Does Online Gambling in the Workplace Explain the Relationship Between Problem Gambling and Adverse Work and Mental Health Outcomes?

Online gambling has proliferated in Canada, presenting concerns for employers as its instantaneous accessibility across environments facilitates employees’ engagement in gambling during work hours. Indeed, our research team recently found the association between problem gambling and decreased job performance is mediated by increased workplace online gambling. However, these findings are limited by the use of self-report methods. Considering workplace online gambling is strongly susceptible to the social desirability bias, it may be under-reported in this context.

Thus, we aim to replicate our previous findings measuring workplace online gambling objectively in a 1-month online longitudinal study, with a mobile sensing period embedded within to track time participants spend engaging with online gambling applications during work hours. We will go beyond the outcome of job performance to investigate workplace online gambling’s impacts on mental health, namely depression, anxiety, stress, and work engagement. With our innovative use of mobile sensing, our project stands to benefit Canadian employees, employers, and policymakers by providing an objective estimate of the productivity and health costs of online gambling in the workplace. We hope to contribute to the evidence base informing future decisions about the regulation of online gambling in Canada, at both organizational and federal levels.

This project is co-funded in partnership with Mitacs and iA Financial Group.

  • Sam is a first year PhD student studying Clinical Psychology at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His honours thesis examined the relationship between problem gambling, workplace online gambling, and job performance using self-report methods, and he is keen to extend on his findings with the present project. Generally, Sam is interested in wellbeing in the workplace and beyond and aims to study its antecedents as well as positive psychology interventions which promote it. His career goal is to become a scientist practitioner in an academic health setting.