SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF UPTAKE OF GAMBLING BEHAVIOUR AMONG UNDERGRADUATES OF NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Abstract

Gambling involves voluntary participation in activities where individuals wager money or valuables on uncertain outcomes, often driven by the thrill of anticipation and the possibility of financial gain. In recent times, the issue of gambling among students has reached worrisome dimensions and generated a lot of attention among parents, communities, scholars, school authorities, government, and nongovernmental organizations among others. This review paper examined social determinants of gambling behavior among undergraduates in Nigeria. It adopted ipso facto study design, relying only on secondary sources which were thematically content analyzed. There was rich evidence in literature that gambling behavior among undergraduates was a product of multiple social factors multiple forces that cut across peer influence, family background, socio-economic status, cultural norms, accessibility to gambling facilities, and psychological factors such as stress, coping mechanisms, and personality traits, among others. There were also multiple levels of consequences of gambling across academic, social, economic, health and other frontiers that were reported in literature for holistic attention to the menace. To curtail gambling dispositions of undergraduates in Nigeria, the need for adequate parenting and exemplary conduct by parents was emphasized in other to ward off attractions to gambling on the part of youths. Also, the study canvassed for intensive public enlightenment and awake up call to students, communities, universities, non-governmental organizations and the National Orientation Agency to team up to curb gambling among undergraduates.