How gambling harms the wellbeing of family and others: a review

Abstract

Problem gambling can have negative impacts on both harmed gamblers, and those people close to them (concerned significant others; CSOs). Experiencing these gambling-related harms can have a significant impact on a person's wellbeing and quality of life. Recently, the focus of research on people with gambling problems has expanded from exploring gambling-related harms and specific psychological outcomes, to include global evaluations of health and wellbeing. However, it is also important to understand the degree to which these impacts extend to CSOs. This narrative literature review presents what is known about the impact of gambling-related harms on CSOs' wellbeing and identifies areas of future enquiry. The review identified both knowledge and methodological gaps, including that relatively little is known about impacts to CSOs' subjective wellbeing. What is known, is confounded by different methods of identifying CSOs across studies, and the use of predominantly small, nonrepresentative, and treatment-related samples. Addressing these gaps will lead to a greater understanding of the impact of problem gambling on the community.

Harms from Other People’s Gambling: Associations with an Individual’s Own Gambling Behaviours, Health Risk Behaviours, Financial Problems, General Health, and Mental Wellbeing

“…termed as 'affected others' (AOs). Research has tried to estimate the prevalence of AOs in the general population and has shown that problem gambling impacts a greater proportion of the population than the gambling individual alone (Tulloch et al, 2021). In the UK, Gunstone et al (2021) found that 6.5% of the UK population were individuals who 'knew someone with a gambling problem (either currently, or in the past) and feel that they have personally experienced negative effects from this person's gambling behaviour'.…”

“…Research has shown that there is a large degree of cross-over in the experiences of gambling-related harms by the gambling individual and by AOs (Li et al, 2017). Harms to AOs impact in numerous ways, including financial problems, reduced emotional and psychological wellbeing, harm to physical health, and significant breakdowns in the relationship with the individual who gambles, characterised by a lack of trust and interpersonal conflicts, which can include violence (Banks et al, 2018;Castren et al, 2021;Dowling et al, 2021;Gunstone et al, 2021;Holdsworth et al, 2013;Langham et al, 2015;Lind et al, 2022;Riley et al, 2018;Subramaniam et al, 2017;Tulloch et al, 2021;Velleman et al, 2015). Research has also illustrated that AOs were more likely to engage in health risk behaviours including harmful alcohol use, daily tobacco smoking, over-eating, as well as risky gambling behaviours themselves (Dowling et al, 2021;Lind et al, 2022;Riley et al, 2018).…”

“…When examining harms to AOs there has been limited use of validated measures or scales across factors such as mental wellbeing (Dowling et al, 2021;Tulloch et al, 2021). Studies examining gambling-related harms to AOs have utilised different measures for defining AOs, with some studies covering family members only, others including friends and colleagues.…”

Frequent gamblers’ perceptions of the role of gambling marketing in their behaviour: An interpretative phenomenological analysis

“…Gambling-related harms span across numerous domains, from financial impacts and emotional distress to lesser considered factors such as reduced work performance and cultural harms [2]. Harms do not only impact the individual gambler, with a recent literature review highlighting the significant negative effects gambling can have on concerned significant others [3]. Given the wide-ranging impact of gambling-related harm at both an individual and population level, much focus within the literature has been dedicated to assessing factors that contribute towards such harm.…”

Poor school performance and gambling among adolescents: Can the association be moderated by conditions in school?

“…Risk gambling encompasses behaviours such as betting for increasing amounts of money or borrowing money to keep gambling ( CAN, 2021 ). Early onset of problem gambling is associated with an elevated risk of developing gambling problems later in life but may also have short- and long-term social, educational, economic and health-related consequences, both for the individual and for people in their immediate social environment ( Riley et al, 2021 , Tulloch et al, 2022 ). Counteracting adolescent gambling is thus a public health issue and identifying conditions that protect youth at risk of gambling is of great importance.…”