Problem Gambling Research Flawed
9th October, 2009
According to reports from eGaming Review, research by Dr Mark Griffiths, that found that online gambling is more likely to contribute to problem gambling rather than offline gambling last month is quintessentially flawed.
Senior lecturer in gambling studies at the Centre for the Study of Gambling at Salford Business School in the UK, Dr Johnathan Parke, said that the conclusions that Dr Mark Griffiths, professor of gambling studies at Britain’s Nottingham Trent University drew were invalid.
Griffiths used data from the most recent British Gambling Prevalence Survey and used it to conclude that “the medium of the internet may be more likely to contribute to problem gambling than gambling in offline environments,” and continued to say that “it is clear that gaming companies need to acknowledge they will need to provide even better social responsibility infrastructures online than offline to minimise the harm to problem gamblers”
Although, Dr Parke said that the research failed to factor key data which would have made Griffiths draw a different conclusion.
Dr Johnathan Parke said, “While the survey data was sound, the researchers did not take into account how often those who said that they gamble online actually do so, and doesn’t distinguish between those who gamble online once a year and those who gamble online once an hour. Also, the researchers did not take into account whether those who gamble online also participate in other forms of gambling.”
Parke highlighted that people that gamble online also tend to participate in a range of gambling activities in comparison do those that don’t gamble online.
For example, people who play the national lottery are the least likely to take part in other forms of gambling, whilst those who place spread bets are more likely. Online gamblers are at the wider end of the spectrum; they are more likely to take part in varied gambling behaviours rather than those who participate in offline gambling.
“To compare this to drug use, if someone were to do all sorts of drugs and happens to include marijuana in that mix, it wouldn’t then follow that marijuana causes use of more drugs, just that marijuana is easier to get access to than other drugs,” said Dr Parke, he continued, “Key decisions are being made commercially, politically and clinically regarding internet gambling research, and it’s important that we are basing those decisions on accurate information.”
The British Gambling Prevalence Survey studied 9003 participants that were over the age of 16 and had participated in online gambling and/or a betting exchange in the past year. The study was in collaboration with the National Centre for Social Research and the University of Birmingham.
By Faye
