Lee Davy
Gambling Study Reveals a Problem With the UK’s Homeless
April 4, 2014
Gambling study reveals a problem with the UK’s homeless as
researchers discover evidence to suggest that they are 10-times more likely to
have a gambling problem than the UK population as a whole.
Is gambling a cause or consequence of
homelessness?
That never before posed question is now dangling
from the lips of researchers after a study of 450 homeless people revealed that
there was a link between homelessness and problem
gambling.
In one of the largest surveys of its kind in the
UK. Researchers at Kings College London, the National Problem Gambling Clinic
and various other establishments in the Westminster area, discovered that
problem gambling affects 11.6% of homeless people compared to the nations ratio
of 0.7%.
The study was published in the Journal of
Gambling Studies and focused on interviews carried out with 450 homeless
people living in hostels and shelters in the London borough of Westminster.
The man leading the study, Steve Sharman, from
the Department of Psychology, believes that these two phenomena (homelessness
and gambling
addiction) have never before been looked at as a unified entity.
He also goes on to say that a lot of interest is
placed in alcohol and drug abuse when homeless services carry out initial
assessments, but do not adequately cover questions about gambling
addictions.
“Many issues face the homeless population,
including drug and alcohol use. In terms of addiction research, most focus has
been on drugs, alcohol and smoking, but the gambling field is relatively small
in comparison. And while it is possible to spot physiological indicators of drug
and alcohol addiction, problem gambling is much harder to identify.” Sharman
told medicalxpress.
The homeless were assessed against the standard
clinical diagnostic tool called the Problem Gambling Severity Index.
These results were then compared against the British Gambling Prevalence Survey.
The team is now moving deeper into the research
to understand whether or not the gambling problems have resulted in the state of
homelessness, or whether being homeless increases the risk of gambling
addiction.
It makes you think where that £1 is actually
going to end up the next time you drop it into that hat.
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