That’s what you get for waking up in Vegas: Fatigue and alcohol consumption are associated with the duration of gambling sessions

Fatigue and intoxication can impair people’s thinking, including their decision-making and assessments of risk. However, little research has specifically examined whether links exist between episodes of gambling, sleep restriction and alcohol consumption. Gambling often occurs in environments where alcohol is served and opening hours are long, making potential interactions between intoxication, fatigue and gambling relevant for exploration from a harm reduction standpoint. The current study tracked the gambling, alcohol consumption and sleep patterns of an online sample of regular gamblers and drinkers (N = 132, 28% female) for six days using online diaries. Results confirm that the three behaviours are related at the individual level; with significant between-subjects correlations between gambling and sleep (r = –.20), gambling and alcohol consumption (r = .22), and sleep and alcohol consumption (r = –.19). However, no strong or reliable within-subjects (day by day) relationships were found. That is, although more intense gamblers slept less and drank more, they were no more likely to drink relatively more or sleep relatively less, on the same days which they gambled. We also observed a negative auto-correlation effect for each behaviour: engaging in more of one behaviour on one day is associated with a reduction of the same behaviour the following day. This result suggests that individual-level traits, rather than contextual or environmental effects, are responsible for observed co-morbidities between these health-related behaviours. Further, that gambling consumption, like alcohol and sleep, is subject to satiation and refractory effects. © 2019, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. All rights reserved.