Lies, Damned Lies and ‘Problem Gambling’ Prevalence Rates: The Example of Victoria, Australia

Abstract

This paper takes up the challenge to consider whether it is possible reasonably to overcome a number of sobering methodological deficiencies in published prevalence-rate estimates of ‘problem gambling’. The prompt to do so was the 2006 claim by the Victorian Government to have halved ‘problem gambling’ in the State. The paper shows the claim to be unscientific. It reinforces this view by demonstrating, using evidence and argument from the Productivity Commission, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and statistical/epidemiological sources, that extant sample survey techniques used to estimate prevalence rates are seriously flawed.

The relationship between alcohol consumption, gambling behaviour and problem gambling during a single visit to a gambling venue

“…Third, the use of self‐reported, recalled measures for alcohol consumption and gambling behaviour is a potential source of bias. While recent research suggests that self‐reporting of these measures poses little threat to validity or reliability [28,29], this was mitigated as far as possible by orientating the questions specifically around the last visit to a gambling venue as opposed to more general self‐assessments and not collecting self‐reported dollars spent on gambling [30]. However, the lack of data on dollars spent introduces a further limitation, as we were unable to detect any change to bet size or rate.…”

Gender differences in gambling preferences and problem gambling: a network-level analysis

“…Further studies are thus needed in such contexts in order to propose more insights on the relationships between gambling activities and problem gambling. Second, gambling behaviors and problem gambling were assessed using selfreported questionnaires, which are prone to various biases (e.g., recall bias, social desirability bias) (Productivity Commission, 2013;Doughney, 2007). Finally, the study was crosssectional, which did not allow us to ascertain any causal relationships between gambling activities and problem gambling.…”

On gambling research, social science and the consequences of commercial gambling

“…Yet they are routinely conducted in Australia, with 41 prevalence studies having been published over twenty-five years, resulting in an enormous opportunity cost in terms of researcher time (Markham, Young, Doran, & Sugden, 2017). As any casual observer of the political uses of gambling research is aware, the results of these studies are consistently distorted by politicians to justify a lack of official action (Doughney, 2007). We are not arguing that those who conduct problem gambling prevalence studies have malicious motives; indeed, several of the co-authors have conducted such research themselves.…”