Theories have conceptualized pathological gambling as an attempt to cope with emotional states. However, there is a lack of research about emotion dysregulation in this population. In a similar way, few is known about the nature of emotion regulation strategies used by pathological gamblers. Furthermore, it is not clear if pathological gamblers have difficulties to regulate negative emotions (as sadness) or positive ones (as excitement).

We sought to explore the associations among pathological gambling, emotion dysregulation and different types of emotion regulation strategies, comparing a clinical sample with community participants.

To highlight similarities and differences in emotion dysregulation between pathological gamblers and healthy participants.

A sample of pathological gamblers and a sample of healthy men, were administered the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), Difficulties in Emotion regulation Scale-Positive (DERS-P), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) and the Ways of Savoring Checklist (WOSC).

As expected, both levels of emotion dysregulation and suppression were significantly higher in the clinical sample while levels of savoring and reappraisal were significantly higher in the community sample.

Such results confirm the theorization of pathological gambling as a dysfunctional response to emotional states and underline the role of positive emotions. Specifically, pathological gamblers may be prone to suppress negative emotions instead to engage in functional strategies as reappraisal. Gamblers also fail to regulate positive emotions showing a poor capacity of savoring positive moments.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.