Male undergraduates and online gambling in Nigerian Private Universities

Abstract

Gambling often times moves from a fun, safe diversion to an unsafe obsession leading to serious consequences. This study examined the psychosocial predictors of online gambling using a three–model hierarchical multiple regression analyses on a convenient sample of 300 male undergraduates from private universities in Nigeria. The mean age of the participants ranged between 16 – 25 (M = 21.5, SD = 2.5). Results of the initial model of the analysis revealed that ethnicity, religious affiliation and age had significant joint prediction on online gambling with only ethnicity having significant independent prediction. The inclusion of social isolation in the next model had non- meaningful impact on online gambling while the addition of self-efficacy in the final model of the analyses contributed meaningfully to the effect of online gambling with 14% variance which accounted for online gambling among all the variables. Improvement on self-efficacy, tailoring self-efficacy to harmless, non-obsessive habits and behaviors were recommended for upcoming young adults in the study.

Keywords: Online Gambling, Self-Efficacy, Social Isolation, Males, Private Universities.