Recollected usage of legal youth gambling products: Comparisons between adult gamblers and non-gamblers in the UK and Australia

Abstract

The UK is rare in allowing a number of gambling forms to be used legally by children under the age of 18. Some previous research indicates that adult problem gamblers are more likely to recollect using these products as children. However, no research has as yet assessed recollected levels of use irrespective of adult gambling status, or investigated these issues in other countries. This is relevant given that at least two of the tested products, coin push machines and crane grab machines, exist in other countries. The present research involves cross-sectional surveys conducted amongst UK (N=2,010) and Australian adults (N=640), associating recollected legal youth gambling usage with past 12-month gambling, and levels of problem gambling amongst adult gamblers. Adult gamblers recollected using more legal youth gambling products than non-gamblers. For example, 66.6% of UK gamblers reported legally buying National Lottery tickets aged 16-17, compared to 20.9% of UK nongamblers; 60.8% of Australian gamblers reported using coin push machines as a child, compared to 48.6% of Australian non-gamblers. Overall, 18 of 19 tested associations were significant and in the hypothesized direction for the UK sample, compared to five of eight for the Australian sample. The legal provision of gambling to children is a topic for further international research and policy consideration.

Associations between recollected rates of Category D fruit machine use as a child and adult gambling in a young adult sample

“…Industry self-regulation can be less effective than government regulation (Mello et al, 2008;Petticrew et al, 2016;Sharma et al, 2010;Xiao et al, 2022), but any potential government action should also consider the robustness of any underlying evidence base. The present results largely supported previous research showing associations between rates of recollected Category D fruit machine usage as a child and adult gambling (Newall et al, 2020b(Newall et al, , 2020a(Newall et al, , 2021, with three out of four associations significant and in the hypothesised direction. Furthermore, rates of subjective confidence were on average high (M = 83.4 out of 100), and zero out of three interaction models were significant, adding further support to these observed associations.…”

“…Two studies have linked higher rates of recollected usage of Category D fruit machine usage as a child with rates of problem gambling severity among adult gamblers (Newall et al, 2020b(Newall et al, , 2020a. Another study replicated this finding and extended it to also find positive associations between rates of recollected usage of Category D fruit machine usage as a child and the probability of being an adult gambler (Newall et al, 2021). However, these findings could be due to the retrospective nature of the judgments of childhood Category D fruit machine usage.…”

“…In the second block, participants were provided with a description of Category D fruit machines taken from a previous study (Newall et al, 2021), and a relevant image.…”

Loot boxes are more prevalent in United Kingdom video games than previously considered: updating Zendle et al. (2020)

“…Additionally, five games were simulated casino games [13], and a sixth game allowed players to virtually operate physical claw machines (which are an older quasi-gambling product available to children) [14]. These games bore near identical names alluding to gambling at both data collection points, so their primary content likely did not change.…”

Global scientific production regarding behavioral addictions: An analysis of the literature from 1995 to 2019

“…Regarding gambling, it was observed that Western countries have become more interested in investigating the problems that derive from this behavior. One explanation of this could be the problems that gambling is causing in their societies, where the problematic gambling sometimes coexists with legal gambling activities, in which the action of betting, for example on sports competitions, is completely normalized ( Newall et al, 2021 , Nikkinen, 2017 , Planzer et al, 2014 , Welte et al, 2017 ). For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) states that studies from countries in Oceania indicate that the potential harms due to gambling are comparable to the harms due to depression and alcohol use disorders ( WHO, 2021a ).…”