Children with Impulsive Behavior in Elementary School More Likely to Gamble Later

A student's behavior during the first years of school can predict whether he/she will engage in risky activities later. Highlighting this point, a new study states that boys who exhibit impulsivity in first grade are more likely to engage in problem gambling or ludomania in late adolescence.

Problem gambling is the tendency to gamble continuously despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop. Severe problem gambling can often develop into a common disorder known as pathological gambling.

This is the first study to find a strong link between impulsivity in childhood and gambling behavior later. Researchers from Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, followed 310 children from first grade to late adolescence. A majority of the participants were African-American (87 percent) and from a low socioeconomic background (70 percent), based in Baltimore, Maryland.

Behavior of the students was measured through their teacher's opinion of different factors - patience to wait for turn, tendency to interrupt, or blurt out answers.

All the participants underwent annual assessments between ages 11 and 15. On the basis of impulsivity, they divided the whole group into two - high impulsive trajectory group (41 percent) and low impulse trajectory group (59 percent).

At age 17 and 19, researchers recorded the participant's gambling behavior through interviews and through screening. They found boys in the high impulsive group at a three-time higher risk of problem gambling later.

A significant number of participants were found engaged in gambling (67 percent) and some were found at risks of gambling (20 percent) and problem gambling (9 percent).

"Our findings reveal that there is a considerable link between youth impulsivity in the younger years and gambling issues as older teens," Dr. Silvia Martins, assistant professor of Epidemiology at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, said in a news release. "This has important implications and provides clear research support for targeting impulsivity to prevent youth problem gambling."

Results of the study have been published online in the journal Addiction.