If You Can Not Resist ....

Pathological gambling is the term used by the American Psychiatric Association to describe the clinical disorder characterized by a persistent and recurring failure to resist gambling behavior that is harmful to the individual and/or others. Other more general terms, such as compulsive gambling, problem gambling and disordered gambling, can refer to the wide range of individuals who experience varying degrees of problems but may or may not meet the definition of a medically diagnosable impulse control disorder.

The following are facts about pathological gambling, as determined by recent research findings:

The rate of pathological gambling is close to 1 percent of the U.S. adult population.

• A 1999 survey conducted for the National Gambling Impact Study Commission (NGISC) by the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center (NORC) concluded that 0.1 percent of the U.S. adult population are current pathological gamblers.
• Another NGISC-commissioned study, conducted by the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, estimated the pathological gambling prevalence rate at 0.9 percent.
• A 1997 meta-analysis by Harvard Medical School's Division on Addictions estimated 1.29 percent of the population could be classified as having serious pathological gambling problems.
• Gambling expansion during the past 25 years has not contributed to a comparable rise in the prevalence of pathological gambling.

According to the 1976 report of the Commission on the Review of the National Policy Toward Gambling, an estimated 0.77 percent of Americans were found to be 'probable compulsive gamblers,' comparable to

• The NORC survey did not find pathological gambling prevalence levels in places closest to casinos any higher than in places further from casinos. As the NORC report stated, 'The availability of casinos within driving distance does not appear to affect prevalence rates.'
• The 1997 Harvard meta-analysis found no regional differences in the prevalence of gambling disorders.
• In its 2000 report, the Public Sector Gambling Impact Study Commission summarized the evidence as follows: 'In short, there is no solid basis for concluding that the wider legalization of gambling, which has cut into illegal gambling and friendly betting, has caused a concomitant increase in pathological gambling. In fact, it appears that pathological gambling is quite rare within the general population, (and) it does not appear to be increasing in frequency.'
• The largest gambling survey conducted in New Zealand found that the number of problem gamblers dropped between 1991 and 1999.

The prevalence of pathological gambling among youth is consistently higher than the adult rate, but that figure has not changed in the past 20 years.

• Most young people gamble on non-casino card games, games of skill and sports, not at casinos, where patrons must be 21 or older to place a bet, according to the Harvard meta-analysis.

The prevalence of pathological gambling is far lower than drug abuse/dependence (6.2 percent) and alcohol dependence (13.8 percent), according to the 1997 Harvard meta-analysis.

The 1999 NORC study estimated the total social costs of problem and pathological gambling at $5 billion to $6 billion, compared to opponents' earlier claims of $80 billion per year. By contrast, the annual cost to society for alcohol is $166 billion, and the annual cost for heart disease is $125 billion.