Gambling on the Internet: A Brief Note

Mark Griffiths, Ph.D. Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom

With the number of online computer users more than doubling over the past two years, it has been alleged that social pathologies are beginning to surface in cyberspace (e.g. Griffiths, 1995a; 1996a). The in- ternet is currently under mass expansion and it is estimated that, there are over 30 million people current users. Studies of the internet, its users and their potential excesses should therefore be of psychological concern not least of all because of its sudden growth and heightened public awareness. It should also be of interest to those of us who re- search into gambling because there is now an abundance of virtual gam- bling sites proliferating the internet (e.g. The Global Casino, Virtual Vegas, The House of Hazard, The Fox Casino).

For some time I have been carrying out research in to the area of "technological addictions" (Griffiths, 1995a; b). Technological addic- tions are operationally defined as non-chemical (behavioural) addic- tions which involve human-machine interaction. They can either be pas- sive (e.g. television) or active (e.g. computer games) and usually contain inducing and reinforcing features which may contribute to the promo- tion of addictive tendencies.

There is little in the way of an established academic literature on technological addictions, but possible activities that could be included under this category are television addiction, computer addiction (e.g.

Send reprint requests to Mark Griffiths, Ph.D., Psychology Division, Dept. of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham, United Kingdom NG1 4BU.

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472 JOURNAL OF GAMBLING STUDIES

hacking, internet usage, programming), video and computer game ad- diction, fruit machine addiction, pinball addiction, trivia machine ad- diction, and virtual reality addiction. My own view (Griffiths, 1996b) is that technological addictions are a subset of behaviourial addictions (see Marks, 1990) and that behaviourial addictions feature all the core components of addiction (e.g. salience, euphoria, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict and re lapse-see Griffiths, 1995a; c; 1996) and, as such, are bonafide addictions. It is assumed that the effects o f behaviourial excess are very similar to the effects found with more established addictions like drinking alcohol, drug taking and gambling.

Although there is little empirical evidence for technological addic- tions as distinct clinical entities at present, extrapolations from the re- search into other technological addictions suggest that they do (and will) exist (see Griffiths, 1995a). I have been collecting accounts of heavy internet usage (Griffiths, 1996a) and I have suggested that for some peo- ple the internet may be addictive. It could be argued that someone can- not be addicted to the internet because it is a fictional entity, i.e. it is only a connect ion of computers.

One of the objectives of any future research should be to deter- mine the object of the addiction. Is it the process of typing? The medium of communication? Aspects of its specific style (no face-to-face, etc.)? The information that can be obtained (e.g. pornography, gam- bling information)? Playing games (including gambling)? Talking to oth- ers (in chat rooms or on Internet Relay Chat)? Perhaps another way to think of this is to see the internet as providing a medium for the ad- diction to flow to its object of unhealthy attachment (i.e. a secondary addiction to more pervasive primary problems)? I have argued (Grif- fiths, 1996a) that the internet could easily be used to focus of obsessive a n d / o r compulsive behaviours (such as gambling). The vast resources on the internet available to feed or fuel other addictions or compulsions may intensify this focus. For example, to a sex addict or a gambling ad- dict, the internet could potentially be a very dangerous medium.

There is also the problem that the internet consists of many dif- ferent types of activity (e.g. e-mailing, information browsing, file trans- ferring, socialising, role-game playing, gambling etc.) and it could be the case (and probably is the case) that some of these activities (like inter- net relay chat or role playing games and gambling) are more addictive than some other internet activities. Further to this, I have speculated (Griffiths, 1995b) that structural characteristics of the software itself

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might promote addictive tendencies. Structural characteristics (i.e. fea- tures which manufacturers design into their products) promote inter- activity and to some extent define alternative realities to the user and allow them feelings of anonymity--features which may be very psycho- logically rewarding to such individuals. There is no doubt that internet usage among the general population will start to increase over the next few years and that if social pathologies exist then there is a need for fur- ther research.

As can be seen from this brief outline above and from an editorial I wrote for the Society for the Study of Gambling Newsletter (see Griffiths, 1994), the field of gambling is not immune to the technological revolu-

' tion taking place elsewhere in other fields. These new technologies may provide many people with their first exposure to the world of gambling and could be argued to be more enticing than previous non-technolog- ical incarnations. The long term impact of the technological revolution in the gambling field cannot yet be assessed but academics studying the impact of gambling on people's everyday lives will be monitoring the sit- uation with great interest.

REFERENCES

Griffiths, M.D. (1994). The future of gambling in the technological revolution. Society for the Study r~" Gambling Newsletter, 24, 1-3.

Griffiths, M.D. (1995a). Technological addictions. Clinical Psychology Forum, 76, 14-19. Griffiths, M.D. (1995b). Netties Anonymous. Times Higher Educational Supplement, April 7, p. 18. Griffiths, M.D. (1995c). Adolescent Gambling. London: Routledge. Griffiths, M.D. (1996a). Internet addiction: An issue for clinical psychology? Clinical Psychology

Forum, in press. Griffiths, M.D. (1996b). Behaviourial addictions: An issue for everybody. Employee Counselling

TruMy, 8(3), 19-25. Marks, 1. (1990). Non-chemical (behaviourial) addictions. British Journal of Addiction, 85,

1389-1394.