The popularity of online gambling has increased significantly in recent years. While some countries have banned it altogether, others regulate it and even encourage it. However, this form of gambling comes with a number of risks and dangers, especially for young people who can be introduced to the behaviour through features in video games such as loot boxes or skin betting. Adults can help protect them by educating them about the dangers and telling them how to spot the warning signs.

The current article investigates knowledge about risk and protective factors of online gambling using a PICO (Population Intervention Comparison Outcome) approach. The search was limited to peer-reviewed studies published between 2010 and 2020. The research criteria included both psychological and socio-cultural aspects of gambling. This is to allow us to compare the current state of knowledge about the phenomenon of online gambling with that in other fields.

The search strategy was based on three different databases: PubMed, PsychInfo, and Scopus. The syntax used in PsychInfo was (ab(gambling) OR online OR internet AND (risk factors OR protective factors OR predictors OR correlates)). A total of 77 publications were included. In order to limit the scope of this review, we focused only on articles that were written in English and that met the research criteria described above. Furthermore, we only investigated studies that focused on adults, excluding adolescents and children. Furthermore, we excluded studies that focused on the biological determinants of online gambling.