Do people gamble more in good times? Evidence from 27 European countries

We provide evidence of a positive relationship between the intensity of gambling and economic growth in 27 European countries for 2005-2013. Our proxy for gambling is represented by government revenues from taxes on lotteries, betting and gambling. This variable is linked to GDP growth in a panel regression framework and pooled OLS. However, when we split our sample to account for the heterogeneity among European countries, we found that the positive gambling - GDP growth' relationship is driven extensively by the Central and Eastern European countries. It appears that people in these countries tend to gamble more when the economy is expanding.