“In the population as a whole, there are 55.6% of players of any type of money game”, with Euromillions being the most played, according to the final report of the V National Survey on the Consumption of Psychoactive Substances in the General Population, Portugal 2022, released by the Institute for Addictive Behaviours and Addictions (ICAD).

Almost half of the population (45.6%) plays Euromillions, followed by Scratch cards (36.8%), Totobola/Totoloto (12.2%), Lottery (11.3%), and Placard (8. 8%), reveals the report, which was based on interviews carried out between September 2021 and November 2022 with people between 15 and 74 years of age.

The study also indicates that men play more than women (62.7% vs 49%), with the exception of Scratch cards, which are more requested by women.

The researchers carried out a test to understand gambling addiction and concluded that 53.7% of the population did not have addiction problems with games of chance, but 1.3% of the population showed some signs and 0.5% had even the “probability of being pathological gamblers”.

The prevalence of players with some problems rose from 0.3% in 2012 to 1.2% in 2017, now remaining stable in this latest report. The prevalence of pathological gambling also rose from 0.3% in 2012 to 0.6% in 2017, having now dropped slightly to 0.5%.

The probability of being a pathological gambler is higher among male players and among young people between the ages of 25 and 34, according to the study released today.