Online Gambling is defined as the acceptance of any wager by means of the Internet and does not include video lottery terminals (VLT). This category of gambling is growing rapidly in popularity among consumers around the world, as it allows players to place bets from anywhere. This category of gambling is subject to a variety of state and federal regulations. It also requires strict compliance by operators with legal requirements stipulated by the bodies regulating the activity.
Personality traits elevate the risk of developing an addiction to Online Gambling. In particular, people with high neuroticism and low agreeableness are at greater risk. A 2023 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that people with these personality characteristics experience more negative emotions and have higher levels of impulsiveness, making them more likely to develop a gambling problem.
In addition, people who gamble often experience a range of psychological and emotional problems, such as depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder, which can have a direct impact on their health. Co-occurring physical and mental health conditions also increase the risk of online gambling abuse, as do social stressors like poverty, discrimination and family or peer pressure to gamble. The easy accessibility of gambling products also drives uptake and contributes to normalization – for example, through product sponsorship, association with sports teams and aggressive promotion in popular and social media.
The legacy of gambling harm can extend across one’s entire lifetime and be transmitted intergenerationally. Population-wide interventions are required to prevent and reduce this harm. These include ending advertising and promotions, centralized account registration to require those who gamble to set binding loss limits, restrictions on access and availability (opening hours, density) and strict regulation of enforcement and monitoring.