Gambling Addiction: Is It In The Genes?
16th June, 2010
Those whose parents are addicted to gambling are far more likely to gamble than others whose parents don’t gamble according to an Australian study conducted recently.
The research used several thousand pairs of twins to find out whether the urge to gamble was solely due to genetic makeup.
Previous research on men has already established that gambling addiction runs in families, however this study builds on this will more research into why women gamble.
The study collected data on both identical and fraternal twins which helped them to see the subtle influences that culture, environment and genetics make on a person’s disposition towards heavy gambling.
The study included 2,700 women and 2,000 men. In nearly every study, whilst each person gambled in some way or another, men were far more likely to gamble than the women who took part.
34 of the women in the study were identified as being problem gamblers in comparison to 70 men. They also found that addicted gamblers were more common in identical twins than fraternal twins, meaning that environmental factors couldn’t explain the variations in addictive behaviors, however they did highlight that environment is still an important contributory factor.
Those who have gambling addicts in their families were more likely to gamble both due to their inherited risk reward genes and by being exposed to the problem gambling role model whilst growing up.
The researcher commented that there wasn’t a single specific gambling gene rather, like alcoholism it was a complex disorder which relates to a collection of genes.
By Faye
