This report provides an overview of the development, validation and reliability testing of the Canadian Problem Gambling Index, developed over the last three years. This research was conducted by a research team under the aegis of the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse for the Inter-Provincial Task Force on Problem Gambling. The goal was to develop a new, more meaningful measure of problem gambling for use in general population surveys, one that included more indicators of the social and environmental context of gambling and problem gambling. The project was divided into two phases. Phase I was an examination of how problem gambling had been conceptualized, defined and measured in the literature, and the development or synthesis of a new conception, definition and means of measurement. This phase of the project involved an extensive review of the literature, and synthesis of the relevant literature into an integrated conceptual framework for our definition of problem gambling. The framework and the resulting definition were then put before a panel of experts in the field to ensure the new construct was adequately defined. After several rounds of consultation and feedback, a draft index based on the literature and feedback process was produced The second phase of this project was the fine tuning, validity and reliability testing of the index

We study individual decision making in a lottery-choice task performed by three different populations: gamblers under psychological treatment ("addicts"), gamblers ’ spouses ("victims"), and people who are neither gamblers or gamblers’ spouses ("normals"). We find that addicts are willing to take less risk than normals, but the difference is smaller as a gambler’s time under treatment increases. The large majority of victims report themselves unwilling to take any risk at all. However, addicts in the first year of treatment react more than other addicts to the different values of the risk-return parameter.