Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 1, 2025

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation for Online Gamers
Published on: November 9, 2019
Individual risk factors and prediction of gambling disorder in online sports bettors - the longitudinal RIGAB study
Theresa Wirkus1, Robert Czernecka1,2, Gerhard Bühringer1,2,3
1Department of Psychology, Institute for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Introduction:
While research in online sports betting is dominated by studies using objective player tracking data from providers to identify risky gambling behavior, basicresearch has identified various putative individual risk factors assumed to underlie the development of gambling disorder across all types of gambling. This study aims to examine individual risk factors and their longitudinal clinical relevance in online sports bettors.
Methods:
German online sports bettors (N = 607, M = 34, 92% male) from a provider based sample took part in an online survey. The study team randomly preselected customers to be invited. N = 325 (53,45%) of the participants also took part in an online follow-up survey one year later. Crosssectional and longitudinal associations of putative risk factors and DSM-5 gambling disorder in online sports bettors were analyzed. These risk factors include alcohol and tobacco use, impulsivity, difficulties in emotion identification, emotion regulation strategies, comorbid mental disorders and stress.
Results:
We found more pronounced impulsivity, difficulties in emotion identification, emotion suppression, comorbid mental disorders and stress were cross-sectionally associated with gambling disorder, and longitudinally predicted gambling disorder in online sports bettors (with the exception of emotion suppression). In an overall model only lack of premeditation and perceived helplessness remained significant as predictors for gambling disorder. Online sports bettors with gambling disorder predominantly showed more pronounced risk factors, which were also confirmed longitudinally as relevant for the maintenance of gambling disorder.
Discussion:
Risk factors such as impulsivity and stress and appropriate coping mechanisms should consequently be integrated not only into prevention efforts to identify individuals at risk early, but also into intervention efforts to tailor treatment.
More Related Videos
07:31Implementation of a Real-Time Psychosis Risk Detection and Alerting System Based on Electronic Health Records using CogStack
Published on: May 15, 2020
08:53Integrating Computerized Linguistic and Social Network Analyses to Capture Addiction Recovery Capital in an Online Community
Published on: May 31, 2019
Related Concept Videos
Longitudinal Studies
Longitudinal Research
Regression Toward the Mean
Bias
In statistics, a sampling bias is created when a sample is collected from a population, and some members of the population are not as likely to be chosen as others (remember, each member...
Binge Eating Disorders