Journal of Gambling

by Jerry "Jet" Whittaker
July 4, 2006

Gambling is a universal activity among university students, with 72% having done so in the past 6 months. The most familiar types of gambling were lotteries and instant win tickets, followed by games of skill against other people. However, most students who gambled indicated that they spent very few time and money doing so. The sort of gambling that has occupied the most time were games of skill against other people and casino table games. The kind of gambling associated with the greatest spending were VLTs and slot machines, the stock market, and casino table games. Consistent with prior research, it would seem that for most students gambling is a fairly innocuous activity, done primarily for entertainment purposes.

Student’s view about the journal of gambling

The ideal forms of gambling in the present study are consistent with what has been found previously. The most famous gambling activity for college and university students as well as adults appears to be lotteries. The five most familiar gambling activities in the studies mentioned above were lotteries, casinos, playing cards, slot/poker machines, and skill games, but these did vary somewhat in order of preference between studies. It is most difficult to make comparisons to other studies regarding time and money spent, as extant studies on these issues address mostly casino gambling. The higher rates of gambling and problem gambling for kinesiology and management majors is an appealing finding that has not been reported in previous research. Nonetheless, what have been previously reported are higher rates of problem gambling in student athletes, presumably due to a greater propensity for risk taking? It is not difficult to anticipate that a significant portion of students pursuing a kinesiology/physical education degree are also student athletes.

Conclusion

While gambling is inoffensive for most, it is apparent that a significant minority of students are heavy gamblers who experience adverse consequences from it. Seven and one-half percent of students were mentioned as problem or pathological gamblers. Similar to prior research, the rate of problem or pathological gambling in university students is higher than in the general population. There has been very little prior research concerning variables that discriminate between college or university gamblers and non-gamblers or problem gamblers and non-problem gamblers. In the current study, having a more positive attitude toward gambling was the best predictor of both being a gambler and being a problem gambler. This is not an unexpected finding, although it is exciting that people experiencing problems still maintain a more positive attitude than people not experiencing problems.

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