Cyprus to study gambling for the first time

The National Betting Authority announced it will conduct a quantitative survey to assess Cypriot gamblers’ habits.

Gambling habits need a study by the authorities in order to determine if there’s an unhealthy offering and a need to apply protective policies. However, Cyprus hasn’t done it yet but is set to organise the first quantitative survey in the country to assess local gambler’s behaviour.

The survey was announced by the National Betting Authority (NBA) and will record gambling habits (frequency of participation, behaviour, characteristics) of people engaging the activity in order to determine protective policies to prevent gambling problems.

Ioanna Fiakou, NBA Chairwoman, explained that conducting surveys and studies is within its mandate and assured the lack of such annalysis in Cyprus justifies the need for this one, which will start this Wednesday.

“The authority has commissioned Insights Market Research (IMR) Ltd to conduct a quantitative survey by interviewing 3k individuals, in order to study and investigate the Cypriot public’s extent of participation in games of chance,” said Ms Fiakou and added: “The survey’s goals focus on recording the extent of participation in gambling activities, identifying the extent of problematic participation among the public, studying gamblers’ social and demographic traits, the frequency with which they engage in gambling, and their budgeted and real spending in gambling.”

The study will be conducted among 3k randomly selected individuals and will include groups of ages 13 to 17, 18-34, 35-49, 50-64 and 65-older. The NBA explained that it will also try to identify how well known is the difference between legal and illegal gambling, while attempting to categorise gambling profiles (social, pathological, addicts, etc).