Recreation and gambling behaviors among college students

Motivation of student gamblers was described and compared with their motivation for other recreational activities. Students (N = 996) at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas completed self-report questionnaires including The South Oaks Gambling Screen (Lesieur and Bloom, 1987) and the Recreation Experience Preference Scales (Driver, 1983). Despite differences in statistical significance (p {dollar}\u3c{dollar}.01), pathological gamblers (N = 111) and recreational gamblers (N = 349) shared 7 of their top 10 ranked motives for gambling. Primary motives for gambling appeared to remain stable with practical differences emerging in the rankings of their importance depending on an individual\u27s level of gambling involvement. All students assigned statistically higher importance to their favorite other recreational activities than to their favorite gambling activities. However, recreational gamblers reported more agreement between motives for participating in their favorite gambling activities and their favorite other recreational activities