The present study addresses the empirical basis for alerting health professionals to potential risk factors for excessive gambling. On the basis of international and Swiss literature on gambling, an explanatory model for the development of gambling problems is developed.

This work is based on the hypothesis that the prediction rule for excessive gambling, based on a sample of the general population and for different types of frequent gambling preferences, differs from the prediction rule for disordered gambling in patients, seeking psychiatric treatment. The goal of this study is, therefore, to contribute to an early identification of disordered gambling behaviour in the general population, as well as in the target group of patients seeking psychiatric treatment.

Various sources of information were analysed separately, in order to develop and test a prediction rule for excessive gambling, namely the 2002 Swiss Health Survey, which is a survey of the general population, involving 19'706 participants, as well as the data of psychiatric patients of Lausanne/Geneva, recruited consecutively from 1996 to 2004 at the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Lausanne. This patient population comprised a total of 886 patients. Further data from the Centre for Excessive Gambling are presented, covering 105 patients.

Results show that indicators of depressive behaviour as well as smoking are good candidates for the early identification of gambling problems. On the basis of these data it is safe to assume that signs of depressive behaviour should encourage health professionals to enquire about gambling problems.