This report details the results of a survey of people’s participation in and attitudes towards gambling conducted in January-February 1995. A randomly selected sample of 1,200 people aged 15 and over in private households were interviewed face-to-face. The questionnaire was based closely on surveys carried out in 1985 and 1990.
Methodology
A randomly selected sample of 1,200 people aged 15 and over in private households was used. The field work was carried out between 25 January and 5 February 1995, and the questionnaires were administered using face-to-face interviews. Showcards were used for most of the questions in case the topic was considered sensitive by interviewees. A copy of the questionnaire is included in Appendix 1.
The term ‘gaming’ rather than gambling was used throughout, as some people may not consider some of the activities surveyed, such as buying lottery tickets, to be gambling. ‘Gaming’ was used in the 1985 and 1990 surveys and no problems were encountered with this. A brief explanation of the term ‘gaming’ was used in the introduction to the questionnaire.
Initial sieve questions were asked to find out what gambling activities, if any, the respondent had taken part in during the last year. Individual sections then dealt in more detail with those activities which are of particular interest to the Department, these being Lotto, Instant Kiwi, Daily Keno, raffles and other lotteries, housie, betting on horse and dog races, gaming machines, casinos, and 0900 telephone games. Only people who had taken part in these activities in the past year were asked about them.
The questionnaire concluded with a section asking about people's attitudes towards different aspects of gaming and its regulation. In addition, respondents were asked about their attitudes towards the legalisation of new gambling activities, including a series of questions on sports betting. This section was answered by everyone.
The results were reweighted by age, gender and household size. Care should be taken when interpreting percentages which are not based on the total sample, for example when examining participants in a particular gaming activity. In some of these cases cell sizes of demographic groups are less than 100. Results were cross-tabulated by demographic factors. These were: gender, age, ethnicity, geographical location, personal and household income, occupation and education level. In addition, results were also cross-tabulated by the number of gaming activities respondents had participated in, the amount spent on activities, and whether they were involved in sports or sports administration.
The sampling error for a sample of 1,200 is 2.8% at the 95% confidence level.