Researchers approach the topic from a social and neurological perspective.
Argentina.- Two specialists from the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET) analyzed the phenomenon of online betting, its causes, risk factors, consequences, and possible interventions for a growing social issue.
With the purpose of exploring its various facets, Astor Borotto, a sociologist and CONICET fellow at IHUCSO Litoral (CONICET, UNL) and Betina González, a neuroscientist and researcher at ININFA (CONICET), addressed this issue from individual and social perspectives respectively.
From a sociological perspective, Borotto explained that even today problematic gambling is a cause for moral disapproval and shame for those who suffer from it, but increasingly, the idea that excessive betting is a pathology is becoming more common.
From a neuroscientific perspective, González defined addiction as a “chronic brain disorder characterized by the compulsive pursuit of rewarding stimuli,” whether it be drugs, alcohol, or betting, despite the negative consequences they trigger. “This disorder involves multiple brain circuits, including those responsible for reward, motivation, memory, and impulse control,” details the researcher.
See also: What the reports say about the regulation of online betting and the prevention of gambling addiction reached in the House of Representatives
According to Borotto, “From a social perspective, we observe that ideals of success associated with the consumption of often extravagant goods (luxury cars, extraordinary trips) have been established, in parallel, with the offer of short and quick paths to that goal in the form of, for example, courses to invest and quickly bill in dollars that flood social networks.” In this regard, the sociologist expands, “one might wonder if there is not an affinity between these new ways of thinking about success and the proliferation of gambling consumption.”
Questioning, in turn, whether this phenomenon is related to a disintegration of the paths that were previously offered to young people to achieve economic independence and ascent such as entering the formal labor market, mediated or not by prior education in the higher education system.
According to researchers, young people link the idea of betting to a quick way to multiply money, but also obtained through a methodical and systematic search for information, which requires time and dedication. Although in relative terms the figures won are low, there is a shared idea that defines participation, which exceeds the gain of money and has to do with the valuation it grants among friends or acquaintances: the reputation among peers linked to winning.
“Stress and addiction are closely related through multiple neurobiological and psychological pathways,” states González. According to her, “a stressor, that is any event that generates tension or pressure on the individual, activates physiological and emotional mechanisms of adaptation or defense, and can act as a significant trigger in the initiation, maintenance, and relapse of addictive behaviors.” And she specifies that, “stressors can be physical, psychological, social, environmental, and our stress response system prepares us to face them in the best way, promoting physical and behavioral changes.”
However, “when stressors are high, sustained over time (chronic), and occur during critical windows of development, they have the capacity to promote numerous psychiatric pathologies, including addiction,” concludes the scientist.
“A history of stressful events during childhood is associated with a higher risk of triggering an addiction in adolescence,” assures González, stating that “it was seen that gambling is used by adolescents with gambling addiction as a mechanism to cope with negative emotional states triggered by stress or anxiety events.” However, she continues, “the same use of gambling to cope with stress leads to the exacerbation of the negative consequences of gambling, leading to compulsive behavior and the addictive cycle.”
“Addictions in general, and among them pathological gambling, are crossed by various social, environmental, psychological, biological factors, that determine the spectrum of their occurrence and expression,” affirms González and gives as an example that one of the main risk factors occurs in the primary family: parents or siblings with gambling problems or other addictions.
It is also known that individuals with certain disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, or anxiety have a higher risk of developing gambling addiction or other addictions. “These conditions -according to the researcher- affect the brain's reward circuit and stress processing. The pursuit of stimuli, along with poor impulse control, are common features in these conditions, which can predispose to addictive behaviors such as gambling.”
As environmental factors, the current digital world is designed to activate the reward system and keep its consumers hooked for as long as possible on the use of the device, “hence its excessive access in stages like adolescence has led to the increase in cases of behavioral addiction that we are observing in the digital era,” assures the neuroscientist. This is added to the easy access, for young people, to online betting sites which, in turn, increases the chances of entering the addictive cycle during this stage of high developmental vulnerability.
Among the social risk factors that researchers identify are the socioeconomic level, educational level, and peer pressure, meaning that if members of the social group engage in betting or consume addictive substances, it is more likely that the individual will also end up doing so.
Borotto affirms that a considerable number of young people get to know these games through their friends: “which could indicate that betting plays a significant role in the sociability of young people. They come to play with friends, classmates, and also family members, often playing in groups: adolescents organize themselves to bet,” reflects the sociologist.
According to Borotto: “Excessive betting is not a problem exclusive to a social sector.” In this sense, the sociologist accounts for research that shows that the lower sectors of the social scale proportionally involve a greater amount of their income in betting than the middle and upper sectors. “Thus, what we generally see as the same problem -compulsive gambling- may present different characteristics in relation to the place that people occupy in the social structure,” concludes the fellow.
Moreover, González emphasizes that “one cannot attribute the occurrence of an addiction to a single factor, but to the interaction of different factors that come from the social, psychic, and biological sphere in which the individual is immersed” and, likewise, states that “the presence of genetic factors, or early adverse conditions, or the expression of impulsivity traits in the personality do not guarantee by themselves the manifestation of an addiction.”
For the neuroscientist, this interaction of factors can explain the exacerbation of problematic consumptions, in general, that was recorded during and after the pandemic, “where the disruption of the social sphere induced by mandatory isolation posed a psychological stress that tipped the balance towards the expression of these addictive behaviors and their associated comorbidities such as depression, anxiety, mood disorders, and vice versa,” specifies González.
In Argentina, the phenomenon of online betting came accompanied by a strong advertising campaign. “Many of the gambling operator advertisements we commonly see on television and on social networks exploit the imaginaries we mentioned earlier, -expresses Borotto- they invite us to test our sports knowledge and to try again when things don't go well, while at the same time, they normalize betting as a harmless activity.”
In this sense, there are currently various bill projects that promote the regulation and limitation of gambling advertising as well as seeking to limit the commercial strategies that operators use to attract new consumers.
