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In 2010 France enacted a law to regulate supply and consumption of online gambling. Its primary aim was to protect citizens from gambling-related harm. This study aims to assess differences in gambling patterns and related harm between online gamblers who use licensed versus unlicensed sites. Participants (N = 3860) completed a self-administered online survey on gambling practices. Pairwise logistic regressions examined the association between the legal statuses of gambling sites people patronized and demographic variables and gambling types. Multivariate logistic regression models explored associations between gambling patterns and related problems according to the legal status of sites people have gambled on. Overall, 53.7 % of online gamblers report gambling exclusively on licensed sites. Those who bet on regulated activities on unlicensed sites, versus licensed sites, are more likely to be female, younger, less educated, inactive in the labor market and are more likely to perceive their financial situation to be difficult. Gambling on unlicensed sites is associated with more intense gambling patterns and more gambling-related problems compared to licensed sites. Findings demonstrate that gambling activities carried out on state licensed sites are associated with less overall harm to gamblers. Implications of these findings on future policy are discussed and prospective research directions are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To investigate the effects of demographic factors and drinking location on contextual drinking in a comparison of US and Canadian adults., Design: Multi-level techniques were used to model the two-level hierarchical structure of drinking contexts (level 1) nested within individuals (level 2)., Participants: Two random samples of current drinkers aged 18 years or older were drawn from Canada's Alcohol and Other Drugs Survey (CADS, 1994) and the 1995 National Alcohol Survey (NAS 9). The US sample included 2304 respondents (level 2) who reported a total of 5956 drinking contexts (level 1); in Canada, 5394 respondents reported 13 235 drinking contexts., Measurements: Participants reported usual alcohol intake in up to four drinking locations. Demographic data included age, gender, education level, income and marital status., Findings: Significant variation in usual alcohol intake was observed between drinking locations in both the US and Canada. The full multi-level models explained 25% of the variance at the contextual level and 25% and 22% at the individual level in the US and Canada. Contextual drinking was determined by a complex relationship between demographic characteristics and drinking locations. Some interactions between locations and demographic variables were observed for both the US and Canada, whereas others were observed only in the US sample., Conclusions: There is a need, from a population health perspective, for a multi-level approach in epidemiology and prevention that considers drinking setting as a relevant level for analysis and intervention.