Wu Anise M S, Lai Mark H C, Tong Kwok-Kit
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS), University of Macau, Av. Padre Tomás Pereira, Taipa, Macao, China,
J Gambl Stud. 2015 Sep;31(3):643-57. doi: 10.1007/s10899-014-9451-8.
Despite the high availability of offline gambling in Macao, China, Internet gambling may remain attractive to many gamblers due to its anonymity and convenience. Given the scarcity of relevant research, this study aims to not only investigate the public attitude and prevalence of Internet gambling but also identify the demographic and psychological characteristics of Internet gamblers in Macao. We recruited 952 community adults with the random residential number dialing method and 427 university students through convenience sampling. Only 5.4% of the community adult respondents preferred online gambling compared to offline gambling, and the past-year prevalence of online gambling was about 1%. As hypothesized, Internet gambling was found to be positively associated with pathological gambling in both community and student samples. It was also associated with casino employment across samples. Moreover, we found that male gender, casino employment, materialism, and life dissatisfaction were significant risk factors of pathological gambling among Chinese gamblers. The findings provide insights on future designs of preventive measures and research direction for Internet gambling and pathological gambling in Chinese communities.
尽管在中国澳门线下赌博随处可见,但网络赌博因其匿名性和便利性,可能对许多赌徒仍具吸引力。鉴于相关研究匮乏,本研究旨在不仅调查公众对网络赌博的态度和网络赌博的流行程度,还识别澳门网络赌徒的人口统计学和心理特征。我们通过随机住宅号码拨号法招募了952名社区成年人,并通过便利抽样法招募了427名大学生。与线下赌博相比,只有5.4%的社区成年受访者更喜欢在线赌博,过去一年在线赌博的流行率约为1%。正如假设的那样,在社区和学生样本中,网络赌博都被发现与病态赌博呈正相关。在所有样本中,它还与赌场就业有关。此外,我们发现男性、赌场就业、物质主义和生活不满是中国赌徒中病态赌博的重要风险因素。这些发现为中国社区网络赌博和病态赌博预防措施的未来设计及研究方向提供了见解。