Characteristics That Differentiate Online From Landbased Gamblers: Results From A National Longitudinal Study of Gambling

Objective : The current research aimed to examine the biopsychosocial characteristic profile of online gamblers, relative to land -based exclusive gamblers, both concurrently and prospectively in a large national cohort of Canadian adults. Method : This cohort was recruited from Leger Opinion's registered panel of online participants. In addition to demographic information, the survey battery included assessment of comorbidities of disordered gambling (substance use disorder and other behavioral addictions), level of stress, past year life events, presence of mental health disorders, impulsivity, gambling engagement, gambling fallacies, family history of problem gambling, past year problem gambling and gambling -related harm. The 1 -year follow-up survey was completed by 55.9% of this cohort. Results : Significant differences between online and land -based exclusive gamblers were detected on all gambling engagement measures at baseline. For example, those who gamble via online platforms spend more time gambling than land -based exclusive gamblers (M = 58.86 versus M = 20.13 hours respectively), engage in more types of gambling (M = 4.10 versus M = 2.46) and incur greater gambling losses (M = $-960.56 versus M = $-382.84). Both the concurrent and prospective predictive analyses indicate that access to legal online gambling, increased frequency of engagement, higher impulsivity, younger age, and being male are variables that robustly and significantly predict gambling engagement via an online platform. Conclusions : The results of this study indicate while there are some robust factors that distinguish online from land -based exclusive gamblers, online gamblers are psychosocially a heterogenous group that does tend to engage in gambling to a greater extent than land -based exclusive gamblers. Additional longitudinal research is required examining the individual characteristics of online gamblers as this sub -population does appear to differ from that of land -based exclusive gamblers.