Who chooses to enroll in a new national gambling self-exclusion system? A general population survey in Sweden - PubMed (original) (raw)
Who chooses to enroll in a new national gambling self-exclusion system? A general population survey in Sweden
A Håkansson et al. Harm Reduct J. 2020.
Abstract
Background: Self-exclusion from gambling is a common method for prevention and harm reduction in hazardous gambling. However, few national self-exclusion programs, involving a large number of gambling operators and activities in a country, have been assessed scientifically. This study aimed to examine characteristics of individuals who chose to enroll in a recently introduced (January, 2019) national self-exclusion system in Sweden.
Methods: Adults and adolescents (from age 16 and above) were addressed with an online survey sent to members of the web panel of a market survey company (1940 respondents). Psychological distress, previous history of addictive disorders, sociodemographic data, and recent history of gambling patterns and over-indebtedness were recorded. Logistic regression tested associations with self-exclusion, with unadjusted analyses conducted for the sub-group of moderate-risk or problem gamblers.
Results: Four percent reported having self-excluded using the new national self-exclusion system. In logistic regression, self-exclusion was significantly associated with younger age (OR 0.65 [0.54-0.79] for increasing age groups) and with the highest level of problem gambling (OR 2.84 [1.10-7.37]). In moderate-risk or problem gamblers, in unadjusted analyses, younger age (p < 0.05) and psychological distress (p = 0.02) were associated with self-exclusion. In none- or low-risk gamblers, 3% had self-excluded, which was significantly associated with younger age (p < 0.001) and self-reported over-indebtedness (p < 0.001).
Conclusions: In a national, multi-venue online and land-based self-exclusion system, aiming to reduce the harm of problem gambling, self-exclusion is expectedly more common in problem gamblers, but also occurs among people without recent gambling problems. Further efforts may be needed in order to increase gambling self-exclusion in problem gamblers, and research in reasons for self-excluding, even in non-problem gamblers, is needed.
Keywords: Gambling; Gambling disorder; Gender; Indebtedness; Self-exclusion.
Conflict of interest statement
The first author holds a researcher position at Lund University which is funded by the state-owned gambling operator AB Svenska Spel, as part of that body’s responsible gambling policies. Other funding for other current projects is received from the research council of the same organization, i.e. the research council of ABSvenska Spel, as well as from the research council of the Swedish state-owned alcohol retail monopoly, Systembolaget, and from the research council of the Swedish Enforcement Authority, as well as from the regional hospital organization. A previous project in a different area of research (misuse of prescription drugs) was carried out with the first author as a sub-investigator in a multicenter project, run by the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in the USA. The RTI is a non-commercial research institute which received the funding for that overall project from Shire pharmaceuticals. The first author of the present paper did not receive any personal fees from the financing body. In addition, ongoing study collaboration is prepared in a study where Kontigo care, a company providing follow-up and assessment tools in treatment, is involved in offering technical follow-up tools to a clinical follow-up gambling study, without any other direct financial payments to the researchers.
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