[Problematic and pathologic gambling in Hungary: the Hungarian version and use of the South Oaks Gambling Screen...

Gambling is a form of entertainment with a history of thousand years that has a significant potential for development and has become a widely spread global industry recently. Excessive gambling can take the form of problem, or even pathological gambling. The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) is the most common measure used for the assessment of problem and pathological gambling. The aim of our study was the development and psychometric analysis of the Hungarian version of the instrument, and its verification on a representative population sample.

The administration of the instrument was conducted within the frame of the National Household Survey on Addiction Problems, where 2710 persons were interviewed from Hungarian population between 18 and 64 years.

The psychometric properties of SOGS-HU are adequate. 65.3% of the respondents had ever gambled. The most popular games are lottery and other number draw games. According to the data obtained by SOGS 1.9 % of the sample was considered to be problem gambler, and 1.4 % of the sample was considered to be pathological gambler. In both groups the proportion of man was higher, while additional risk factors were lower income, lower expected level of education and legal / illegal substance use.

Based on these results Hungary can be found in the middle-rank of Europe regarding the prevalence of problem and pathological gambling.