engleski

Youth problem gambling: a comparison between Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina

In the past years, gambling in Croatia has experienced an expansive growth which, due to the lack of adequate legislation, reflected in high rates of youth gambling problems. Similar market trends occurred in the neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, which opened the need for a scientific research. Therefore, an equivalent of the Croatian national study was conducted and, in this paper, a part of that parallel study results will be presented. The main objective is to compare the presence of youth gambling and problem gambling between countries. The analysis involved high-school students from two Croatian and Bosnian cities, equal in number (Ncro=956 ; Nbh=1.036), gender (Mcro=47, 5%, Fcro=52, 5% ; Mbh=49, 7%, Fbh=50, 3%) and age (Mcro=16, 63 ; Mbh=16, 60). With respect to the objectives, the following set of instruments was used: Basic socio-demographic characteristics questionnaire, Gambling activities questionnaire (Ricijaš et al., 2011), Canadian Adolescent Gambling Inventory (Tremblay et al., 2010), along with questions regarding their perception on parents’ awareness of their gambling. Results show that youth gambling in both countries is significantly represented, but Croatian students developed gambling related problems to a greater extent. Additionally, a larger proportion of them reports parents being familiar with their gambling. Since Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are socially and culturally specific, but also share some similarities regarding socioeconomic and historical background, the results will be interpreted in terms of these characteristics. Special emphasis will be put on a critical consideration about the implementation possibilities of Croatian good practice examples in Bosnian context.

youth gambling; games of chance; problem gambling; Croatia; Bosnia and Herzegovina

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