Abstract
During the first UK national COVID-19 lockdown, there were fears that increased online gaming and gambling could negatively impact wellbeing. Using a cross-sectional retrospective change survey of 631 UK adult gamers and/or gamblers during the week the UK lockdown was partially lifted (June 2020), we investigated participation in gaming/gambling and relationships with problem gaming, problem gambling and wellbeing (using the following previously validated scales: the Internet Gaming Disorder Short Form; a short-form version of the Problem Gambling Severity Index; a short-form of the Warwick–Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale). Results indicated a near-doubling in gaming activity during lockdown and significant increases in problem gaming scores, but not in numbers of disordered gamers. Aggregate changes to gambling participation and problem gambling were negligible: decreases in offline and sports gambling were balanced by increases in online gambling. Wellbeing scores decreased during lockdown across the sample, particularly amongst women, and path analysis revealed moderate correlations between increases in problem gaming and gambling scores and reductions in wellbeing. We conclude that for some, maladaptive gaming/gambling coping strategies during the lockdown may have exacerbated its negative effects.
Highlights
The first COVID-19 UK lockdown, commencing March 2020, imposed major restrictions on the movements of UK citizens
Whilst weno targeted gamblers, a total of our cohort, leaving a cohort of participants who were either current gamers, gamblers, participants were no longer actively gaming/gambling, and were removed from or Demographics are shown in Table 1, which are representative of the UK
From our total cohort of 449 active gamblers, our results reveal that before lockdown, approximately 60% gambled on a weekly basis; after lockdown, this dropped to approximately 56% gambling on a weekly basis (Table 3; top panel)
Summary
The first COVID-19 UK lockdown, commencing March 2020, imposed major restrictions on the movements of UK citizens. It was expected to severely damage the UK economy [1], precipitate job losses [2], and worsen mental health and suicide rates [3]. In general, is an important and effective means of coping with stress [4]. Given that many UK citizens gained additional ‘free time’ during lockdown—through job losses, furlough, or home-working (i.e., without the usual commute)—leisure-based coping offered a potential means of stress management. The availability of leisure activities declined dramatically: the restrictions rendered many pastimes inaccessible, driving increased domestic (i.e., home-based) leisure activities [5]. Video gaming and online gambling—already popular in the UK [6,7]—increased substantially at the onset of lockdown. UK Internet searches for online slots increased twenty-fold [9], and international online real-money poker traffic doubled [10]
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