An examination of gambling behaviour in relation to financial management behaviour, financial attitudes, and money attitudes

This study was designed to examine the relationship between gambling behaviour (gambling frequency and problem gambling severity) and financial management practices (cash management, risk management, and general management), financial management attitudes, and money attitudes (materialism, achievement, budget, obsession, and anxiety) in a sample of 118 participants (45 males, 73 females) recruited from a university. The findings revealed that gambling frequency was not significantly associated with any financial management, financial attitude, or money attitude variable but that problem gambling severity was significantly positively associated with financial management attitudes and obsession and negatively associated with budget. However, problem gambling severity scores were no longer significantly correlated with these factors after controlling for demographic and socio-economic factors. It was concluded that future research evaluating multiple dimensions of practices and attitudes with reliable and valid standardised instruments in large community or clinical samples is required in order to design cognitive interventions for problem gambling that facilitate changes in general beliefs about the importance of money.