Gambling Problems

The prevention of pathological gambling: An annotated bibliography

Peter Ferentzy, Nigel E. Turner, & Wayne Skinner, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. E-mail: Nigel_Turner@camh.net

The preparation of this annotated bibliography was guided by a desire to include all of the problem gambling research articles related to prevention that have been published in English. Some exceptions were made for articles published in other languages but for which an English abstract was available that provided sufficient details about the study. All studies were included, regardless of their methodological quality. In some cases, studies utilizing the same treated sample but providing additional results of the study were included. The annotations are brief and simply provide the reader with the full bibliographic reference, the basic approach that is evaluated in the study, and, when available, information about the results. No effort was made to critically appraise or review the study. Since the problem gambling research field is a growing area of inquiry, this bibliography will become quickly outdated and will require regular update to remain current. Prevention is a complex topic that must take into consideration the causes of the problems. As such we not only report papers evaluating prevention programs but also discuss papers that explore the causes of pathological gambling. These papers on prevention are divided into four categories:

• • • •

risk factors, programs, evaluations of programs, and conceptual issues and general information.

Each paper was placed into the category that it best suited.

1

1. Risk factors

Abbott, M. (2006). Do EGMs and problem gambling go together like a horse and carriage? Gambling Research, 18, 7-38. Study throws into question simple associations between exposure to EGMs and PG. Literature on the topic is reviewed, and the truth seems to be that availability can have many effects, from...