Factors Related to Gambling Behavior among College Students

Purpose: The purpose of this study aimed to investigate the influencing factors of gambling behavior among university students and provide fundamental data that would help to prevent further addiction to gambling behavior. Methods: The study included 209 senior university students in Daegu city and Kyungbuk area and data were collected from August 25 to September 20, 2014. Results: The results showed that the main factors influencing the students’ gambling behavior are family strengths and anxiety. Specifically, the family strengths of students were significantly low and correlated with increasing degree of anxiety. The students’ gambling behavior was highly correlated with family strengths and anxiety. The lower the family strengths were, the higher the gambling intensity was. A strong correlation among anxiety, family strengths and gambling behavior scores were found. When the level of anxiety was high and the level of family strength low, the tendency of gambling behavior showed high. Conclusion: Given these significant results, it is necessary to formulate interventions that would address family strength and anxiety so as to prevent further addiction of young individuals to gambling.