Gambling is a popular pastime that has significant impacts at the personal, interpersonal and community\/society levels. These impacts can have negative and positive effects on gamblers, their significant others, and the society at large. While most gambling impacts are negatively biased, there is a growing role for the evaluation of gamblers within primary care settings for addictive disorders.<\/p>\n
Gamblers may be motivated by social, financial or entertainment reasons, such as wanting to win money, or imagining what they would do with it if they won. They may also enjoy the challenge of trying to carry out a complex strategy in a game. Several psychological factors may influence gambling behaviour, including genetic predisposition to thrill-seeking and impulse control problems, a cultural context in which it is commonplace, or the presence of mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n
The economic impact of gambling on local communities can include job creation, increased consumer spending and contributions to infrastructure development projects. It is possible that some of the revenue generated by gambling activities can be used to support research into gambling and related issues.<\/p>\n
A common methodology for assessing costs and benefits of gambling is cost-benefit analysis, but different methods have been employed to assess the costs and benefits. This article reviews complementing and contrasting methodologies, and proposes a conceptual model for assessing gambling impacts from a public health perspective. This approach focuses on the social, as opposed to the individual, level of impact, and uses health-related quality of life weights (known as disability weights), commonly used in alcohol and drug studies, to estimate the cost of intangible harms and benefits in terms of changes in well-being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gambling is a popular pastime that has significant impacts at the personal, interpersonal and community\/society levels. These impacts can have negative and positive effects on gamblers, their significant others, and the society at large. While most gambling impacts are negatively biased, there is a growing role for the evaluation of gamblers within primary care settings … <\/p>\n