Social Exposure to Gambling and Gambling Involvement Among 4176 Italian Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study

Gambling behaviors can be viewed as the product of individual characteristics and the social environment. We analyzed cross-sectional data from 4176 Italian students aged 14–17 years using modified Poisson GEE models accounting for school-level clustering to investigate associations of sociodemographic factors and reported exposure to habitual (daily/almost daily) gambling across different social circles with gambling involvement. Overall, 53.7% of participants reported lifetime gambling experience; among them, 20.1% reported regular (≥ 1 time/month) gambling. Lifetime and regular gambling showed distinct sociodemographic patterns across age, sex, nationality, and school type. Among those with lifetime gambling experience, after mutual adjustment across social circles, knowing habitual gamblers among close relatives, friends, or acquaintances was independently associated with regular gambling, with the strongest association observed for friends (Adjusted Prevalence Ratio: 1.90, 95% CI 1.47–2.45). Regular gambling also increased with the number of social circles in which participants knew someone who gambled habitually ( p for trend < 0.001), although estimates plateaued between three and four circles. These findings suggest that adolescent gambling tends to cluster within interpersonal networks and support prevention strategies that consider both sociodemographic characteristics and the broader relational context.