Development of an assessment tool to evaluate the risk potential of different gambling types

Based on different characteristics of gambling types, this study aimed to develop an assessment tool to evaluate the risk potential of available and planned gambling types in German-speaking countries. In the first module, 26 experts were interviewed over the course of a Delphi study, and an analysis of those results led to the selection of relevant characteristics and scaling values. Building on the first module, the second module consisted of standardized data collection of nonproblem, problem and pathological gamblers (characteristics: n = 363; scales: n = 356), which served as an empirical validation. Ten characteristics were identified with different weights and differentiated scaling values to evaluate the risk potential, and a psychometric validation indicated that the assessment tool was reliable (α = 0.91; r ik = 0.50; r it = 0.33–0.80). The correlation measures from data of epidemiological studies (R 2 = 0.84) and a treatment survey (p < 0.001) demonstrated that the assessment tool was valid. This assessment tool, which was verified by psychometric validation, can serve the legislation and jurisdiction, the gaming industry and consumers as a future basis for risk evaluation of gambling types.