Beliefs About and Attitudes Toward Gambling in French-Speaking Switzerland

Abstract

The present study aims to analyze attitudes and beliefs of the French-speaking general Swiss population (n = 2500; female n = 1280; mean age = 43 years) as regards gambling, which are to date almost exclusively studied in the North American and Australian contexts. Beliefs related to gambling include the perception of the effectiveness of preventive measures toward gambling, the comparative risk assessment of different addictive behaviors, the perceived risks of different types of gambling and attitudes are related to the gambler's personality. The general population perceived gambling rather negatively and was conscious of the potential risks of gambling; indeed, 59.0% of the sample identified gambling as an addictive practice. Slot machines were estimated to bear the highest risk. Compared with women and older people, men and young people indicated more positive beliefs about gambling; they perceived gambling as less addictive, supported structural preventive measures less often, and perceived gambling as a less serious problem for society. Gamblers were more likely to put their practices into perspective, perceiving gambling more positively than non-gamblers. General population surveys on such beliefs can deliver insights into preventive actions that should be targeted to young men who showed more favorable views of gambling, which have been shown to be associated with increased risk for problematic gambling.

A Descriptive Study of Gambling Among Emerging Adult Males in French-Speaking Switzerland

“…This suggests that, in general, the sample were quite sensitive to problem gambling. These trends are in line with Inglin and Gmel (2011) findings on the Swiss Frenchspeaking population, who perceived gambling as being the third most serious addictive behavior (after drugs and alcohol, and before tobacco). Moreover, the majority (70 %) of their sample felt that information about the risks of gambling was needed.…”

“…It is also higher than that of males, from the canton of Neuchatel, in high-school and vocational training. However, the observed rate is equivalent to that observed in the general French-speaking population (56.8 %) (Inglin and Gmel 2011). Our findings support Luder et al (2010), who report that frequent gambling is highly prevalent in French-speaking Switzerland.…”

“…Moreover, the majority (70 %) of their sample felt that information about the risks of gambling was needed. Inglin and Gmel (2011) also found that gamblers were perceived as being weak and impulsive (although not lazy, or weak-willed). The present study further investigates this area by looking at attributed responsibility for gambling addiction.…”

Latent Class Analysis of Gambling Activities in a Sample of Young Swiss Men: Association with Gambling Problems, Substance Use Outcomes, Personality Traits and Coping Strategies

“…Results showed that about 55% of the sample reported gambling in the previous twelve months. This prevalence is similar to the rates observed by Tomei et al (2014) in 18-22 year-old French-speaking men (56.1%) and by Inglin and Gmel (2011) in the French-speaking adult population (56.8%), suggesting that gambling is a popular activity in Switzerland. Moreover, although low, the prevalence of DSM-5 gambling disorder observed in the present study (1.0 of the total sample, 1.7% of gamblers) is slightly higher than the rates of pathological gambling (1.4% of gamblers) observed by Tomei et al (2014) in a comparable sample of Swiss French-speaking young men, and is about twice the prevalence of pathological gambling (0.5%) reported by Bondolfi et al (2008) in the Swiss adult population.…”

Gambling and problem gambling in Switzerland

“…This explains partly why the number of peer-reviewed published papers authored by Swiss investigators to date is limited. Among studies published in the last 5 years, some have focused on the prevention, assessment and prevalence of problem offline and online gambling in the community [18,[38][39][40][41][42], while others were interested in risk factors associated with harmful gambling [43,44].…”