IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/94735.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Loves to Gamble? Socio-Economic Factors Determining Gambling Behaviour in Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Giebeler, Constanze
  • Rebeggiani, Luca

Abstract

The interest among academics and policy makers in the economics of Gambling has risen substantially. Changes in gambling regulation, the relevance of gambling generated (tax) revenues and the usefulness to other fields of economics, increased the interest in understanding gambling demand. The focus of this paper is to provide one of the first comprehensive analyses of gambling demand in Germany, by studying the socio-demographic and socio-economic factors which influence gambling expenditures using one of the largest data sets available, the official income and consumption survey (Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe). Applying models suitable for censored data, we identify the factors influencing gambling demand. Some findings are in line with the previous literature on gambling demand, others are quite surprising. They show that female household heads spend less on gambling than their male counterparts. The number of dependants in the household influences gambling behaviour negatively, while married couples have higher expenditures than single person households. We find that while gambling expenditures increase with the age of the household head, they do so at a diminishing rate. Income is also a strong determinant of gambling expenditure. Gambling expenditures rise with the household's income. We find no evidence that expenditures increase regressively. Furthermore, the education and occupation of the Household head influences gambling behaviour. A higher education has a negative effect on the propensity to gamble. We also find that households with privately employed household heads tend to spend more on gambling than those with unemployed or self-employed household heads. On the other hand, a household head who is a civil servant or retired has a positive effect. In contrast to previous literature, we find a negative effect of urbanity on household gambling expenditure. We discuss these and other results in the context of the theory of risk taking preferences and also with a focus on gambling regulation and taxation.

Suggested Citation

  • Giebeler, Constanze & Rebeggiani, Luca, 2019. "Who Loves to Gamble? Socio-Economic Factors Determining Gambling Behaviour in Germany," MPRA Paper 94735, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:94735
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/94735/1/MPRA_paper_94735.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luca Rebeggiani & Markus Breuer, 2017. "Neue Ordnung, neues Glück? [New Rules, New Luck? Regulatory and Fiscal Aspects of the German Sports Betting Market]," Wirtschaftsdienst, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 97(9), pages 655-663, September.
    2. Tim Pawlowski & Christoph Breuer, 2012. "Expenditure elasticities of the demand for leisure services," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(26), pages 3461-3477, September.
    3. David Aristei & Luca Pieroni, 2008. "A double-hurdle approach to modelling tobacco consumption in Italy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(19), pages 2463-2476.
    4. Mary O. Borg & Paul M. Mason & Stephen I. Shapiro, 1991. "The Incidence of Taxes on Casino Gambling: Exploiting the Tired and Poor," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 323-333, July.
    5. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde & Jürgen Schupp & Gert G. Wagner, 2011. "Individual Risk Attitudes: Measurement, Determinants, And Behavioral Consequences," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 522-550, June.
    6. Andrew Worthington & Kerry Brown & Mary Crawford & David Pickernell, 2007. "Gambling participation in Australia: findings from the national Household Expenditure Survey," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 209-221, June.
    7. Kumar, Alok & Page, Jeremy K. & Spalt, Oliver G., 2011. "Religious beliefs, gambling attitudes, and financial market outcomes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(3), pages 671-708.
    8. Powell, James L., 1984. "Least absolute deviations estimation for the censored regression model," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 303-325, July.
    9. Arabmazar, Abbas & Schmidt, Peter, 1981. "Further evidence on the robustness of the Tobit estimator to heteroskedasticity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 253-258, November.
    10. Luca Gandullia & Lucia Leporatti, 2018. "The demand for gambling in Italian regions and its distributional consequences," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(4), pages 1203-1225, November.
    11. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 1109, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    12. Scott, Frank & Garen, John, 1994. "Probability of purchase, amount of purchase, and the demographic incidence of the lottery tax," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 121-143, May.
    13. Powell, James L., 1986. "Censored regression quantiles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 143-155, June.
    14. Andrew C. Worthington & Kerry Brown & Mary Crawford & David Pickernell, 2003. "Socioeconomic And Demographic Determinants Of Household Gambling In Australia," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 156, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology.
    15. Rebeggiani, Luca, 2012. "Regulierung des deutschen Sportwettenmarktes in komparativer Perspektive: Glücksspielgesetze in der Europäischen Union," Edition HWWI: Chapters, in: Büch, Martin-Peter & Maennig, Wolfgang & Schulke, Hans-Jürgen (ed.), Sport und Sportgroßveranstaltungen in Europa - zwischen Zentralstaat und Regionen, volume 4, pages 51-78, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI).
    16. John Laitner, 1999. "Means Tested Public Assistance and the Demand for State Lottery Tickets," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(1), pages 273-290, January.
    17. Borg, Mary O. & Mason, Paul M., 1988. "The Budgetary Incidence of a Lottery to Support Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 41(1), pages 75-85, March.
    18. Martin Young & Francis Markham & Bruce Doran, 2012. "Too close to home? The relationships between residential distance to venue and gambling outcomes," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 257-273, February.
    19. John Storer & Max Abbott & Judith Stubbs, 2009. "Access or adaptation? A meta-analysis of surveys of problem gambling prevalence in Australia and New Zealand with respect to concentration of electronic gaming machines," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 225-244, December.
    20. Daryl Pregibon, 1980. "Goodness of Link Tests for Generalized Linear Models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 29(1), pages 15-24, March.
    21. William Rogers, 1993. "Quantile regression standard errors," Stata Technical Bulletin, StataCorp LP, vol. 2(9).
    22. John Sawkins & Valerie Dickie, 2002. "National Lottery participation and expenditure: preliminary results using a two stage modelling approach," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(12), pages 769-773.
    23. Ann Hansen, 1995. "The Tax Incidence of the Colorado State Lottery Instant Game," Public Finance Review, , vol. 23(3), pages 385-398, July.
    24. repec:cup:judgdm:v:1:y:2006:i::p:48-63 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Borg, Mary O. & Mason, Paul M., 1988. "The Budgetary Incidence of a Lottery to Support Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 41(1), pages 75-85, March.
    26. Arabmazar, Abbas & Schmidt, Peter, 1982. "An Investigation of the Robustness of the Tobit Estimator to Non-Normality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(4), pages 1055-1063, July.
    27. Cragg, John G, 1971. "Some Statistical Models for Limited Dependent Variables with Application to the Demand for Durable Goods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 39(5), pages 829-844, September.
    28. Doss, Cheryl R., 1996. "Testing among models of intrahousehold resource allocation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(10), pages 1597-1609, October.
    29. Charles T. Clotfelter & Philip J. Cook, 1989. "The Demand for Lottery Products," NBER Working Papers 2928, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. Julie Smith, 2000. "Gambling Taxation: Public Equity in the Gambling Business," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 33(2), pages 120-144, June.
    31. Frank Crowley & John Eakins & Declan Jordan, 2012. "Participation,Expenditure and Regressivity in the Irish Lottery:Evidence from Irish Household Budget Survey 2004/2005," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 43(2), pages 199-225.
    32. Fu, Shengfei & Florkowski, Wojciech, 2016. "Polish Household Consumption of Tobacco and Alcohol: A Censored System," 2016 Annual Meeting, February 6-9, 2016, San Antonio, Texas 229795, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    33. Charles T. Clotfelter & Philip J. Cook, 1987. "Implicit Taxation in Lottery Finance," NBER Working Papers 2246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    34. Li, Quan & Reuveny, Rafael, 2003. "Economic Globalization and Democracy: An Empirical Analysis," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(1), pages 29-54, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giuliano Resce & Raffaele Lagravinese & Elisa Benedetti & Sabrina Molinaro, 2019. "Income-related inequality in gambling: evidence from Italy," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 1107-1131, December.
    2. Levi Pérez & Brad R. Humphreys, 2011. "The Income Elasticity of Lottery: New Evidence from Micro Data," Public Finance Review, , vol. 39(4), pages 551-570, July.
    3. Daniel Pollmann & Thomas Dohmen & Franz Palm, 2020. "Dispersion estimation; Earnings risk; Censoring; Quantile regression; Occupational choice; Sorting; Risk preferences; SOEP; IABS," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 028, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    4. Kent Grote & Victor Matheson, 2011. "The Economics of Lotteries: A Survey of the Literature," Working Papers 1109, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.
    5. Daniel Pollmann & Thomas Dohmen & Franz Palm, 2020. "Robust Estimation of Wage Dispersion with Censored Data: An Application to Occupational Earnings Risk and Risk Attitudes," De Economist, Springer, vol. 168(4), pages 519-540, December.
    6. Frank Crowley & John Eakins & Declan Jordan, 2012. "Participation,Expenditure and Regressivity in the Irish Lottery:Evidence from Irish Household Budget Survey 2004/2005," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 43(2), pages 199-225.
    7. Tim Friehe & Mario Mechtel, 2017. "Gambling to leapfrog in status?," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 1291-1319, December.
    8. Cho-Min Lin & Kung-Cheng Lin, 2007. "The demand for lottery expenditure in Taiwan: a quantile regression approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(42), pages 1-11.
    9. Andrew C. Worthington, 2001. "Implicit Finance in Gambling Expenditures: Australian Evidence on Socioeconomic and Demographic Tax Incidence," Public Finance Review, , vol. 29(4), pages 326-342, July.
    10. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2007:i:42:p:1-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Harriet A. Stranahan & Mary O. Borg, 1998. "Separating the Decisions of Lottery Expenditures and Participation: a Truncated Tobit Approach," Public Finance Review, , vol. 26(2), pages 99-117, March.
    12. Ethan Grumstrup & Mark W. Nichols, 2021. "Is video gambling terminal placement and spending in Illinois correlated with neighborhood characteristics?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 67(2), pages 273-298, October.
    13. Gorton, Matthew & Sauer, Johannes & Peshevski, Mile & Bosev, Dane & Shekerinov, Darko & Quarrie, Steve, 2009. "Water Communities in the Republic of Macedonia: An Empirical Analysis of Membership Satisfaction and Payment Behavior," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 1951-1963, December.
    14. James Rude & Yves Surry & Robert Kron, 2014. "A generalized double-hurdle model of Swedish gambling expenditures," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(34), pages 4151-4163, December.
    15. Stranahan, Harriet & Borg, Mary O., 1998. "Horizontal Equity Implications of the Lottery Tax," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 51(1), pages 71-82, March.
    16. Kohei Enami & John Mullahy, 2009. "Tobit at fifty: a brief history of Tobin's remarkable estimator, of related empirical methods, and of limited dependent variable econometrics in health economics," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(6), pages 619-628, June.
    17. Kohei Enami & John Mullahy, 2008. "Tobit at Fifty: A Brief History of Tobin's Remarkable Estimator, of Related Empirical Methods, and of Limited Dependent Variable Econometrics in Health Economics," NBER Working Papers 14512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Gustavsen, Geir Waehler, 2005. "Public Policies and the Demand for Carbonated Soft Drinks: A Censored Quantile Regression Approach," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24737, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    19. Humphreys, Brad & Perez, Levi, 2011. "Lottery Participants and Revenues: An International Survey of Economic Research on Lotteries," Working Papers 2011-17, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    20. John Eakins, 2016. "Household gambling expenditures and the Irish recession," International Gambling Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(2), pages 211-230, August.
    21. Andrew Worthington & Kerry Brown & Mary Crawford & David Pickernell, 2007. "Gambling participation in Australia: findings from the national Household Expenditure Survey," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 209-221, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gambling; Consumer Demand; Risk and Uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D81 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:94735. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.