Background and aimsTo review the conceptual and empirical relationship between gambling, investing, and speculation.MethodsAn analysis of the attributes differentiating these constructs as well as identification of all articles speaking to their empirical relationship.ResultsGambling differs from investment on many different attributes and should be seen as conceptually distinct. On the other hand, speculation is conceptually intermediate between gambling and investment, with a few of its attributes being investment-like, some of its attributes being gambling-like, and several of its attributes being neither clearly gambling or investment-like. Empirically, gamblers, investors, and speculators have similar cognitive, motivational, and personality attributes, with this relationship being particularly strong for gambling and speculation. Population levels of gambling activity also tend to be correlated with population level of financial speculation. At an individual level, speculation has a particularly strong empirical relationship to gambling, as speculators appear to be heavily involved in traditional forms of gambling and problematic speculation is strongly correlated with problematic gambling.Discussion and conclusionsInvestment is distinct from gambling, but speculation and gambling have conceptual overlap and a strong empirical relationship. It is recommended that financial speculation be routinely included when assessing gambling involvement, and there needs to be greater recognition and study of financial speculation as both a contributor to problem gambling as well as an additional form of behavioral addiction in its own right.

The ability of immunoprivileged Schwann cell transplants to preserve vision in RCS rats indicates that transplantation of syngeneic Schwann cells holds promise as a preventive treatment for retinal degenerative disease.

The present study investigated the relationship between engaging in day trading and engaging in traditional forms of gambling in South Australia. Consistent with a previous study on this issue, it would appear that most individuals who engage in day trading are heavily involved traditional gamblers who include day trading in their repertoire of activities. They differ somewhat from most gamblers in their strong preference for skill-based types of gambling, their higher overall involvement in gambling, and their higher rates of problem gambling. They also have some demographic differences, in particular, being older and having higher incomes. The present findings provide further evidence that not only do certain types of financial speculation bear some conceptual similarity to gambling, they also appear to be empirically related.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether or not there is an association between engaging in traditional forms of gambling and engaging in high-risk stock trading and, if so, to examine game play patterns of high-risk stock traders, as well as identify any socio-demographic similarities or differences between the two groups. Logistic regressions on data from two large Canadian data sets were undertaken to examine which variables best differentiate traditional gamblers from high-risk stock traders. The results indicate that high-risk stock traders have a higher frequency of gambling, engage in a larger range of gambling activities, and are more likely to be problem gamblers. Additionally, the type of gambling activities that high-risk stock traders participate in suggests that they are a sub-group of skill-based gamblers who also prefer gambling on casino table games, sports betting, dog and horse race betting, and games of skill for money over chance based games such as electronic gaming machines, bingo, and instant win tickets. High-risk stock traders, compared to traditional gamblers were more likely to be male, have a higher income, be better educated, and to be of Asian or “other” descent, not be divorced, widowed or separated, and be self-employed or employed full-time. However, unlike other skill-based gamblers, high-risk stock traders tended to be older rather than younger, and had a high income rather than a low income.

One of the main justifications used for the expansion of legal gambling is that gambling provides increased revenue to governments and community groups. However, critics argue that the social costs of legal gambling offset these benefits. One particularly controversial social cost of gambling is the impact that gambling has on crime. The academic literature is split with as many studies showing an increase in crime due to gambling as those that show no impact. The current study investigated how increased legal gambling availability has affected crime in Alberta. Four sources of data were examined: self-reports of gambling-related crime among problem gamblers in population surveys; gambling-related crime in police incident reports; uniform crime statistics from Statistics Canada; and criminal offences as recorded by the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission (AGLC). The most unambiguous findings of this study are that gambling-related crime constitutes a very small percentage of all crime; crime that is gambling related tends to be non-violent property crime; and increased legal gambling availability has significantly decreased rates of illegal gambling. In terms of the impact of legalized gambling on overall crime in Alberta, the evidence would suggest that legalized gambling likely has a minor or negligible impact.