Betting against the odds? The effect of mental health on problem gambling behavior

IF 4.7 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Economic Modelling Pub Date : 2025-08-27 DOI:10.1016/j.econmod.2025.107278

Dusanee Kesavayuth , Prompong Shangkhum , Vasileios Zikos

引用次数: 0

Abstract

This study examines mental health as a risk factor for problem gambling. Drawing on representative longitudinal data from Australia, we hypothesize that poor mental health increases the probability of engaging in problem gambling. The idea is that risky behaviors like gambling may serve as coping mechanisms for emotional distress. To address the endogeneity of mental health, we employ an instrumental variables approach. We find that poor mental health can increase the likelihood of problem gambling. Specifically, a one standard deviation decrease in mental health leads to an increase of 8 percentage points in the probability of being a problem gambler. Our findings highlight the importance of prioritizing mental health alongside, or even above, changes to gambling regulations.

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赌赔率？心理健康对问题赌博行为的影响

本研究探讨心理健康作为问题赌博的风险因素。根据来自澳大利亚的代表性纵向数据，我们假设心理健康状况不佳会增加参与问题赌博的可能性。其观点是，赌博等风险行为可能是情绪困扰的应对机制。为了解决心理健康的内生性，我们采用工具变量方法。我们发现心理健康状况不佳会增加问题赌博的可能性。具体来说，心理健康水平每降低一个标准差，成为问题赌徒的概率就会增加8个百分点。我们的研究结果强调了优先考虑心理健康的重要性，甚至高于赌博法规的变化。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Economic Modelling ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

8.00

自引率

10.60%

发文量

295

期刊介绍： Economic Modelling fills a major gap in the economics literature, providing a single source of both theoretical and applied papers on economic modelling. The journal prime objective is to provide an international review of the state-of-the-art in economic modelling. Economic Modelling publishes the complete versions of many large-scale models of industrially advanced economies which have been developed for policy analysis. Examples are the Bank of England Model and the US Federal Reserve Board Model which had hitherto been unpublished. As individual models are revised and updated, the journal publishes subsequent papers dealing with these revisions, so keeping its readers as up to date as possible.