This comparative project was carried out between the Lifestyle and Addiction Research Laboratory at Concordia University and the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OFDT).
In the late 2000s, health authorities in Quebec and France independently took the decision to quantify the extent of gambling in the general population. On both sides of the Atlantic, the research teams responsible for two projects coordinated their efforts to undertake a comparison of the data. This project is the result of that collaboration. On the one hand, it estimates the prevalence of gambling in the adult population aged between 18 and 75 years in France and Quebec, and on the other hand, presents a comparative picture of gambling practices of serious gamblers, that is, players who show a strong involvement in the game either by the frequency of participation or by their spending on the game.
The survey of gambling habits of Quebecers (ENHJEU-Québec, 2009) was conducted between June 8 and August 27, 2009 by administering computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI) to a sample of 11 888 respondents, aged 18 years and older, and representative of the adult population of Quebec. In France, the gambling component was integrated into the 2010 Health Barometer survey, with the collaboration of the National Institute for Prevention and Health Education and the OFDT. Data collection took place between 22 October 2009 and 3 July 2010, with CATI conducted with 27,653 people aged between 15 and 85 years. For comparability purposes, the population used for the comparison in this report is that of adults aged 18 to 75 years.
