Debi A. LaPlante's research while affiliated with Harvard Medical School and other places
What is this page?
This page lists the scientific contributions of an author, who either does not have a ResearchGate profile, or has not yet added these contributions to their profile.
It was automatically created by ResearchGate to create a record of this author's body of work. We create such pages to advance our goal of creating and maintaining the most comprehensive scientific repository possible. In doing so, we process publicly available (personal) data relating to the author as a member of the scientific community.
If you're a ResearchGate member, you can follow this page to keep up with this author's work.
If you are this author, and you don't want us to display this page anymore, please let us know.
It was automatically created by ResearchGate to create a record of this author's body of work. We create such pages to advance our goal of creating and maintaining the most comprehensive scientific repository possible. In doing so, we process publicly available (personal) data relating to the author as a member of the scientific community.
If you're a ResearchGate member, you can follow this page to keep up with this author's work.
If you are this author, and you don't want us to display this page anymore, please let us know.
Publications (103)
Native adolescents experiencing mental health challenges, including substance misuse, often prefer to seek support from their peers and other informal sources, which may be due to lack of access to, and cultural fit with, professional behavioral health services. xaʔtus (First Face) for Mental Health is a Tribal community-based intervention designed...
‘Responsible drinking’ remains a poorly defined construct despite decades of use among diverse stakeholders including industry, academics, governmental agencies, and addiction advocacy groups. To move the field closer to a consensus definition of responsible drinking that is useful for educational and research purposes, we describe five primary bar...
Technological advancements and worldwide television exposure led to a poker boom in the early 2000s, and poker (both live and online) has retained some of that popularity today. The present study examined online poker playing trends based on actual electronic betting records data for 2489 subscribers to a major global internet gambling operator fro...
To mitigate alcohol-related harm, various stakeholders have advanced the construct of ‘responsible drinking.’ However, clarity regarding ‘responsible drinking’ in evaluation research is limited. Additionally, the alcohol industry often uses the term without any mention of clear limits or meaning. At this point it is unclear whether stakeholders are...
The replication crisis has stimulated researchers around the world to adopt open science research practices intended to reduce publication bias and improve research quality. Open science practices include study pre-registration, open data, open access, and avoiding methods that can lead to publication bias and low replication rates. Although gambli...
Objective:
Responsible gambling (RG) tools that include play management software, self-limit features, and self-exclusion are relatively common offerings on major online gambling platforms. However, how online gaming and daily fantasy sports (DFS) players use such tools is less clear. The goals of this article were to understand how players use se...
A considerable body of literature has examined elements of responsible gambling (RG) programs in land-based gambling venues. The present pre-registered study examines GameSense RG program awareness and engagement trends and relationships with gambling beliefs and behaviors, at MGM’s U.S.-based casino properties using three samples of MGM’s loyalty...
Despite the size and scope of responsible gambling (RG) programs in the U.S., relatively few studies have evaluated these programs. Using survey data from 4795 subscribers to a casino loyalty program, we examined respondents’ awareness of and engagement with the GameSense RG program, and gambling beliefs and behaviors. We compared how differences i...
Online gambling poses novel risks for problem gambling, but also unique opportunities to detect and intervene with at-risk users. A consortium of gambling companies recently committed to using nine behavioral "Markers of Harm'' that can be calculated with online user data to estimate risk for gambling-related harm. The current study evaluates these...
This study presents results from a third wave of data collection of a longitudinal project investigating implementation of an RG program, GameSense, at MGM Resorts International (MGM), and how casino employees perceive responsible gambling (RG) efforts. Survey data at three time periods – Year 1 (baseline, N = 2,192), Year 2 (one-year follow-up, N...
Play management systems are prevention tools designed to help people who gamble avoid intemperate gambling outcomes by staying within predetermined budgets. This study examined gaming patrons’ reported use of and attitudes towards the PlayMyWay play management system. We report upon the results of a survey of 1951 Marquee Rewards cardholders, inclu...
The replication crisis has stimulated researchers around the world to adopt open science research practices intended to reduce publication bias and improve research quality. Open science practices include study pre-registration, open data, open publication, and avoiding methods that can lead to publication bias and low replication rates. Although g...
There is a greater need for contemporary research to empirically examine actual internet casino gambling behavior with valid data. To fill this gap in research, the current study examined two years (1 February 2015 to 31 January 2017) of prospective longitudinal data from 4,424 actual online casino gambling subscribers to one of the E.U.’s largest...
Increasingly, industry operators and governments espouse the view that they play a role in minimizing gambling harm and have developed and implemented programs and policies designed to promote responsible gambling. However, little is known about gamblers’ perceptions of responsibility for minimizing gambling harm or whether these perceptions are li...
Online gambling poses novel risks for problem gambling, but also unique opportunities to detect and intervene with at-risk users. A consortium of gambling companies recently committed to using nine behavioral "Markers of Harm'' that can be calculated with online user data to estimate risk for gambling-related harm. The current study evaluates these...
Objective: Academics, gambling regulators, and the gambling industry increasingly espouse a shared responsibility view of preventing gambling harm, considering individual gamblers and external stakeholders (e.g., gambling industry employees, government regulators, and public health workers) to be jointly responsible for this task. This study is the...
Study preregistration is one of several “open science” practices (e.g., open data, preprints) that researchers use to improve the transparency and rigour of their research. As more researchers adopt preregistration as a regular research practice, examining the nature and content of preregistrations can help identify strengths and weaknesses of curr...
American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities offer tangible and intangible resources, including centuries of indigenous wisdom and resiliency, to support their young people in recovery from substance use disorders. At the same time, tribal youth returning home from residential or inpatient treatment are vulnerable to relapse, especially if...
Background and aims
Online sports wagering is a popular and still growing gambling activity around the world. Like other types of gambling, it can lead to problems that include devastating financial, social, and health-related harms. The first analysis of actual online sports wagering activity (LaBrie et al., 2007) suggested that levels of financia...
We examined gambling venue employees’ experiences with GameSense, an onsite responsible gambling information center designed to be a resource for casino employees as well as patrons. Participants included 492 employees who reported on their engagement with, and opinions and knowledge of, the GameSense information center and its staff (i.e., GameSen...
Objective:
To help individuals avoid potential negative consequences associated with their gambling, researchers have developed lower risk limits for time and financial involvement among populations of land-based gamblers. The present study extended these efforts to online gambler populations with prospective longitudinal data.
Method:
We used r...
Objectives
Systematic mapping of evaluations of tools and interventions that are intended to mitigate risks for gambling harm.
Design
Scoping Review and z-curve analysis (which estimates the average replicability of a body of literature).
Search strategy
We searched 7 databases. We also examined reference lists of included studies, as well as pap...
Scientists across disciplines have begun to implement ‘open science’ principles and practices, which are designed to enhance the quality, transparency, and replicability of scientific research. Yet, studies examining the use of open science practices in social science fields such as psychology and economics show that awareness and use of such pract...
Scientists across disciplines have begun to implement “open science” principles and practices, which are designed to enhance the quality, transparency, and replicability of scientific research. Yet, studies examining the use of open science practices in social science fields such as psychology and economics show that awareness and use of such pract...
Objective:
Early big wins might have a psychological impact upon gamblers that increases their likelihood of intemperate gambling; however, there has been a paucity of empirical research examining this effect using actual gambling data.
Method:
We assessed the effects of daily fantasy sports (DFS) big wins on subsequent play by analyzing a prosp...
Historical trauma has contributed to the reality that addiction disproportionately affects tribal communities, including American Indian youth. We sought to understand American Indian youths' own experiences and perceptions of the environments to which they return after completing residential treatment for substance use disorder. We recruited three...
Objective: To help individuals avoid potential negative consequences associated withtheir gambling, researchers have developed lower risk limits for time and financial involvementamong populations of land-based gamblers. The present study extended these efforts to onlinegambler populations with prospective longitudinal data. Method: We used receive...
Online sports wagering is a popular and still growing gambling activity around the world. Like other types of gambling, it can lead to problems that include devastating financial, social, and health-related harms. The first analysis of actual online sports wagering activity (LaBrie, LaPlante, Nelson, Schumann, & Shaffer, 2007) suggested that levels...
Purpose
This study investigates how employees perceive responsible gambling (RG) programs, which are part of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework for minimizing negative impacts associated with problematic gambling. Casino employees have different levels of interaction with gamblers, which could affect employees' opinions about RG.
De...
Many people worry that exposure to Internet gambling will overpower individuals’ self-control, stimulate addictive behavior patterns, and provide the context to sustain addiction once it emerges. Though many researchers have attempted to evaluate this proposition, they have been limited by their methodological approaches—specifically, their use of...
Increasingly, gambling stakeholders communicate that minimizing gambling harm is a shared societal responsibility. Individual gamblers’ beliefs about responsibility for minimizing gambling harm are worthy of study because these beliefs might influence gambling behavior. In this study, using a sample of casino loyalty program subscribers (N = 4,795)...
Researchers and gambling operators have developed game-based responsible gambling tools and interventions that are intended to mitigate risks for gambling-related harm. We conducted a scoping review of this literature, with a focus on replicability and transparency. We charted 86 studies on characteristics such as study design and sample size. No t...
In daily fantasy sports (DFS) contests, participants form a roster of athletes scheduled to perform in a predetermined list of sporting contests or games. Each participant has the opportunity to win cash prizes, depending on the performance of the athletes on their roster and the performances of the athletes on the other participants' rosters. Some...
Purpose
We conducted a scoping review to map existing research of the potential link between gambling and self-harm. Materials and methods: We searched eight electronic databases and retrieved 190 studies that met our inclusion criteria. Results: Nearly 90% of studies were cross-sectional. Authors most commonly sampled people seeking professional t...
Diverse funding sources, including the government, nonprofit, and industry sectors support academic research, generally, and gambling research, specifically. This funding allows academic researchers to assess gambling-related problems in populations, evaluate tools designed to encourage responsible gambling behaviors, and develop evidence-based rec...
To understand the natural groups of daily fantasy sports (DFS) players and their associated problematic play, we obtained DFS participation records for 11,130 DFS players from a leading provider. A cluster analysis suggested four player clusters. Cluster 4 included a single highly successful player (i.e., an outlier). Players in Cluster 1 had short...
Research suggests that populations of gamblers can adapt rapidly to online sports betting services after subscribing. This pattern of adaptation typically shows an initial play increase followed by a sharp overall betting (e.g., amount wagered and number of bets) decline. Such trends are consistent with models of exposure and adaptation. Although e...
These stakeholders discuss responsible gambling in the context of today’s gambling research environment. Currently, the field of gambling studies is in the midst of an unnecessarily combative research environment of accusations and innuendo that lean on the shadow of past industry funding abuses and masquerade as objectivity and empiricism. The aut...
This volume reflects the perspectives of a diverse group of primary stakeholders interested in responsible gambling activities and programs. It also marks a watershed moment in the activities of the International Group on Responsible Gambling. The Reno Model, introduced by Blaszczynski, Ladouceur, and Shaffer in 2004, has provided the seminal archi...
Objective
To help mitigate potential gambling harm, responsible gambling information centres are launching across casino venues in North America. The launch of the first such centre in the USA provided an opportunity to achieve three goals: (1) document the centre’s reach among casino patrons, (2) generate a comprehensive description of services pr...
Background: Driving under the influence of alcohol or other substances (DUI) and suicide are both persistent but potentially preventable public health problems. DUI offenders, particularly those who have repeatedly offended, report elevated risk for many suicide risk factors. However, researchers have not systematically studied associations between...
Academic studies of employee perceptions of and engagement with responsible gambling (RG) provide important insight into how employees engage with RG, but typically treat employees as a singular entity. Employees in different departments, however, have different work experiences that affect their likelihood of directly interacting with gamblers. It...
Daily fantasy sports (DFS), a rapidly growing industry, allows players to create fantasy teams of real-life players and potentially win cash prizes, derived from entry fees. Some stakeholders have expressed concern that DFS’s accelerated nature and other features might promote excessive play and related harm. We conducted the first descriptive summ...
Aims: To discuss and review the latest research related to gambling expansion. Method: We completed a literature review and empirical comparison of peer reviewed findings related to gambling expansion and subsequent gambling-related changes among the population. Results: Although gambling expansion is associated with changes in gambling and gamblin...
During 2011, the Governor of Massachusetts signed a bill to allow casino gambling in the state (Commonwealth of Massachusetts 2011). As a result, two resort casinos will begin operations during 2018 and 2019; a smaller slots parlor began operations during June 2015. Prior to this expansion, gambling was widely available in Massachusetts, through th...
As rates of Internet gambling participation increase worldwide, so too does the need to understand how people engage in this form of gambling. This study represents the first examination of actual Internet gambling records within Iceland, a Nordic country with an active Internet lottery market that imposes strict regulations on gambling operator li...
Psychiatric comorbidity has emerged as a key element distinguishing DUI offenders from others, and, in some cases, distinguishing repeat offenders from first-time offenders. This paper utilizes a prospective design to determine whether the comorbid disorders identified among repeat DUI offenders can predict recidivism. Seven hundred forty-three rep...
Gaming industry employees are at higher risk than the general population for health conditions including gambling disorder. Responsible gambling training programs, which train employees about gambling and gambling-related problems, might be a point of intervention. However, such programs tend to use a "one-size-fits-all" approach rather than multip...
Using records of Internet gambling subscribers (n = 1,384), this study tested the Pareto principle: about 20% of customers, “the vital few,” are responsible for about 80% of the activity, while 80%, “the trivial many,” are responsible for the remaining 20%. Participants completed the Brief Biosocial Gambling Screen (BBGS) and had a history of betti...
As rates of Internet gambling participation increase worldwide, so too does the need to understand how people engage in this form of gambling. This study represents the first examination of actual Internet gambling records within Iceland, a Nordic country with an active Internet lottery market that imposes strict regulations on gambling operator li...
Using actual gambling behavior provides the opportunity to develop behavioral markers that operators can use to predict the development of gambling-related problems among their subscribers. Participants were 4,056 Internet gamblers who subscribed to the Internet betting service provider bwin.party. Half of this sample included multiple platform gam...
The "involvement effect" refers to the finding that controlling for gambling involvement often reduces or eliminates frequently observed game-specific associations with problem gambling. In other words, broader patterns of gambling behavior, particularly the number of types of games played over a defined period, contribute more to problem gambling...
Research indicates that specific types of gambling, such as electronic gaming machines (e.g., Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs), slot machines, virtual gaming machines), are associated with increased odds of experiencing gambling problems. Recent findings suggest that to advance our understanding of gambling-related problems scientists need to focus l...
As the worldwide popularity of Internet gambling increases, concerns about the potential for gambling-related harm also increase. This paper reports the results of a study examining actual Internet gambling behavior during 10 years of play. We examined the electronic gambling records of subscribers (N = 2,066) who triggered a responsible gaming ale...
A growing literature is addressing the nature of the relationships among gambling activity, gambling involvement, and gambling-related problems. This research suggests that among the general population, compared to playing any specific game, gambling involvement is a better predictor of gambling-related problems. To date, researchers have not exami...
Two studies conducted in Massachusetts and Nevada evaluated the efficacy of a self-help toolkit for problem gambling. Individuals concerned about gambling-related problems, in response to public notices and newspaper advertisements, volunteered for a randomized trial of the self-help toolkit, Your First Step to Change: Gambling. Participants were r...
Alcohol identity is the extent to which an individual perceives drinking alcohol to be a defining characteristic of his or her self-identity. Although alcohol identity might play an important role in risky college drinking practices, there is currently no easily administered, implicit measure of this concept. Therefore we developed a computerized i...
Gaming industry employees work in settings that create personal health risks. They also have direct contact with customers who might engage in multiple risky activities (e.g., drinking, smoking, and gambling) and might need to facilitate help-seeking by patrons or co-workers who experience problems. Consequently, the empirical examination of the pr...
Internet gambling is one of the fastest growing gambling-related industries (Christian Capital Advisers 2006). As the Internet gambling industry expands, many stakeholders have created, or are in the process of creating, gambling-related policy. Policy makers promulgating these regulations rely on professional opinions and/or conventional wisdoms r...
Cognitive measurement techniques, such as self-reports of behavior and reaction time measures, largely dominate the field of psychological research. It is uncommon for researchers to examine a phenomenon of interest by observing actual behavior within natural settings. To illustrate the existence of this methodological trend for gambling research,...
Gambling is an important public health concern. To better understand gambling behavior, we conducted a classroom-based survey that assessed the role of the theory of planned behavior (TPB; i.e., intentions, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and attitudes) in past-year gambling and gambling frequency among college students. Results fro...
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between types of gambling and disordered gambling, with and without controlling for gambling involvement (i.e. the number of types of games with which respondents were involved during the past 12 months).
We completed a secondary data analysis of the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey...
Internet gambling is a potential object of addictive behavior and consequently an important concern for public health. Epidemiological analyses of Internet gambling are necessary to determine the extent of public health threat. This paper reports the results of the first prospective epidemiological study of actual Internet poker gambling behavior....
The Internet is a controversial new medium for gambling. This study presents the first longitudinal analysis of online gambling participation and activity among a population of newly subscribed Internet bettors. Our analyses indicate that this population of gamblers adapted to the new subscription service rapidly, as evidenced by quickly developing...
Participation in Internet gambling is growing rapidly, as is concern about its possible effects on the public's health. This article reports the results of the first prospective longitudinal study of actual Internet casino gambling behaviour.
Data include 2 years of recorded Internet betting activity by a cohort of gamblers who subscribed to an Int...
The recent expansion of Internet gambling has stimulated debate, policy, and research on this relatively new phenomenon and its potential consequences. The current study focuses on bettors experiencing problems by sampling Internet gamblers who imposed limits on the amount they were allowed to deposit to a betting site. We analyzed the betting tran...
There have been claims that new gambling technology is hazardous to player health, and that technological interventions can alleviate gambling-related harm. In this paper, we systematically review the empirical research about the nexus between gambling and technology to evaluate the veracity of these claims. We use a public health perspective (i.e....
Driving under the influence (DUI) continues to be a serious public health concern in the United States. Research suggests that the substance use/abuse and psychiatric histories of repeat offenders might contribute to the persistence of this phenomenon. Because psychiatric histories could be important to recovery and likely differ substantially betw...
In an attempt to reduce harm related to gambling problems, an Internet sports betting service provider, bwin Interactive Entertainment, AG (bwin), imposes limits on the amount of money that users can deposit into their online gambling accounts. We examined the effects of these limits on gambling behavior.
We compared (1) gambling behavior of those...
Few studies have explicitly examined the stability (that is, the tendency for individuals to stay at one diagnostic level as opposed to moving to another improved or worsened level) or progression of disordered gambling; however, conventional wisdom holds that disordered gambling is intractable and escalating. The objective of this study was to exa...
Abstract
Background
In an attempt to reduce harm related to gambling problems, an Internet sports betting service provider, bwin Interactive Entertainment, AG ( bwin ), imposes limits on the amount of money that users can deposit into their online gambling accounts. We examined the effects of these limits on gambling behavior.
Methods
We compar...
Psychiatric comorbidity is common among patients in a variety of treatment settings, yet treatment providers seldom use standardized mental health assessments to identify these problems. Using standardized assessment tools gives practitioners and clients the opportunity to tailor treatment and aftercare efforts to a potential problem, and trains pr...
Many regions are considering expanding the various forms of gambling that are available to residents. The expansion of legalized gambling frequently is the topic of heated debate because of possible harmful ramifications on individuals' mental and physical health as well as the public's health in general. Conventional wisdom holds that the expansio...
Psychiatric comorbidity likely contributes to driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol among repeat offenders. This study presents one of the first descriptions of the prevalence and comorbidity of psychiatric disorders among repeat DUI offenders in treatment. Participants included all consenting eligible admissions (N = 729) to a 2-week inpati...
