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. 2025 Sep;41(3):1229-1245.
doi: 10.1007/s10899-025-10408-9. Epub 2025 Jun 27.

The Mediating Effect of Gambling Motives between Psychiatric Symptoms, Dissociation, and Problem Gambling Severity

Can Zoraloğlu  1   2 , Zsolt Demetrovics  3   4   5 , Mark D Griffiths  6 , Andrea Czakó  1   7 , Zsolt Horváth  1   7 , Orsolya Király  1   7
Affiliations

The Mediating Effect of Gambling Motives between Psychiatric Symptoms, Dissociation, and Problem Gambling Severity

Can Zoraloğlu et al. J Gambl Stud. 2025 Sep.

Abstract

Although previous research has identified psychiatric symptoms and dissociation as important factors in problem gambling, the role of gambling motives in these relationships has received scant attention. According to the literature, the theoretically "riskier" motives (coping and enhancement) are associated with problem gambling. The present study examined the mediating role of gambling motives between psychiatric symptoms, dissociative experiences, and problem gambling severity. A total of 688 participants (57.8% male, Mage = 40.8 years, SD = 13.8) completed the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), Dissociative Experiences Scale-II (DES-II), Gambling Motives Questionnaire (GMQ), and Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI). The overall model had a good fit to the data. The results indicated that psychiatric symptoms had a significant direct effect and a significant indirect (mediating) effect on problem gambling severity via the coping motive, while dissociation only showed a significant indirect effect via the coping motive. The structural equation modeling showed that psychiatric symptoms, both directly and indirectly (via coping motives), influenced problem gambling severity, but dissociation did so indirectly only via coping motives. These results suggest that dissociation amplifies vulnerability to escape-style gambling, a concept in which an individual tries to regulate either negative mood states or psychological arousal by gambling. Awareness of dissociative tendencies and targeted interventions may help reduce gambling-related harms.

Keywords: Coping; Dissociation; Escapism; Gambling Disorder; Motivation; Problem Gambling; Psychopathology.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of Interest: The University of Gibraltar received funding from the Gibraltar Gambling Care Foundation, an independent, not-for-profit charity, and donations from gambling operators through the LCCP RET process supervised by the UK Gambling Commission. MDG has received research funding from Norsk Tipping (the gambling operator owned by the Norwegian government). MDG has received funding for a number of research projects in the area of gambling education for young people, social responsibility in gambling and gambling treatment from Gamble Aware (formerly the Responsibility in Gambling Trust), a charitable body which funds its research program based on donations from the gambling industry. MDG undertakes consultancy for various gambling companies in the area of player protection and social responsibility in gambling. None of these funding sources are related to this study, and the funding institutions/organizations had no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript writing, or decision to submit the paper for publication.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The overall mediation model with standardized path coefficients and the explained variance of the endogenous variables (R2) (N = 688) Notes. ML estimation with 10,000 bias-corrected bootstrap resamples was applied. All three mediator variables are latent variables. Also, for clarity, the covariances between the errors of all mediator variables have not been depicted in the figure. Simple arrows: significant path coefficients, dotted arrows: non-significant path coefficients. *p <.05; **p <.01; ***p <.001
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