Actualización del perfil del jugador patológico

Resum

Pathological Gambling is defined as a recurrent and persistent gambling behavior that deteriorates all areas of life. It is considered a major public health problem. The aim of this paper is to describe the socio-demographic characteristics, gambling behaviour and impulsivity of a sample of patients who requested to start treatment at the Pathological Gambling Unitof theUniversity HospitalRamón y Cajal. The sample was composed of 19 patients (89.5% men) diagnosed with PG according to DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. The results show that the mean age was 39.89 years, most were single, had secondary or university studies and were in active employment; the mean age of onset of gambling was 24.21 years and the evolution of the problem was 5. 16 years old; the modality of online gambling was present in 42.1% of the cases, with sports betting being the main gambling activity practiced (42.1%); they mostly have debts (78.9%) that amount to an average of 12263.16 €. In conclusion, although the patient requesting treatment continues to be a single, working man, more and more are those with university studies, who begin to gamble at an increasingly younger age and whose main gambling activity is no longer slot machines, but rather sports betting, which would be behind a large part of the problems related to gambling today.