Recent studies show that even casual gamblers can experience harm from gambling. However, these studies may not distinguish between mild and severe harms. This study tested whether the way a survey asks about gambling harms affects how much harm is recorded for people with different gambling risk levels. Adult gamblers completed online surveys about their gambling behaviour and harms they had experienced. Specifically, they rated each harm based on how severe it was and how much it was caused by their gambling. Overall, participants with problem gambling experienced more harms than participants who were low-risk gamblers. This was especially true for harms they said were at least moderately due to gambling. In this case, people with problem gambling experienced 20–40 times more harm than low-risk gamblers.
