Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI) Studies

In 1999, the Manitoba Gaming Control Commission (MGCC) partnered with a national committee, now called the Canadian Consortium for Gambling Research (CCGR), to oversee the development of the CPGI, a measure of problem gambling prevalence in the general adult population. Since its launch in 2001, the CPGI has become internationally recognized as a robust measure of gambling behaviour and has been used in all ten Canadian provinces and in Australia, Great Britain, Iceland and Norway.

In 2006 and 2007, the MGCC again joined the CCGR to commission two reviews of the CPGI. Respectively, these reviews proposed several research initiatives to refine the instrument and prioritized these initiatives. The CCGR is now funding this series of prioritized research initiatives to ensure the CPGI remains the instrument of choice for researchers measuring problem gambling among adults. A panel of experts in instrument design is guiding the CPGI refinement initiatives, including a current project to develop new items to assess gambling-related harm more broadly.

The first refinement initiative, an analysis of the cut-off points for gambling risk levels, was completed in November 2010 and the final report is available by clicking on the link below. The project used advanced statistical techniques to analyze the performance of the CPGI’s Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) scoring system in three large population datasets, and to examine the viability of alternative scoring systems. Results show that two of the PGSI’s subtypes – the non-problem and problem gambling subtypes – represent distinct and well-defined groups, but that the original classification of low-risk and moderate-risk subtypes is less fitting. As a result, the PGSI scoring cut-off rules have been modified for the low-risk and moderate-risk subtypes, and the CCGR encourages researchers to report all four subtypes separately, as they represent meaningfully different groups of gamblers. 

Please visit the CCGR website for more information about the CPGI projects and for all reports in English and French.

Links:

• Canadian Consortium for Gambling Research:
• Improving the Psychometric Properties of the Problem Gambling Severity Index (2010)