Harvard study says college gambling worries overblown

By Jeff Simpson

Thursday, April 15, 2004 | 10:37 a.m.

A new Harvard survey of student gambling patterns shows that college students don't face a higher risk of gambling problems than other adults, the National Center for Responsible Gaming announced Wednesday.

In a study finished late in 2003 and publicly released in March, professors Richard LaBrie, Howard Shaffer, Debi LaPlante and Henry Wechsler used data from a 2001 national survey of college students to determine the students' gambling behavior.

According to the survey, 42 percent of college students gambled in the past year, while 2.6 percent of students gambled at least weekly during the school year.

Those numbers compare with the most recent survey of adult gambling patterns, which found that 82 percent of adults gambled during the past year, while 23 percent of surveyed adults said they gambled weekly.

The findings "do not indicate that college students are a group at increased risk for gambling problems compared with their adult counterparts," the NCRG noted in a statement.

The professors also concluded that the number of students who were disordered gamblers "isn't likely to be higher than the" 2.6 percent of students who reported gambling at least once a week during their school years.

Past studies that suggested college students are at high risk for gambling-related problems suffered from several shortcomings, the survey said.

Prior surveys didn't study responses from a large, representative sample of students, and some surveys measured responses taken from adults recalling incidents from their distant pasts, including their college years, rather than surveying current students only.

University of Nevada, Las Vegas gambling researcher Bo Bernhard said he had yet to read the report in detail, but a cursory analysis left him encouraged about its methodology.

"The data are very sound, and the analysis is sound," Bernhard said. "This is significant, because it's the first representative survey of collegiate problem gambling behavior."

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's Director of Agent, Gambling and Amateurism Activities Bill Saum said Wednesday afternoon that he had yet to review the study, but said its findings were surprising.

"Other studies, and other evidence indicate that college students are at a risk-taking age and are more susceptible to gambling (and other risky activities)," Saum said.

He declined to comment on the Harvard study until he had a chance to read it.

The NCAA conducted its own study on campus gambling activities, surveying more than 20,000 college student athletes last year, Saum said.

Those results are now being tabulated and analyzed and will be released soon, Saum said.

The study itself noted that students may gamble more as new gambling options become available.

"The promotion of gambling aimed at college students and a greater acceptance of Internet gambling could change the current situation," the professors' article noted. "The current rates (of gambling by college students) are related to the number of available gambling venues. Should those increase, as has been the case thus far, the rates may very well increase."

Carol O' Hare, executive director of the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling, wasn't immediately available to comment on the survey.

The study was funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Center for Responsible Gaming, a casino-industry funded problem-gambling research and education group.