FSD3522 Gambling Survey 2019

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

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Study description in other languages

in Finnish

Related files

Questionnaire (PDF file, Finnish)

Study title

Gambling Survey 2019

Alternative Title

Gambling in Finland

Dataset ID Number

FSD3522

Persistent identifiers

https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3522
https://doi.org/10.60686/t-fsd3522

Data Type

Quantitative

Authors

Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare
Salonen, Anne (Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. Health and Well-Being Promotion)

Abstract

The survey charted Finnish gambling habits, frequency of gambling, amount of money gambled as well as views on problem gambling and gambling policy and regulation. 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 as well as online variations of all of these.

First perceptions on gambling were studied. The respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with statements relating to gambling, such as "people should have the right to gamble whenever they want" and "gambling is detrimental to family life." Views were also charted on gambling advertisements, Finnish gambling policy and ways to restrict gambling.

The next section of the survey focused on the respondents' experiences of gambling. The respondents were presented with a list of various games (e.g. lotto games and scratch cards, games of chance in a casino, slot machines and online games provided by the state-owned company Veikkaus Oy) and asked whether they had played them during the previous 12 months and how often. The respondents were also asked how often they had played games of chance offered by other gaming companies online, which kinds, and why they had played these instead of the games of Veikkaus Oy. Further questions surveyed Veikkaus membership, perceptions of harmful game types, and usefulness of the ways offered by Veikkaus to control problem gambling. The respondents were also asked to estimate the average sum spent on gambling in the previous 12 months and to list the places in which they had gambled and their reasons for gambling.

The respondents' relationship to gambling was examined. They were asked how often they returned another day to try to win back the money they had lost, whether they had claimed to be winning at gambling even though they were actually losing money, whether they had gambled more than they had intended to, and whether other people had criticised them for gambling. Some questions explored whether the respondents had felt guilty while gambling, whether they had wanted to stop betting money or gambling but could not do so, and whether they had hidden their gambling habits from family members. Some questions covered arguments with the people the respondents lived with over how the respondents handled money and whether those arguments had centred on their gambling. Gambling debts were surveyed by asking whether the respondents had borrowed money from different people or sold their assets to pay off the debts.

Regarding gambling by family members, relatives and friends, the respondents were asked whether any people close to them had problems with gambling, what kind of harm these gambling problems had caused, and how much concern the problems had caused the respondents.

The final section pertained to health, well-being and non-gambling games. The respondents were asked whether they played video games or mobile games, how many hours they had played them in the previous week and month, whether they had made any in-game purchases (e.g. virtual items or characters, in-game currency), and whether they felt they might have a problem with these kinds of games. The respondents were asked to assess their current health status and were asked how often they had felt nervous, calm, despondent and happy in the previous four weeks. Finally, alcohol use was charted.

The following scales and inventories were used in the survey: Attitudes Towards Gambling Scale (ATGS-8), South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI), Mental Health Inventory (MHI-5), Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C) and Gaming Addiction Scale (GAS-7).

Background variables included the respondent's year of birth, gender, marital status, region, municipality type, education, monthly net income, economic activity and occupational status.

Keywords

addiction; alcohol use; debts; digital games; family members; friends; gambling; gaming machines; lotteries; social problems; well-being (health)

Topic Classification

Social sciences (Fields of Science Classification)
General health and well-being (CESSDA Topic Classification)
Social behaviour and attitudes (CESSDA Topic Classification)

Series

Finnish Gambling Surveys

Distributor

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Data Collector

Statistics Finland

Data Producers

Ministry of Social Affairs and Health

Time Period Covered

2019

Collection Dates

2019-09-02 – 2019-12-13

Nation

Finland

Geographical Coverage

Finland

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

Finnish, Swedish or Sami-speaking people aged 15-74 living in households in mainland Finland

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling Procedure

Probability: Systematic random

The study was targeted at the population aged 15-74 living in households in mainland Finland. People living in institutions and people whose mother tongue was something other than Finnish, Swedish or Sami language were not included in the study. The sample was selected by drawing a systematic random sample from a population frame, which was formed based on the register data of the Population Register Centre and sorted according to domicile codes. This ensured that a regionally representative sample was selected. Sample size was 7,800 people.

Collection Mode

Telephone interview: Computer-assisted (CATI)

Research Instrument

Structured questionnaire

Response Rate

51.9

Data File Language

Downloaded data package may contain different language versions of the same files.

The data files of this dataset are available in the following languages: English and Finnish.

FSD translates quantitative data into English on request, free of charge. More information on ordering data translation.

Number of Cases and Variables

230 variables and 3994 cases.

Data Version

2.0

Completeness of Data and Restrictions

For privacy reasons, the original researcher removed a variable containing information on the respondents' municipalities of residence. Categorised region variables based on the municipality variable remain in the data.

Weighting

The data were weighted at Statistics Finland based on the calibration method, where estimated distributions of selected variables are calibrated with the distributions in the population. The aim of the method is to correct for non-response bias and improve estimation. In calibrating the weights, the age-sex distribution (age groups 15-19, 20-24, 25-34, 35-49, 50-64 and 65-74) and region distributions (major regions, 18 categories and urban-rural classification, 7 categories) of the population frame (November 2019) were used. Other factors potentially affecting non-response, such as education and occupational status, were not considered. Weights were calibrated with CALMAR2 SAS macro by using raking ratio estimation. The variation of weights was limited at the lower and upper bounds. Two different weight variables were calculated in the data: calibrated expansion weights and sampling weights derived from them. The calibrated expansion weights expand the sample to correspond to the population. The sum of the expansion weights equals to the number of people aged 15-74 in the population (i.e. the population estimate). The number of people aged 15-74 in 2019 was 3,722,323. The mean of the expansion weights, 932, indicates how many Finnish people each respondent roughly represents. Looking at the whole sample, one percent of the respondents represents 37,223 people living in mainland Finland. The standard deviation of the expansion weights was 188 and their range was 522-1,477. The sum of sampling weights is equal to the number of respondents in the data, so the means of the sampling weights equal 1. In 2019, the standard deviation of the sampling weights was 0.20 and their range 0.62-1.58.

Citation Requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical Citation

Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare & Salonen, Anne (Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare): Gambling Survey 2019 [dataset]. Version 2.0 (2022-11-24). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3522

Deposit Requirement

Notify FSD of all publications where you have used the data by sending the citation information to user-services.fsd@tuni.fi.

Disclaimer

The original data creators and the archive bear no responsibility for any results or interpretations arising from the reuse of the data.

Other Material

See downloadable files at the top of the page.

More information on the Gambling in Finland study.

General description of the research project and a list of publications (in Finnish).

Privacy notice.

Privacy notice of the survey (in Finnish).

Related Materials

Salonen A, Lind K, Hagfors H, Castrén S, Kontto J. (2020) Rahapelaaminen, peliongelmat ja rahapelaamiseen liittyvät asenteet ja mielipiteet vuosina 2007-2019. Suomalaisten rahapelaaminen 2019. THL, raportti 18/2020. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-343-594-0