Nor were there differences in gambling behaviors, such as money invested, frequency of gambling, or severity of the disorder.
Furthermore, gender differences in gambling have been described in aspects of incidence (males are at an increased risk), age of onset (earlier age of onset in males), course (females have quicker progression to pathological gambling), gambling preferences and comorbidity with alcohol abuse (more common in men) (Johansson et al., 2009; Martins et al., 2008; Tavares et al., 2001).
No other difference in sociodemographics, gambling habits or psychiatric comorbidities was found between participants who withdrew and those who were still in the follow-up, indicating that the cohort is consistent over time.
Logit regression analysis showed that across age groups, the difference in risk between gambles (see Eq. (3)) affected choice.
Logit regression analysis showed that in both conditions, across participants as well as within each age group, the difference in EV between gambles affected choice.
However, participant age modulated the extent to which the difference in EV between gambles affected choice (interaction between age and dEV coefficient, dEV × age > 0, p < 0.001; Table 1b), such that the impact of the difference in EV between gambles on choice behaviour increased with increasing age.
A significant quadratic interaction between age and dSD indicated that age influenced the extent to which the difference in risk between gambles affected choice (coefficient dSD × age > 0, p = 0.022; Table 1b).
The difference in risk between gambles also predicted choice in each of the three younger groups (risk coefficient dSD > 0, p = 0.004 for child group, and p < 0.001 for YA and MA groups), but not in the Adult group alone (p > 0.7).
We anticipated group differences in experimental gamble frequency following certain outcomes, with CD participants less dissuaded by losses in previous trials due to insensitivity to punishment cues.
