There were 12 published twin studies, one of them contained two researchers.

They were
published in 2014 or after that. Six of them used data from the United States; five of them
used an Australian database; and two of them used twin samples from Canada.

Sample of twin studies

Seven independent databases were utilized in the collected twin studies.

Two studies (Huggett et al. 2019, Huggett et al. 2021) have been published using the data of
the Colorado Longitudinal Twin Sample (birth records) and the Colorado Twin Sample
(school districts), which were part of the Colorado Center on Antisocial Drug Dependence
(CAAD). Data collection started in 1982; the first twins were born in 1698. It is an ongoing
project, and it seems representative of the general population (Rhea et al. 2013). The sample
of the first study contained 2,224 monozygotic (MZ) and same/opposite-sex dizygotic (DZ)
twins (Huggett et al. 2019). The second study used participants from the previous study as
well as two separate samples. The discovery sample contained 2,216 twins, and the
replication sample contained 619 people (Huggett et al. 2021).

Five studies have been using the Australian Twin Registry (ATR) dataset. Between 1980 and
1982, twins were registered by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council
through calls and schools. 4,268 pairs of twins were registered. The children were born
between 1964 and 1971, and this cohort is often called Cohort II or younger cohort (Slutske et
al. 2009). Over time, there have been two big waves of data collection. The first wave was
between 1989 and 1992 (mailed questionnaire), and the second wave was between 1996 and
2000 (questionnaire and telephone interviews). This Cohort was used by four studies (Slutske
et al. 2009, Slutske et al. 2014a, Slutske et al. 2015, and Richmond-Rakerd et al. 2014).

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) has been used in two
studies (Slutske et al. 2014b, Slutske et al. 2018). This data collection represents the general
population. There have been five waves: 1994–1995, 1996, 2001–2002, 2008, and 2016–2018
(https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu/about/). These studies used the samples of the third wave
(Wave III, in-home interviews) with 15,197 participants (324 MZ and 278 DZ). One of the
studies also used data from the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (National Merit).
The same-sex twin sample was collected in 1962. From the 596,241 students, 1,507 were
same-sex twin pairs (509 MZ, 330 DZ). They got questionnaires about behavior and
personality (Slutske et al. 2018).

The Quebec Newborn Twin Study (QNTS) was used for two studies. Between 1996 and
1998, all twins were registered in Provence, Canada. 650 families (223 MZ, 222 DZ) got
involved in this study (Vitaro et al. 2014; Vitaro et al. 2019).

The study by King et al. (2017) utilized data from the Minnesota Twin Family Study
(MTFS). MTFS is an ongoing, long-term project based on the population. They collected data
from birth records between 1978 and 1982. 1400 children (pre-adolescent and adolescent) and
their parents participated in the MTFS. Every three years, there was a follow-up until they
reached the age of 29 (Iacono et al. 1999).
Black et al. (2014) collected data from various places. There were 133 participants: 19 from
study registries, 19 from gambling treatment programs, 19 from advertisements, 15 from
psychiatric treatment facilities, 15 from Gamblers Anonymous meetings, and 7 from word-of-
mouth. This study also had a control group. The Center of Social and Behavioral Research
reached the people by dialing random numbers (Black et al. 2014).

Methods Used in Twin Research Studies to Assess Problem and Pathological Gambling

The studies based on CAAD used the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS; Lesieur &
Blume, 1987) to screen for people who had a problem with gambling. The ATR sample has
been defined in several ways. In one study, they used AFG, NODS (National Opinion
Research Center DSM-IV Screen for Gambling Problems), and they were adding questions
about frequency (Slutske et al. 2014a). NODS was used in another ATR study by Slutske et
al. (2015). They also used SOGS, and they added an additional item. NORC DSM-IV was
also used in one study based on the ATR (Davis et al., 2019). Richmond-Raker et al. (2014)
developed interview questions to identify pathological gambling.

The pathological gamblers in the Add Health samples were diagnosed with an interview and a
survey (Slutske et al. 2018). In another study, Slutske et al. (2014b) used Wave III interviews.

SOGS-RA was used in the study based on the MTFS sample (King et al. 2017). The same was
used for the participants in the QNTS (Vitaro et al. 2019; Vitaro et al. 2014).

Black et al. (2014) used multiple methods to identify pathological gamblers, like the DSM-IV
diagnosis, SOGS, and NODS.

Summary of the Results of Twin Studies

A big part of the twin studies finds that non-shared environments play an important role in the
development of pathological gambling. The results show that genes are also an important
factor. Although it is important to note that not all studies get these results. Sutske et al.
(2014b) didn’t find evidence for genetic influence. No results were found in another study
about shared genetics, although shared and non-shared environments explained 50–50% of
the variance (Slutske et al. 2018). Most of the studies also highlight the importance of a
shared environment. In a study, the role of genetics and shared environmental factors was
pointed out. From 18 to 25 years old, the impact of genetics increased and the effect of a
shared environment decreased (King et al. 2017). Davis et al. (2019) did not find evidence for
the impact of shared environments; there was also no evidence for sex differences. Vitaro et
al. (2014) also got the same results: only genetic and unique environmental factors influenced
gambling. The comorbid disorders were also researched in a few studies. Skill gambling and
problematic alcohol use were connected through genetics and a shared environment. There
was also a connection between Frequent Gamblers and ASDP, ADHD (Hugget et al., 2021).
Slutske et al. (2014a) also talks about the influence of ADHD. The twin with more symptoms
started gambling younger. Black et al. (2014) found that the relatives of pathological gamblers
had more likely mental disorders (e. g. depression, bipolar disorder, alcohol or drug problems,
social anxiety, ASPD). Another study also found that the twin who drink alcohol more
frequently also gamble more often (Hugget et al. 2019).