Betting against the odds? The effect of mental health on problem gambling behavior

This study investigates mental health as a risk factor for problem gambling using longitudinal data from Australia. We hypothesize that poor mental health increases the likelihood of engaging in problem gambling. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that individuals experiencing poor mental health are more likely to report problem gambling behavior. These findings highlight the importance of prioritizing mental health alongside, or even above, changes to gambling regulations.

The analysis is based on unit record data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not reflect those of the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS) or the Melbourne Institute.

Under the terms of the user agreement, HILDA data must not be matched, linked, shared, integrated, or merged with any other dataset without explicit permission from DSS. As such, the dataset cannot be shared. Researchers may apply for access to HILDA data via the Australian Data Archive Dataverse platform. To facilitate replication, the authors provide STATA do-files, including: (1) a file for cleaning the data and constructing the variables used in the analysis, and (2) a file to reproduce the tables reported in the paper. Please follow "Steps to reproduce" below.

For users without access to the HILDA data, a synthetic dataset is provided to enable preliminary analysis. However, regression estimates derived from the synthetic data may differ from those reported in the paper.