Adolescent gambling in metropolitan Darwin: Prevalence, correlates and social influences

Abstract

The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of gambling and problem gambling in secondary school students in the Darwin metropolitan area. A total of 1107 young people aged 14-18 years completed anonymous surveys in classrooms under supervision and were asked to report their gambling behaviour. Just over half (50.8%) reported having gambled at least once in the previous 12 months and 6.3% gambled on at least a weekly basis. Only 0.2% of the sample was classified as pathological gamblers based on the DSM-IV-J. The study confirmed the results of previous studies by showing that young Indigenous students were significantly more likely to gamble regularly than other students, and that boys were more likely to score > 0 on the pathological gambling measure. Reported problems with gambling were more likely in those who experienced early wins when they started gambling. On the whole, the results showed that gambling participation rates were similar to other jurisdictions in Australia, but that pathological gambling rates were significantly lower, possibly due to the selective under-sampling of young people with lower school attendance or levels of literacy.