It is not surprising that those exposed to gambling in adolescence through parental example are more likely to be active gamblers in young adulthood or that young people who had parents with gambling problems are more likely themselves to be problem gamblers. However, the source of these correlations is not understood. A typical pathway to gambling/ problem gambling in young adulthood may be direct: for example, having parents who gamble ‘normalises’ gambling for the young person or the parents actually introduce their children to gambling, facilitating their participation while still under-age. On the other hand, the correlations may not depend on the direct influence of parental behaviour with respect to gambling itself, which may indeed not be decisive. Rather parental gambling and especially problem gambling may serve as proxies for more general household characteristics such as attitude to risk, engagement in stigmatised activities and domestic instability.

The ALSPAC data set includes information on the young adult’s own gambling. Clearly these variables are required as central to the analysis; and we will also plan to include in modelling information on the respondent’s contemporaneous participation in other risky activities as well as standard controls such as educational qualifications.

Equally crucial to the hypotheses to be examined will be information on parental self-reported gambling at child ages 6 and 18. We are also requesting variables which reflect other aspects of parental lifestyle (primarily from mother and partner questionnaires at child age 12).