The Division on Addictions at Cambridge Health Alliance teamed up with the Harvard College Alcohol Study, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded ongoing survey of over 14,000 students at 120 four-year colleges in 40 states, to analyze data collected after gambling questions were added to the survey in 2001. The study founded that 42 percent of college students gambled in the past year (compared to 82 percent of adults in the most recent national survey of household residents 18 years of age and older), and 2.6 percent gambled at least weekly during the school year (compared to 23 percent in the household survey).
This nationally representative sample of colleges and universities was also used in a study of alcohol and gambling policies. Less than one-fourth of the schools studied had policies on gambling activity, whereas all had alcohol policies. The authors suggested that the low number of schools with gambling policies represents a lost opportunity for school officials to prevent or limit student disordered gambling and to coordinate recovery efforts for students in need.
The findings of this study were published in the Journal of American College Health (2003), Harm Reduction Journal (2005), and Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport (2007).