Gambling to Cope with Psychological Vulnerability in Later Life

Background and Purpose:  While most older adults who gamble do so at recreational levels, problem gambling can be devastating particularly for this population who lives generally on a fixed income with limited ability to earn back gambling losses, making gambling risk detection an important social work practice skill.  Researchers have identified recently individual, social and behavioral pathways to gambling risk for older adults.  Our primary objective was to study the path from individual psychological vulnerability to at-risk gambling among older adults who gamble.  According to self-determination theory, feelings of competence, autonomy and relatedness represent basic, universal psychological needs that, when diminished, create psychological vulnerability.  Because gambling can serve as a coping mechanism for this vulnerability, we tested the hypothesis that among older adults who gamble, psychological vulnerability is related to their being at-risk for developing a gambling problem.  

Methods:  A correlational design was used to study the relationship between psychological vulnerability and at-risk gambling among 392 older adult participants between the ages of 60 and 93.  Participants were predominantly female (58.1%) and Hispanic or Latino (40.6%).  Students enrolled in a social work research methods course in southern California were enlisted to collect data as part of a course assignment.  The Windsor Problem Gambling Screen for Older Adults was used to measure at-risk gambling among participants.  The Basic Psychological Need Scale was used to measure feelings of competence, autonomy and relatedness among participants as a function of psychological well-being that, when diminished, creates psychological vulnerability.  Socioeconomic status was also modeled because researchers have noted its importance to successful aging and well-being.  The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling with Mplus (v7.14), allowing us to isolate measurement error.

Results: The satisfaction of basic psychological needs among older adults who gamble was negatively associated with their being at-risk for developing a gambling problem, meaning the less psychologically vulnerable they were, the less at-risk they were for developing a gambling problem.  Older adults’ socioeconomic status was positively related to the satisfaction of their basic psychological needs, but only approached statistical significance (p=.051) in its direct association to at-risk gambling.  However, socioeconomic status had an indirect effect on at-risk gambling among older adults.  Thus, psychological vulnerability explains why socioeconomic status can affect gambling behaviors that put older adults at-risk for developing a gambling problem.

Conclusions and Implications:  Psychological vulnerability stemming from the lack of satisfying basic psychological needs can put older adults who gamble at risk for developing a gambling problem.  Although gambling can have cognitive and social benefits for most older adults, the extent that basic psychological needs are met outside of gambling is one predictor of whether gambling for older adults moves from recreational levels to at-risk levels.  Socioeconomic status can serve as a risk for or protection against psychological vulnerability.  Feelings of and experiences with competence, autonomy and relatedness are basic psychological needs that researchers have described as essential and universal, and social workers in aging services should ensure that these needs are met, particularly among their clients who gamble.