Do people gamble more in good times? Evidence from 27 European countries

We provide evidence of a positive relationship between the intensity of gambling and economic growth in 27 European countries for 2005–2013. Our proxy for gambling is represented by government revenues from taxes on lotteries, betting and gambling. This variable is linked to GDP growth in a panel regression framework and pooled OLS. However, when we split our sample to account for the heterogeneity among European countries, we found that the positive ‘gambling – GDP growth’ relationship is driven extensively by the Central and Eastern European countries. It appears that people in these countries tend to gamble more when the economy is expanding.