What Are the Risks and Protective Factors of Online Gambling?

Online Gambling is a type of gambling where players can place bets and wager real money on casino games and other online gambling activities. While this can be a great way to have fun and relax, it can also lead to addiction and financial problems. Fortunately, there are many ways to treat this addiction. One of the most important is to recognize that you have a problem and make a plan to change your behavior. Another option is to seek professional help. This can include therapy and medication. A therapist can help you understand the root causes of your gambling addiction and teach you coping strategies. They can also recommend medications that may help reduce your urges to gamble.

While several studies have investigated knowledge about risk and protective factors in online gambling, these articles are generally lacking in methodological quality. Most of them employ nonrepresentative samples and focus on cross-sectional data. It would therefore be desirable to conduct longitudinal research on this topic, enabling more comprehensive conclusions and valid predictions to be drawn.

In terms of demographic characteristics, it seems that there are few differences between online and offline gamblers. Six papers have reported sex based differences in the prevalence of gambling related problems, and it is clear that boys have more trouble with online gambling than girls (Andrie et al., 2019; Aricak et al., 2019; Floros et al., 2013; Gonzalez-Cabrera et al., 2020; Potenza et al., 2011). Also, Gainsbury et al. (2014c) found that chasing losses is more prevalent in female online gamblers than male ones.