The gambling surveys, commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, chart Finnish gambling behaviour, attitudes to gambling and problem gambling. The studies use several international instruments. Data are collected every four years.
The survey charted Finnish gambling habits, the frequency of gambling, the amount of money gambled, and views on gambling addicts. The term gambling is used here as an umbrella term for lotteries, slot machines, betting, bookmaking, the pools, roulette wheels, and card and dice tables.
First, the respondents were presented with a list of various Veikkaus (the National Lottery of Finland) games and asked whether they had played them during the past 12 months or before. They were also asked to indicate other types of gambling, betting, and games of chance they had played during the past year. They were also asked how often they usually engaged in the mentioned gambling activities, and whether they usually gambled through a bookmaker or an agent, or on the Internet. The respondents were asked to estimate the average weekly and daily sum spent in gambling.
The respondents were also asked whether they returned another day to try to win back the money they had lost, whether they ever gambled more than they intended to, whether they had ever claimed to be winning while gambling even though they were actually losing money, and whether people had criticised their gambling or told them they had a gambling problem.
Some questions explored whether the respondents had ever felt guilty while gambling, whether they had wanted to stop betting money or gambling but could not do it, and whether they had ever hidden their gambling from their family members. The respondents were also asked whether they had ever argued with people they live with over how they handled money and whether those arguments had ever centered on their gambling.
Other topics included whether the respondents had ever borrowed from someone and not paid them back as a result of their gambling, whether they had ever lost time from work or school due to betting or gambling, and whether they had borrowed or acquired money to gamble or to pay gambling debts. Finally, the respondents' opinions were probed on whether they themselves gambled or had gambled too much, and whether they had ever gambled money borrowed for other purposes. They were also asked whether problem gambling was a serious problem in Finland, and whether gambling problems had increased, stayed the same, or decreased. The respondents were also asked whether any of their relatives or peers had had a gambling problem, and whether the Finnish way of organising gambling helps to reduce problem gambling.
Background variables included respondent's gender, age, occupational group, monthly income, household size, municipality size, and region of residence.
Random sampling from the population register. The sample included 20,000 persons, and sample selection was quota-controlled to ensure the national representativeness of interviews. The contact information of 10,512 persons were used to reach the intended number of respondents.