Asia-Pacific
Australian women more likely to be poker machine addicts
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-02-22 15:02
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CANBERRA: A new Australian study has found women are more likely than men to become problem poker machine gamblers, University of Queensland researcher Dr Timothy Lee revealed on Monday.
He said strategies to combat problem gambling should be tailored to include the habits of female gamblers.
"They tend to prefer some simple type of gambling and they are easily addicted.
"They also have some tendency to hide their gambling activities and behaviour," he said.
Lee said while men still account for two-thirds of the nation's problem gamblers, not enough attention has been paid to the issues facing women.
He noted women often take up gambling because of relationship problems and stress.
"Problem gambling among women resulted in family and relationship breakdown, child neglect, homelessness, depression, theft, even fraud and sometimes serious contemplation of suicide," he said.
