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Some Neuropsychological Profiles and Personality Traits of Undergraduate Regular Online Football Gamblers (a New Online Gambling Game) in Nigeria

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Abstract

Online football (soccer) gambling is among the relatively new sports betting games in Nigeria that use internet connections. Like other gambling games, some psychological profiles either propel or sustain the behavior. We tested some neuropsychological profiles and personality traits that distinguish the regular online football gamblers from non-gamblers. Using a between group design, we tested 140 (60: online football gamblers; 80: non-gamblers) university undergraduate students between the ages of 18–26 years on specific neuropsychological domains (i.e., attention, inhibition and executive function) and personality traits. The neuropsychological tasks used were the Series Addition Task (a modified version of Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task), Stroop–Word Color Test and Trail Making Test (TMT), Parts A and B. The personality traits were assessed using the Big Five Personality Inventory. The findings showed significant differences between the online football gamblers and non-gamblers, reflecting greater agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience for the football gamblers. However, on the attention tasks, the non-gamblers made significantly fewer errors on forward addition and backward subtraction tasks, but did take more time to complete the backward counting task as compared to gamblers. On the other hand, online football gamblers took significantly less time to complete the Stroop congruence task and made significantly fewer errors on Stroop incongruence task. Similarly, the online football gamblers took less time to complete the TMT B and made fewer errors on TMT A. University undergraduate regular online football gamblers, as compared to non-gamblers, demonstrate stronger personality traits of ambition and gregariousness, and perform better on tasks of executive function, though they had more difficulty on tasks of divided and sustained attention.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Madonna University, Okija Campus, Okija, Nigeria

    Valentine Ucheagwu

  2. Department of Psychology, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam, Nigeria

    Valentine Ucheagwu

  3. Department of Clinical Psychology, Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria

    Paul Okoli

  4. Department of Psychology, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria

    Rita Ugokwe-Ossai

Authors
  1. Valentine Ucheagwu
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  2. Paul Okoli
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  3. Rita Ugokwe-Ossai
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Correspondence to Valentine Ucheagwu.

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All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Madonna University Okija Campus and in line with the Helsinki declaration on human participants and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Ucheagwu, V., Okoli, P. & Ugokwe-Ossai, R. Some Neuropsychological Profiles and Personality Traits of Undergraduate Regular Online Football Gamblers (a New Online Gambling Game) in Nigeria. J Gambl Stud 35, 171–180 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-018-9812-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-018-9812-9

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