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These included the direct consequences of owners spending more time at home, reduced physical interaction with others, and other related lifestyle changes (6, 8). In response, we conducted a survey-based longitudinal investigation to characterize the dynamics of pet behavior, human-animal interaction activities, and their associations during the course of the COVID pandemic. The current literature indicates that problem gamblers, among others, are particularly vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic and that resources are needed to help and prevent increased harm. The pandemic still being active to this day, future research will be needed on this topic.
Many actors fear a switch to online gambling in the context of the closure of many land-based gambling activities due to the restrictions imposed by public health authorities, such as physical distancing and lockdowns. This scoping review aims to summarize the literature that addresses the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on gambling. Not surprisingly given the closure of land-based gambling venues, an overall reduction in gambling frequency and expenditure was reported in all 17 studies. Two studies assessed participants’ perceptions of the reasons or motives for the decrease in their gambling. In a New Zealand study, the Health Promotion Agency presented a checklist of reasons to participants.
- Furthermore, we did not assess the severity of a behavior problem, but instead gathered dichotomous values (yes/no) for each behavior.
- Many participants stated that their gambling behaviour has not changed and that they have always gambled in the same way, however just under half of participants noted that their feelings towards gambling have been negatively impacted by Covid-19.
- The latter have concerned not only individuals, who have been told to remain in their houses, but even many businesses with dramatic consequences on many persons who have not been able to work because they were unable to do their job from home (i.e., smart working).
- Other indicators, typically correlated with problematic gambling, include younger age groups, males, and those with mental health concerns.
- To our knowledge, this review is the first to focus specifically on gambling and COVID-19.
Descriptive characteristics, such as the names of authors, year, region/country, population, aim, design, and conclusion, were collected (see Table 1
). After collecting the information, we collated, summarized, and reported the results using narrative synthesis (Popay et al., 2006). Narrative synthesis is an approach to synthesize “findings from multiple studies that relies primarily on the use of words and text to summarize and explain the findings” (Popay et al., 2006). The studies involving humans were approved by the Purdue University Human Research Protection Program Institutional Review Board.
Participants
In our study, the gender distribution was representative of the general U.S. population with 48% men and 51% women. Our study confirmed findings from Hakansson (14) indicating a trend for the appearance of new gamblers during social-distancing caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Fear of disease, lost lives of close relatives and friends, or confinement and other restraints related to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis (the spread and consequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus) have changed the daily Playzilla Casino lives of many people worldwide and may present a health hazard beyond the acute infectious disease. Problem gambling may potentially be among the health hazards affected by the ongoing crisis and its aftermath. At the same time that land-based gambling accessibility decreased, online gambling sites continued to operate. Some media reports indicated that business had, in fact, flourished and that the pandemic served to promote this increasingly popular gambling format [5,6].
While this finding concurred with some of the previous studies, the inconsistency among studies is noteworthy. The study findings supported our first hypothesis, which stated that behavior problems and physiological changes in dogs and cats would vary across the four COVID phases. Similar to dogs, HAI activities showed an overall strongest association with aggression in cats (Figure 6). A consistent positive association between being away and behavior problems and inverse association between interaction and behavior problems were also observed in cats. Different from dogs, cat’s sleep location showed a stronger association with aggression, anxiety or fear, and physiological changes, with sleeping outside bedroom tended to have the lowest odds. The activity level and behavior of pets have long been acknowledged to be greatly influenced by the lifestyle patterns of their owners (1, 2).
Article Level Metrics
With the implementation of lockdown measures, many puppy socialization classes and training schools shifted to online platforms, limiting opportunities for interaction with strangers and neighbor’s pets (16). A study by Sacchettino et al. (17) found that dogs that underwent their socialization period during the lockdown experienced a significant increase in fear and aggression later in life. Furthermore, concerns have been raised about the possibility of pets experiencing new or recurrent behavior problems when their owners transitioned from working at home to returning to the workplace (14). In fact, half of all participants in the community told us that they had increased the time they spent gambling. The main reasons given were the fact that online gambling is accessible anytime, and anywhere, and that they had more time on their hands and reported increased boredom as a result of the pandemic.
Two studies assessed participants’ perceptions of the reasons or motives for the increase in their gambling. Reasons for gambling more identified in the Health Promotion Agency’s New Zealand study were being unable to go to their usual places to gamble (51%), boredom (34%), financial pressure (28%) need for relaxation (25%), online social occasions (16%) and stress (15%). In Great Britain, the YouGov study found that boredom was mentioned most frequently in response to open-ended questions (12%), followed by earning money (55%). The two most frequent reasons cited when participants completed a checklist were boredom (52%) and prospect of winning money (48%).
Online Gambling Addiction: the Relationship Between Internet Gambling and Disordered Gambling
As noted by Griffiths et al. (2020), “even in the midst of the pandemic, we need to be aware that gambling harms are still occurring”. An electronic literature search involving a strategy using keywords related to COVID-19 and gambling was conducted using MEDLINE, Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, PsychINFO, Social Works Abstract, and Socio Index databases on February 25th 2021. To be included, studies had to discuss gambling and COVID-19 as a primary theme, be written in English, and be published in a peer-reviewed journal. After collecting the information, we collated, summarized, and reported the results using narrative synthesis. This qualitative research was designed to add an additional layer of insight onto our ongoing monitoring of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. We recognise that this is not a nationally representative piece of research but it provides a useful window into the wider experiences of some gambling consumers, to consider alongside our robust data and statistics.
Overall, the results of the present study call for new data collections in this and other geographical settings, and in different pandemic phases. Despite these limitations, the present sub-study from a structured web survey dataset of online gamblers, is one of the first and one of the few studies reporting gambling involvement actually happening during the COVID-19 crisis. The sample addressed were web panel members of a Swedish market survey company, Ipsos, i.e., individuals already enrolled with that company’s web panel, and typically receiving market surveys and political opinion polls. The same methods and the same recruitment strategy were used in a previous study assessing online gamblers in Sweden, recruited through the same web survey company and with the same screen-out question (Håkansson and Widinghoff, 2020). Participants of the web panel are regularly addressed with offers to participate in different surveys. In this case, they were included with the question “if you think about the past 12 months, how often have you gambled on sports betting or online casino games?
1. Study characteristics
Given that anxiety is a chronic condition known to require a multimodal approach, especially in severe cases (36), this finding aligns with existing knowledge. By examining these hypotheses, we sought to gain valuable insights into the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on pet behavior and human-animal relationships, which would inform strategies to address potential challenges and promote positive interactions between pets and their owners during times of crisis. Census Bureau’s 2020 and 2022 Surveys of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the latter being the latest available. SIPP collects detailed information on the economic and demographic characteristics of U.S. households. It is one of few surveys that report on the values of assets and liabilities (debt) held by households. Respondents are asked to provide estimates of their asset values and debt holdings in December of the preceding year.
To compound the lack of distinction between education, employment and gambling, Salerno and Pallanti (2021) found that many pathological gamblers were either unemployed or business owners. A better understanding of the experience of gamblers during the pandemic is essential. There is also a lack of studies on certain populations, such as LGBTQ+ and Aboriginal people. Finally, comparative studies on gambling policies adopted https://cosmic-slot.com during the pandemic, the impacts of COVID-19 on the gambling industry, and alternative forms of gambling developed by gamblers, such as teenage football games or amateur low-tier friendship games, as outlined by Håkansson et al. (2020a), are necessary. The available literature on COVID-19 and gambling is limited and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gambling behavior and gambling problems is still unclear.
Therefore, there is a need for more research on this topic, both qualitative and mixed methods studies, to better understand the impact of the pandemic on gambling. Considering the results, we need to be careful, particularly with problem gamblers and other subgroups of the population who seem to be more vulnerable to increased gambling habits during this pandemic period. The pandemic also led to an increase in the number of new pet-owning households, with a study in the United Kingdom reporting a peak between March and December 2020 (13). While a peak in new pet ownership was observed in spring 2020 based on Google Trends data from various countries, including Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Singapore, the Philippines, and Malaysia, this trend diminished after July 2020, especially in dogs (14). Individuals obtaining puppies during the pandemic exhibited characteristics different from those who acquired puppies before the pandemic (i.e., 2019), being less likely to have prior dog ownership experience, potentially posing risks for the future well-being of these puppies (13). Moreover, there was an alarming increase in the number of people giving up their pets and the number of new families obtaining pets in the United States, including Hawaii and Alaska, during the pandemic (15).
These trends are likely to be much greater in reality, as the majority (70 per cent) of respondents to the surveys in lockdown were women. As the world has both adapted to the pandemic and been hit by second and third waves, much remains to be learned about how COVID-19 affected and continues to affect gambling. The second and third wave of COVID-19 has now hit many countries and concerns about its consequences has once again been raised. The goal of this research topic is to examine the impact of COVID-19 on gambling from a broad perspective, bringing together a variety of methods and data sources to provide a comprehensive picture with clear policy implications.
Unforeseen consequences, impacts, and behavioral reactions are probable as the different waves of the pandemic are also situated in evolving contexts around the world. Future research should adopt a variety of methodology designs and focus on different populations and geographical areas, to better understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gambling. They will be necessary to reduce gambling harms and help the most vulnerable populations.