Nearly 40% of poker players have moderate to severe gambling problems and are at high risk for developing gambling physical and mental health problems, research finds.
The research, conducted by the Australian Gambling Research Center, provides one of the first detailed understandings of the gambling habits of poker players across all forms of the game.
He found that people who regularly sit down for a game of poker are at high risk for gambling, mainly because of their participation in other forms of the game.
Poker players are the most likely to experience moderate to severe gambling problems (39% of all regular players). About a quarter of physical or mental problems develop due to gambling.
Lead researcher Andrew Armstrong from https://www.playtechslot.club/ said most of their money went into other types of gambling, apart from poker. Regular players spend around $1,758 playing poker all year round. They spend more on other forms of gambling, about $3,673 annually.
Poker players with gambling problems spend about $5,434 per year on gambling overall.
“What we’re getting a sense of … is that players with problems tend to spend more on other products than they do on poker,” Armstrong said. “So poker still costs them a lot, but when you look at their overall expenses, it’s higher than any other product than it is in poker.” Armstrong said the research was valuable in identifying poker players as a cohort at high risk for problem gambling in general.
“You’re more likely to pass on gambling safety information to someone in trouble if you hand it over to a poker player,” Armstrong said. “Poker is a form of gambling that players enter with a sense of control over their risk, more so than any other activity in particular. You can estimate your skill level against your opponent, based on momentary wins or losses, how the money moves, the way the table shifts.
“So these guys are high risk gamblers, but they don’t lose their money especially in poker.” This research provides broad demographic information about casual poker players. They are less likely to have a university education than the average population. Most were male, employed full-time, and under 50 years of age.
The Australian Center for Gambling Research, part of the Australian Institute of Family Studies, based its analysis on data collected from annual household income and labor dynamics in the Australian survey (known as Hilda), led by the University of Melbourne.
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