The Brief Addiction Science Information Source (BASIS)

The WAGER Vol. 5(13) - Betting on the Job: Danger or Diversion?

Few events bring people together like sporting events do. The Olympics, World Cup, Super Bowl, World Series, NCAA tournament and the Stanley Cup: All have the power to unite fans and to transcend culture, geography, and even politics. As the hype around a particular event grows, excitement pervades nearly all social spaces - the local bar, the bus, the dinner table, and... the workplace. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) represents over 115,000 human resources professionals and students worldwide. In February 1999, SHRM faxed surveys to 2,300 randomly selected members. Surveys included numerous questions regarding the extent and nature... Read more →

The WAGER Vol. 5(12) - A Minor Problem or a Problem with Minors?

Both the gaming industry and anti-gambling activists agree that underage gambling must be stopped. However, in spite of efforts by both sides and the government, underage gambling by minors continues to be a perennial problem. But how much of a problem? Obtaining estimates of juvenile involvement in gambling is a difficult task. Many offenses go undetected and minors may be understandably reluctant to self-report their illicit behavior to researchers. One source for estimating the magnitude of the problem is criminal justice data, available from the FBI and presented by the National Center for Juvenile Justice in their 1999 national report,... Read more →

The WAGER Vol. 5(11) - An 11-Year Follow-Up Study

Previous WAGERs have extolled the virtues of follow-up and longitudinal studies [e.g., WAGER 5(2)]. Studies that collect data at multiple points in time have several advantages over studies that collect data only once. One of the best-known follow-up studies ever conducted is the Epidemiologic Catchment Area (ECA) Study, a national study of psychiatric disorders funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The ECA used a complex sampling strategy to collect data from five sites across the United States. Linda Cottler and Renee Cunningham-Williams, two of the investigators from the St. Louis site, used the framework of the ECA... Read more →

The WAGER Vol. 5(10) - Betting on the Bull: Day Trading

Two California women recently testified that their transactions cost them tens of thousands of dollars of their life savings.3 A woman from Illinois testified that her son's transactions caused financial ruin- and, ultimately, his life.3 These stories may sound remarkably familiar to clinicians who treat pathological gamblers. But the transactions mentioned in these two cases are not bets or wagers, but day trades. Day trading is "a strategy that generally involves making multiple purchases and sales of the same security during the day to profit from short-term price movements."1 Much attention has been given to the day trading phenomenon in... Read more →

The WAGER Vol. 5(9) - On the Job: Gambling Behavior among Casino Employees

Are people who work in casinos more likely to be pathological gamblers than their counterparts in the general population? Shaffer, Vander Bilt, and Hall (1999) set out to answer this question by surveying a large sample of casino employees.1 During the winter of 1997/1998, the investigators collected health-related data from 3,852 workers employed by a large gaming corporation. To protect the anonymity of both employer and employees, the gaming corporation will be referred to by a pseudonym: Casino, Inc. In addition to an array of items relating to general health, the survey instrument included the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS),... Read more →