE To examine the associations between a self-reported history of gambling or problems related to gambling and health risk behaviors in adolescence. DESIGN An anonymous risk behavior survey was administered to 21 297 8th- through 12th-grade students in 79 public and private schools in Vermont. Gambling or problems related to gambling were the outcome variables of interest. Demographic ...

Gambling has become a major recreational activity in the United States. Formerly confined to a few states such as Nevada and New Jersey, legal gambling opportunities have exploded across the nation in the past 2 decades. Some form of legalized gambling now exists in all but 2 states: 37 have lotteries, and 27 have casino gambling. Recent estimates indicate that 70% to 90% of North Americans hav...

OBJECTIVE Younger people are engaging in gambling, with some showing excessive involvement. Although a consequence of gambling could be anxiety and depression, emotional distress could be a precursor to gambling involvement. This could reflect developmental proneness toward problem behaviour. We assessed whether early emotional distress directly influences later gambling or if it operates throu...

Introduction The primary outcome of our study was to assess the links between the level of cognitive distortions and the severity of gambling disorder. We also aimed at assessing the links between patient gambling trajectories and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Materials and methods The study population (n = 628) was comprised of problem and non-problem gamblers of both se...