We investigate the extent to which gambling problems at age 20 are linked to parental gambling behaviour during childhood, employing data from a longitudinal study (ALSPAC) which has followed parents and children from Avon, England since pregnancy. 1058 children completed a problem gambling screen at age 20. When those children had been age 6, each of their parents was asked about their own gambling. We used regression to estimate the effect of parental gambling behaviour at child age 6 on the child’s problem gambling risk at age 20. Parental gambling participation at child age 6 was not a predictor of offspring problem gambling; but problem gambling by parents was a predictor of offspring problem gambling. However, this latter result was found only cross-gender (fathers’ behaviour influencing daughters and mothers’ behaviour influencing sons). This pattern was robust to models including measures of parental education and variables capturing family attitudes to health choices and the degree of domestic harmony. The sample illustrates high problem gambling prevalence amongst young adults. Although there is transmission of ‘problem gambling’ between generations, it appears to happen only cross-gender. This limits the importance of parental problem gambling as a source of the high prevalence because relatively few mothers exhibit problem gambling and risks to daughters from fathers are in the context of initially low baseline risks. Preventative policies might therefore be more appropriately targeted at young adults rather than rely on influencing parental gambling behaviour earlier in the child’s life.

我们使用一项纵向研究（ALSPAC）的数据来调查20岁时赌博问题与童年时期父母赌博行为有关的程度，该研究追踪了怀孕后来自英格兰埃文的父母和孩子。1058个孩子在20岁时完成了一个问题赌博屏幕。当这些孩子6岁时，他们的父母都被问到了自己的赌博问题。我们使用回归来估计6岁儿童的父母赌博行为对20岁儿童的问题赌博风险的影响。6岁儿童的父母赌博参与并不是后代问题赌博的预测因素。但是父母的问题赌博是后代问题赌博的预测指标。但是，仅发现后一种结果是跨性别的（父亲的行为影响女儿，母亲的行为影响儿子）。这种模式对包括父母教育措施和反映家庭对健康选择和家庭和睦程度的态度在内的变量的模型是稳健的。该样本说明了年轻人中赌博问题的普遍性。尽管世代之间存在“问题赌博”的传播，但似乎只发生在跨性别的情况下。这限制了父母问题赌博作为高患病率来源的重要性，因为相对较少的母亲表现出问题赌博，而父亲对女儿的风险则是在最初的基线风险较低的情况下进行的。因此，预防性政策可能更适合年轻人，而不是依赖在孩子生命早期影响父母的赌博行为。