Gambling among LGBTQIA2S+populations: a scoping review

Gambling disorder (GD) is a major public health issue around the world. Even though prior studies have shown that the prevalence of problem gambling varies depending on certain sociodemographic factors, we know very little about gambling and sexual and gender minorities (i.e. LGBTQIA2S + populations). The objective of this scoping review was to summarize the available literature on gambling among LGBTQIA2S + populations and to underline future avenues of research. We conducted an electronic search using keywords related to gambling and sexual and gender minorities in 10 databases: Academic Search Complete, CINAHL Plus with Full Text, Education Source, ERIC, MEDLINE with Full Text, APA Psyc Articles, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, APA Psych Info, Social Work Abstracts, and SocINDEX. Studies eligible for this review had to meet the following criteria: discuss gambling and LGBTQIA2S + populations as the primary theme and be published in English in a peer-reviewed journal. After selecting the articles, the information was collated, analyzed, summarized, and reported using narrative synthesis. The search yielded 629 articles, and 476 remained following the removal of duplicates. Upon title and abstract review, 12 articles were retained for full-text reading, after which 6 articles were included in this review. We analyzed the data and revealed conflicting results on the associations between gambling and LGBTQIA2S + populations. Therefore, further research is needed on this population, which is known to be at risk for addictions.