Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, 00250 Helsinki, Finland.
Economics Department, Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, 20500 Turku, Finland.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Aug 1;19(15):9444. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19159444.
Gambling is associated with many conditions that can compromise young people's health and wellbeing, such as substance use and poor school achievement. Conversely, low school achievement can be linked to lower socio-economic position. Thus, the aim of this study is to examine whether compulsory school achievement is linked with gambling participation and gambling expenditure (GE) later in youth and whether GE is linked with lower socio-economic position.
The Finnish Gambling Harms survey data ( = 7186) were used. The data were collected in three regions during spring 2017. Participants aged 18-29 years old were selected from the data. Past-year GE was examined using two measures: weekly gambling expenditure (WGE, in €) and relative gambling expenditure (RGE, in %). Logistic regression and log-linear regression models for past-year gambling, WGE and RGE were created.
Persons who had no more than a mediocre grade point average (GPA) had a 25% higher WGE and 30% higher RGE in 2016 than those who had an outstanding GPA in the compulsory school. Compared with persons with an outstanding GPA, those with a satisfactory to very good GPA spent 13% more on gambling, and their RGE was 17% higher. Additionally, those with lower socio-economic status (SES) had a higher WGE and RGE compared with higher SES.
Even after controlling for other crucial background characteristics, early life success, in the form of compulsory school outcomes, seems to correlate with gambling expenditures later in youth. This suggests that the gambling behaviour can be linked to the cognitive ability of an individual. Our findings also imply that gambling could be more heavily concentrated on individuals that are already more socially disadvantaged. However, it is worth noting that individual factors such as traumas, antisocial personality, anxiety and depression are all associated with gambling and poor academic achievement. Overall, this suggests that various educational tools at a younger age can be effective in preventing gambling-related problems in later life.
赌博与许多可能损害年轻人健康和福祉的情况有关，例如物质使用和学业成绩不佳。相反，学业成绩不佳可能与较低的社会经济地位有关。因此，本研究的目的是检验在青年时期，强制性学业成绩是否与赌博参与和赌博支出（GE）有关，以及 GE 是否与较低的社会经济地位有关。
使用芬兰赌博危害调查数据（n=7186）。这些数据是在 2017 年春季从三个地区收集的。选择年龄在 18-29 岁的参与者。使用两个措施来检查过去一年的 GE：每周赌博支出（WGE，以欧元计）和相对赌博支出（RGE，以百分比计）。为过去一年的赌博、WGE 和 RGE 创建了逻辑回归和对数线性回归模型。
在强制性学校中，成绩仅为中等（GPA）的人 2016 年的 WGE 比成绩优秀的人高出 25%，RGE 高出 30%。与 GPA 优秀的人相比，成绩满意到很好的人在赌博上的花费多 13%，RGE 高出 17%。此外，社会经济地位（SES）较低的人 WGE 和 RGE 高于 SES 较高的人。
即使在控制了其他重要的背景特征后，以强制性学校成绩形式表现出来的早年成功似乎与年轻人后期的赌博支出有关。这表明赌博行为可能与个人的认知能力有关。我们的研究结果还表明，赌博可能更集中在已经处于社会劣势的人群中。然而，值得注意的是，个体因素，如创伤、反社会人格、焦虑和抑郁，都与赌博和学业成绩不佳有关。总的来说，这表明在年轻时使用各种教育工具可以有效预防晚年的赌博相关问题。
