An Exploratory Study of the Relationship Between Financial Well-Being and Changes in Reported Gambling Behaviour During the COVID-19 Shutdown in Australia

Abstract

A change in someone’s financial situation, such as a windfall gain or increased financial stress, can affect the way that they gamble. The aim of this paper was to explore the relationship between financial well-being and changes in gambling behaviour during the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) shutdown. Australian past-year gamblers (N = 764; 85% male) completed an online cross-sectional survey in May 2020. Participants retrospectively reported monthly gambling participation before and after the COVID-19 shutdown, as well as their financial well-being, experience of COVID-related financial hardship, problem gambling severity, and psychological distress. Financial well-being showed strong negative associations with problem gambling and psychological distress. Neither financial well-being nor the interaction between financial well-being and problem gambling severity showed consistent evidence for predicting changes in gambling participation during the shutdown in this sample. This study provides preliminary evidence that self-reported financial well-being has a strong negative association with gambling problems but is not related to gambling participation. Future studies should link objective measures of financial well-being from bank transaction data with survey measures of problem gambling severity and experience of gambling-related harm.