Predicting gambling behavior of South East Asian youths with Sensation Seeking and Motivation System Activation

Abstract

Online gambling is one of the fastest growing areas in digital entertainment industry today. Most people find gambling providing strong excitement, which leads scholars to find this as the main reason for some people addicted to gambling. Finding ways to identify who are more likely to gamble can be the first step for problem gambling prevention. This study collected data from a sample of 128 Singaporean college students with a Chinese root to find whether personality that s believed to have roots in biological differences can be used to predict one s preference for gambling online. Zuckerman s Sensation Seeking Scale (1979) and Lang s Motivation Activation Measure (Lang, Wang, & Bradley, 2004) both had significant correlation with pathological online gambling symptoms based on DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) modified for online gambling, and some indices of individual s online gambling experience. Implications of the findings for both the industry and health professionals are discussed.