Online Gambling refers to gambling on the Internet, including betting on horse races and sports, and playing casino games and pokies. The proliferation of online gambling has increased the accessibility and convenience of these activities, making them easier for people to engage in at any time and place. This can lead to problems such as financial stress and emotional distress, and can also cause social isolation because people may spend more time gambling online than with friends and family.
A considerable number of articles report that a higher intensity, higher variability and higher expenditures are associated with online gamblers, and represent risk factors for problematic gambling. Another risk factor that is frequently reported is chasing losses, a behaviour that involves continuously placing more bets in the attempt to recover losses. Interestingly, several studies indicate that females are at greater risk of problematic gambling than men (Gainsbury et al., 2014c; Khazaal et al., 2017).
Moreover, the environment in which people are exposed to gambling products is important for their uptake and use, as are individual and relational characteristics. Within the selected articles, only a few focus on variables acting at the contextual level. In particular, university contexts appear to be a significant factor influencing online gambling. In addition, little attention is given to the role of a person’s life contexts, such as academic issues, in predicting their likelihood to gamble. These variables are crucial to consider in future research.