[Excessive gambling in prisoners. A statistical study of 72 criminals of various crime categories]

After a brief introduction into the psychiatric problems of pathological gambling, the author presents a statistical study on 72 delinquents, amongst them 14 excessive gamblers. The special design of this investigation consists in two comparative studies between the gambling and the non-gambling subgroups, first within the total of delinquents secondly within the group of the drugs- and property-offenders. There is a great number of traits compared concerning e.g. family history, personal biography, social status, drug-consumption-behavior and clinical traits. It is clearly shown that excessive gamblers are markedly overrepresented in the last-mentioned group and that gamblers are to be distinguished by a number of characteristics from their group-mates even in this comparatively homogenous subgroup. Thus, they seem to be negatively loaded by the high prevalence of psychiatric abnormalities in their families, by a higher frequency of birth complications, infantile behavioral disorders and an even more marked seeking behavior for addictive drugs.