Pathological gambling among high school students.

Eight hundred and ninety-two high school students from four New Jersey high schools were given a questionnaire concerning their gambling behavior. Ninety-one percent of the students had gambled at least once in their lifetime, 86% gambled in the last year and 32% gambled at least once a week. Using an index which was validated in other research (Lesieur, Blume, & Zoppa, 1986) 5.7% of the students showed clear signs of pathological gambling. The pathological gambling signs index was found to be correlated with sex, parental gambling problems, grade average, and the extent of gambling by the student.