Russian attitudes toward gambling

The restructuring of Russian society has led to a marked increase in opportunities to gamble. To help understand Russian attitudes toward gambling, and various facets of these attitudes, the Gambling Attitude Scales (GAS) were adapted into Russian. Participants from St. Petersburg State University (n = 171) were given the Russian version of the GAS, which measures general attitudes toward gambling and specific attitudes toward the casino, the lottery, and horse races. The scales showed adequate internal consistency, with alpha coefficients ranging from 0.77 to 0.89. Although there were no differences among the scale means, suggesting similarity in valence toward these activities, Russian women held more positive attitudes than men toward the lottery. Positive attitudes toward gambling were found to be related to individual differences in risk taking, liberalism, and previous gambling experience.