Genetic influences appear important in the development of gambling disorders in both women and men, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Pathological gambling is known to run in families, according to background information in the article. In one study, 8 percent of the first-degree relatives of individuals with gambling disorders had a lifetime history of similar problems, compared with 2 percent of relatives of unaffected individuals. Almost half of the individuals in treatment for pathological gambling are women.
To investigate potential genetic and environmental risk factors for development of disordered gambling, Wendy S. Slutske, Ph.D., of University of Missouri-Columbia, and colleagues studied 4,764 individuals from 2,889 Australian twin pairs (age 32 to 43 years, 57 percent women). The twins were assessed through structured telephone interviews for disordered gambling and similarity of their childhood environment.
Many of the participants were frequent gamblers; almost all of them had ever gambled, about one-half had gambled at least once a month and about one-third had gambled at least once a week. A total of 2.2 percent of the participants met criteria for pathological gambling, including 3.4 percent of men and 1.2 percent of women; 12.5 percent had ever experienced one or more symptoms of pathological gambling (18.2 percent of men and 8.3 percent of women).