Predicting the Risk of Gambling Activities in Adolescence: A Case Study

Adolescent gambling is internationally considered a serious public health concern, although this phenomenon is less explored than adult gambling. It is also well known that the early onset age of gambling is a risk factor for developing gambling problems in adulthood. This study examined 7818 adolescents enrolled in 16 public high schools in Lombardy, a Northwest Italy region, between March 2017 and April 2018 and it is part of a larger study aimed at investigating dysfunctional behaviours of adolescents, with the purpose of identifying the factors that increase the risk of vulnerability and the protection factors able to reduce the incidence of pathological phenomena. The objective of the present study was to investigate the susceptibility of adolescents in high school to develop gambling problems, explained by some individual and social factors, and by the association with the use of substances, such as alcohol and tobacco and other risk-taking behaviours. Various modelling methods were considered from an imbalanced learning perspective, as the prevalence rate of high school students in the sample with problem gambling is equal to 6.1%.