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Genetics Associated With Development of Disordered Gambling

Genetic influences appear important in the development of gambling disorders in both women and men, according to a report in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Pathological gambling is known to run in families, according to background information in the article. In one study, 8% of the first-degree relatives of individuals with gambling disorders had a lifetime history of similar problems, compared with 2% of relatives of unaffected individuals. Almost one half of the individuals in treatment for pathological gambling are women.

To investigate potential genetic and environmental risk factors for development of disordered gambling, Wendy S. Slutske, PhD, of University of Missouri–Columbia, and colleagues studied 4,764 individuals from 2,889 Australian twin pairs (aged 32 to 43 years, 57% women). The twins were assessed through structured telephone interviews for disordered gambling and similarity of their childhood environment.

Many of the participants were frequent gamblers; almost all of them had ever gambled, about one half had gambled at least once a month and about one third had gambled at least once a week. A total of 2.2% of the participants met criteria for pathological gambling, including 3.4% of men and 1.2% of women; 12.5% had ever experienced one or more symptoms of pathological gambling (18.2% of men and 8.3% of women).

“The estimate of the proportion of variation in liability for disordered gambling due to genetic influences was 49.2 percent,” the authors wrote. “There was no evidence for shared environmental influences contributing to variation in disordered gambling liability.” There was also no evidence of sex differences in the causes of pathological gambling.

“This study represents a major step forward in that it establishes for the first time that genes are as important in the etiology of disordered gambling in women as they are in men,” the authors wrote. “In addition to similar relative contributions of genetic vs. environmental factors to variation in liability for disordered gambling, the results suggest that the susceptibility genes contributing to variation in liability for disordered gambling may also overlap considerably in men and women.”

— Source: American Medical Association