The purpose of this study was to examine the links between impulsivity, gambling preferences, gambling-related cognitions, and gambling symptoms among United States Armed Forces veterans receiving treatment for gambling disorder. The researchers reviewed the medical records of 549 veterans entering inpatient treatment offered by the Veterans Affairs between 2010 and 2020.
Veterans who only gambled on strategic games had higher levels of sensation seeking, lower levels of illusions of control, and lower levels of positive gambling expectancies. Impulsivity was linked to gambling-related cognitions. In particular, positive urgency was linked to all types of gambling-related cognitions (i.e., inability to stop, positive gambling expectancies, predictive control, illusions of control, and interpretative bias). Certain facets of impulsivity were related to having more severe gambling symptoms. Specifically, veterans who had higher levels of sensation seeking, lower levels of perseverance, and higher levels of negative urgency tended to have more severe gambling symptoms.
