2.2 - Athletes and gambling Worldwide, studies on athletes and gambling have shown that the prevalence of problem gambling amongst athletes is higher than the general population (Engwall et al., 2004; Weiss and Loubier, 2010; Hakansson et al., 2021). A now old, but well-designed study with American college students found the rate of problem gambling to be almost double amongst college athletes in comparison to non- student athletes (Engwall et al., 2004) and in Norway, the rate for male athletes experiencing gambling problems was six times higher than the rate for the whole population (Pensgaard et al., 2021; University of Bergen, 2020). The latest study on male and female athletes gambling in the UK (Rhind et al. 2014), found the problem gambling rate to be 9.2% for male athletes and 1.1% for female athletes. Those figures are significantly higher than the figures for the general population in the UK reported by the Gambling Commission the following year; 1.2% for males and 0.2% for females, as well as in 2022, it was 0.3% for males and 0.1% for females (Gambling Commission, 2022). Although everyone working within the sports industry is at a higher risk of developing a gambling problem, athletes are known to be the group at the highest risk due to the athletic socialisation and the continuous emphasis on competition (Curry and Jiobu, 1995; Harris et al., 2015), a high degree of competitiveness and increased risk-taking behaviour - traits common amongst elite athletes - can contribute to the risk of problem gambling (Grall-Bonnec et al., 2016; Derevensky et al., 2019). A study with British male football players by Lim et al. (2016) discovered that the main motivations for gambling referred to trying to capture the thrill and euphoria connected to competitive success on the field as well as attempting to alleviate boredom and loneliness when away on loans and playing away from their families.
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