Gambling

Pattern, Motivation, and Prevalence: An Assessment of Gambling Among Women in Lagos State Nigeria (Published)

The study investigated the pattern, motivation, and prevalence of gambling among women in Lagos state, Nigeria. Specifically, it described the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and determined their level of participation in gambling. A purposive random sampling technique was used to select 100 respondents across 4 local government areas in Lagos state. Data was collected through the use of a detailed questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, and analyzed using descriptive statistics and themed narrative analysis. Results revealed that most of the women gamblers are in their active age (18-40), married, SSCE holders, entrepreneurs, and they have between 3-6 dependents to cater for. The majority of these women were influenced into gambling by others winning, prefers Lotto type of betting, and they have actively been gambling for 1-3years on a daily basis, enjoys betting and spends up to 50,000 monthly on betting despite making less than that amount monthly. The reason for gambling among most women is for income sustenance and they’ve been able to do some important things with their winnings, majority of the women does not encourage other women to gamble and they have never tried to stop, while most of those that stopped briefly did so because of long period of loss. The study concluded among others, that gambling is primarily driven by economic pressures and the influence of social networks, and its persistence despite high loss rates suggests that many women remain caught in a cycle of economic struggle and gambling dependency.

Keywords: Gambling, Motivation, Nigeria, Pattern, Prevalence, Women

Patterns and Prevalence of Gambling Behaviour among Youths in South-West Nigeria: A Case Study of Youths in Oyo and Ekiti State (Published)

Gambling has become an activity that most Nigerian youths and adolescents engaged in, with accessibility due to available internet. This study, therefore, aimed to investigate the patterns and prevalence of gambling behavior among youths in the South-West Nigeria. 320 participants were involved in the study. Four hypotheses were tested and result shows that there is a significant difference in the gambling behaviour of youth in Oyo and Ekiti State, Nigeria based on age (F(2,294) = 2.793, P(.009)<.05).also the research showed that there is a significant relationship between financial strain and gambling behaviour (r(297) = .561p<.05). Also, there is a significant relationship between personality and gambling. (r(297) = .275 p<.05). Furthermore, it was revealed that there is a relationship between depression and gambling behaviour. (r(297) = .321 p<.05). Findings were discussed in line with extant literature and recommendations were made.

Keywords: Behavior, Ekiti State, Gambling, Nigeria, Patterns, Youths

Socio-Cultural and Environmental Determinants of Youth Gambling: Evidence from Ghana (Published)

The gambling behaviour of the youth is among the least explored research areas in Ghana. Most previous study focused on youth and employment, youth and development, youth and politics, youth empowerment, youth and education, youth and HIV/AIDS and more recently youth and agriculture. The big question is how much do we know about youth and problem gambling as Ghanaians? This study deployed social learning theory and social conflict theory by Albert Bandura and Karl Max respectively as the underpinning philosophies to assess youth gambling attitude in Ghana in order to fill this knowledge gap. A cross sectional descriptive survey approach was adopted for this study. Stratified sampling technique was used to select 200 youth from all the nine sub metro within Kumasi metropolis. Structured questionnaire was the main instrument used in gathering primary data. Data were analyzed with Predictive Analytic Software (PASW) for windows. The results were presented using regression, correlation, ANOVA and percentages. The study revealed that all the factors outlined to predict youth gambling behaviour were significant (R² = 0.822, ANOVA < 0.05). Furtherance, 1% change in familial factors will bring 70.7% (0.841²) in youth attitude towards gambling. Moreover, 1% change in social factors will bring 22.9% (0.479²) change in youth attitude towards gambling. Also, a unit change in cultural and demographic factors will bring 4.7% (0.219²) change in youth attitude towards gambling. Finally, a unite change in environmental factor will bring 2% (0.142²) change in youth attitude towards gambling. It is recommended that future studies should consider factors such as cognitive and economic factors to determine youth gambling behaviour.

Keywords: Cultural and Environmental factors, Gambling, Ghana, Social, Youth, attitude