The Brief Addiction Science Information Source (BASIS)

The WAGER, 3(17) - Validating the SOGS in Turkey

The process of validating a screening instrument among a new population is complex. This process involves administering the screen to the new population to determine if the instrument can discriminate between positive and negative “cases” that represent the construct of interest among the new population. If the screen does not perform well with the new population, there may be socio-cultural or other differences preventing the screen from being as relevant as it was with the original population. Researchers recently investigated the effectiveness of the SOGS compared to the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria among a Turkish sample in Turkey1. Gambling is forbidden... Read more →

The WAGER, 3(16) - Casino Gambling in Canada

Casino gambling in Canada has expanded in recent years. The chart below describes the gross earnings per month (in millions of dollars) and the dollar amount won on average per player for all of the commercial casinos in Canada as of April, 19981. The gross earnings per month are defined as [what is bet by the players] [what is won back by the players]. As the chart makes apparent, there is a wide range of dollar amounts ($25.53 -$114) that casinos make per player, but even the lowest amount is a positive number. The casinos with the largest gross earnings... Read more →

The WAGER, Vol. 3(15) - Quantifying responses to "amount spent gambling"

One basic standard of sound survey research methodology is to ask each survey question in a way that minimizes the ways the question can be interpreted. Gambling researchers have been interested in the question of amount individuals spend on gambling, with a typical hypothesis being that pathological gamblers spend larger amounts of their available money on gambling than non-pathological gamblers. However, one individual may consider their gambling expenditure as the total amount spent in the gambling episode, while another individual may consider their gambling expenditure as the net loss after subtracting the gains. Blaszczynski & colleagues examined the range of... Read more →

The WAGER, Vol. 3(14) - Screening veterans for pathological gambling

Individuals with substance abuse or other psychiatric disorders have been shown to have higher rates of pathological gambling disorders than individuals without psychiatric disorders1. During the past 3 years, researchers at a Veterans Administration Hospital routinely screened a sample of 250 veterans with substance abuse and/or other psychiatric disorders for lifetime pathological gambling disorders using the SOGS (South Oaks Gambling Screen)2. They found 16% (n=40) of these veterans screened positive for pathological gambling (a score of 5 or more) and 9% screened positive for “probable pathological gambling” (a score of 3 or 4). A medical record review of this sample... Read more →