allAfrica.com: South Africa: Research Into Problem Gambling Bears Fruit (Page 1 of 1)

IN SA, as elsewhere, whenever there is public debate about the regulation of commercial gambling, whether gambling at casinos or online, one of the topics that receives central attention is problem gambling.

It is generally supposed that the more gambling opportunities are around, the more problem gamblers there will be. This is often said to be the main reason why most people in democracies think that although some gambling should be allowed, it should be carefully restricted.

Until very recently, social and behavioural scientists didn't know very much at all about problem gambling. They had no idea what caused it. They didn't know if all problem gamblers responded to similar kinds of interventions. They didn't know whether some kinds of gambling were more dangerous to people with gambling problems than other kinds of gambling. They didn't even have reliable estimates, in any country, as to what proportion of the general population, and what proportion of active gamblers, have gambling problems.

There is still much about problem gambling we don't know. Research continues throughout the world, including in SA. This year, researchers in the School

of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), along with colleagues at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and others based in the US, are conducting the most thorough study of gambling behaviour yet done in SA. After the results of that work are in, we should have a much clearer idea of the extent and nature of the issue here.

However, landmark developments in the science of gambling behaviour over the past five years have at least trebled our level of understanding. Three main factors are responsible for this. First, there have been great improvements in the screens used to identify problem gamblers. Second, scientists' newly developed ability to observe the functioning of people's brains while they're thinking and acting have delivered powerful new insights into the processes underlying addiction in general. These insights are now being applied to pathological gamblers, whose behaviour often closely resembles that of other addicts, such as alcoholics. Third, there have now been enough years of widespread legal gambling in most countries that we at last have large enough samples of gamblers and problem gamblers to gather statistically meaningful evidence.

Does this rapidly improving information base suggest that problem gambling is more or less of a serious public health issue than we thought before? As is often the case with new knowledge, there is good and bad news.

I'll start with the good news. In every jurisdiction that has been carefully surveyed -- so far, New Zealand, the UK, the US and parts of Canada and Australia -- the proportion of people, and the proportion of gamblers, with serious and persistent gambling problems is a good deal smaller than we used to think. Just a few years ago, typical estimates ranged in the zone of 3%-4% of the general population over 16. In fact, the studies haven't found any country or province where the number is higher than 1%. Furthermore, the careful studies keep finding almost the same number: 0,5%-0,7%. This suggests that problem gambling prevalence may not be as dependent on gambling policy or gambling availability as people thought. It may instead have a natural rate in human populations, due to a combination of genetic and general social factors. The UCT study mentioned above will soon tell us whether SA resembles the richer countries in this respect or is different (for better or worse). But on all good evidence so far, problem gambling turns out to be a far less widespread public health issue than problem drinking.

What about the bad news? This is of two kinds. First, the small proportion of people described above are true addicts whose problems are very serious and highly resistant to treatment -- more so than substance addiction, depression, chronic anxiety and bipolar disorder. Second, a much larger number of people from time to time gamble more than they can afford and get into financial trouble. They don't generally seek treatment, and the evidence is that this makes sense because they don't have gambling-related psychiatric disorders. They almost always moderate their behaviour on their own, quite quickly. Because there are so many more of these people, they should be the main focus of public policy on excessive gambling.

I predict that, as a result of our growing understanding of addiction as a specific neural pathology, and our knowledge that pathological gambling is a form of addiction in that sense, we will soon have effective drug therapies available for the small number of severe pathological gamblers.

Then we will be able to devote less divided attention to a bigger but more intangible issue: helping psychologically normal people manage their risks - not

just in gambling, but in driving, sex, household finance, interpersonal conflict and other areas - more consistently and knowledgeably than many do now.

Prof Don Ross is from the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town.

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