Gambling Among First Responders in the United States report: what we learned and what comes next
EPIC’s senior research manager Anca-Maria Gherghel played a leading role in bringing the Gambling Among First Responders Report to life in collaboration with Kindbridge Research Institute and the Colorado Division of Gaming. Here she explains where the inspiration for the research came from, why there is still so much to learn about this area of investigation, and what the next steps of support for first responders needs to look like…
The research into gambling among first responders that we have today released in collaboration with Kindbridge Research Institute and the Colorado Division of Gaming is an important starting point to learn more about gambling-related issues among individuals in a high-stress role that have long been suspected, but remained unproven – until now.
As I’ll explain further, there is still a lot more that we can do to understand the causes or motivation behind the results we have uncovered in this initial study, but releasing this report provides an opportunity to start a broader discussion into this issue and work out how organisations can work together to mitigate risk and improve player protection for people in these vital public service roles.
For me, one of the most notable findings was the number of participants who screened positive for possible PTSD-related symptoms, and the association we saw between PTSD symptoms and gambling-harm risk. That relationship was something we expected to see, but it was still striking to see it reflected in the data.
What surprised me even more, though, was how little research has actually been conducted on gambling among first responders, particularly in the US, despite the relatively high levels of gambling participation and problem gambling that we know can exist within this population. That really reinforces why this research was needed. There is clearly a population that may be experiencing gambling-related harm, but we still have a lot to learn about the scale of the issue, the factors contributing to it, and what kind of support is most appropriate.
The premise of the research project from our perspective started with inspiration from my colleague Greg Weber, who is a firefighter in New Jersey. Greg delivered a gambling harm awareness session at a firefighters’ convention, and I had the opportunity to collect some initial data around gambling participation and problem gambling rates.
The findings from that initial work were really interesting, and it led us to start having conversations internally about how we could develop it into a larger project and explore the issue in much more detail.
That initial work helped us move from simply having a hypothesis or an idea about gambling among first responders to having some early evidence that there was a genuine need for further research. Without Greg creating that opportunity and helping us get that initial insight, I don’t think the larger project would have developed in quite the same way.
The timing aligned well with the research that the Kindbridge Research Institute was already doing in this area, with funding support from the Colorado Division of Gaming. That gave us an opportunity to take those initial observations and develop them into a more substantial research project. The involvement and support of our partners was therefore absolutely crucial in helping us take the project from an initial idea and some interesting early findings to a more structured research study.
One study that was particularly inspiring for us was the 2020 paper by Cowlishaw and colleagues, looking at the prevalence and implications of gambling problems among firefighters in Australia. That was very useful in demonstrating that there was an important issue to investigate, but there is still relatively little research looking specifically at gambling among first responders, particularly across different groups in the US.
Our study was exploratory and the sample was relatively small, so the findings need to be interpreted with some caution. But I think it provides a useful baseline for understanding gambling participation and gambling-related problems within this population, and it helps to put those issues into a broader context.
One of the interesting things that emerged was the importance of considering military background as well – that kind of high stress vocation, which continues into life as a first responder, demonstrated an increased risk for gambling-related harm. That is something I think deserves more attention because understanding the different experiences and risk factors that first responders may bring with them could ultimately help us develop better prevention, screening, and support strategies for gambling harm.
One area that I – and fellow researchers at EPIC – would particularly like to explore further came from seeing that a substantial proportion of participants who reported sports betting were based in states where sports wagering is not currently legal, including Texas and California. The current study wasn’t designed to examine whether respondents were accessing legal or unregulated betting markets, so we can’t draw any conclusions about that from these findings.
However, I think it raises a really interesting question for future research. I’d like to understand more about what is driving that behaviour and, specifically, whether first responders in states without legal sports wagering are engaging with unregulated betting markets, and whether that is associated with higher levels of gambling-related harm or problem gambling severity.
I’d also like to go further in understanding what support first responders actually need. We have started to identify that there is an issue, but the next step is understanding what types of education, prevention, and support would be most effective and how we can make those resources accessible and relevant to the first-responder community.
It doesn’t necessarily need to be about diagnosing a gambling problem. It can be about recognising that someone may be experiencing harm, starting an open and supportive conversation, and knowing where they can go to get further help if they need it.
Subject to securing suitable funding, it would also be important to repeat this research in other global markets, to assess the impact that different cultural influences or regulatory systems have on gambling habits among first responders, and whether this affects the findings compared to this US-based study.
I hope the research encourages some important conversations about how we can better support first responders who may be experiencing gambling-related harm, and that we can attract future funding to expand the breadth of research and increase the depth of understanding – both in the US and beyond. For me, this initial research is really a starting point. We have identified some important findings, but there is still a lot that we don’t know.
The upcoming EASG conference in Copenhagen (8-11 September) is particularly exciting because it brings together researchers and people working in this area from around the world and we have an opportunity to present these findings to that audience. There is still very little research looking at first responders and gambling internationally, so there is a real need to understand what this looks like across different countries and different first-responder populations.
I’m really looking forward to discussing the findings at EASG, hearing from other researchers about what they’re seeing in their own populations, and hopefully identifying opportunities to collaborate. It would be fantastic if the discussion could help us identify the most important questions for future research and, ultimately, work together to understand what effective support for first responders should look like.
