title: How do gamblers start gambling: identifying behavioural markers for high-risk internet gambling.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The goal of this study is to identify betting patterns displayed during the first month of actual Internet gambling on a betting site that can serve as behavioural markers to predict the development of gambling-related problems.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using longitudinal data, k-means clustering analysis identified a small subgroup of high-risk gamblers.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Seventy-three percent of the members of this subgroup eventually closed their account due to gambling-related problems. The characteristics of this high-risk subgroup were as follows: (i) frequent and (ii) intensive betting combined with (iii) high variability across wager amount and (iv) an increasing wager size during the first month of betting.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This analysis provides important information that can help to identify potentially problematic gamblers during the early stages of gambling-related problems. Public health workers can use these results to develop early interventions that target high-risk Internet gamblers for prevention efforts. However, one study limitation is that the results distinguish only a small proportion of the total sample; therefore, additional research will be necessary to identify markers that can classify larger segments of high-risk gamblers.
authors.affiliation: Division on Addictions, Cambridge Health Alliance, Cambridge, MA 02155, USA. jbraverman@challiance.org
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Braverman
authors.forename: Howard J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Shaffer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000523:psychology*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D055815:Young Adult