Online Gambling is an activity where you wager real money on games of chance, such as casino slot machines, poker or sports betting. The popularity of this type of online gambling has been on the rise in recent years and there are a variety of different types of sites to choose from. Some offer specific types of gambling, whilst others are more general and cover a wider range of betting markets.

It is important to note that online gambling has some risks, similar to other forms of internet-based activities. This includes the risk of scams or phishing, which may result in personal information being stolen from your computer. It is also important to check whether the site you are using is licensed and regulated by a government body. In addition, it is important to monitor your account for any unauthorized transactions and to report them immediately to the gambling site.

To investigate knowledge about risk and protective factors in online gambling, a systematic review was conducted. A search in three academic databases was carried out: PubMed, PsychInfo and Scopus. Similar syntax was used for each database and included keywords such as “gambling” or “online gambling”, and the terms “risk factor”, “protective factor”, and “predictor”, or “correlate”.

Several critical elements emerge from the analysis of the literature. One is that studies tend to use nonrepresentative samples, thereby restricting the validity of results. Another is that very little attention is paid to relational and contextual factors. A few articles indicate that having rare and negative relationships is associated with online gambling, as well as the presence of family members who gamble. High impulsivity is also a characteristic found to be more frequently associated with online gambling and with problems of gambling, but this has only been reported in one paper.