Examining the Latent Structure of Gambling Motivation Scale in Gambling-exposed Chinese Casino Employees

Abstract

Gambling Motivation Scale (GMS; Chantal et al., 1994) is one of the most popular scales used in assessing gambling motivation. Wu and Tang (2010) validated the Chinese Version of the scale and found out that a second-order model adequately fits with the data. This study tries to extend their study by utilizing a population very much exposed to gambling in almost daily basis, the casino employees. 817 casino employees were administered the Chinese version of the GMS and other related measures. Results revealed that of the five models tested, a first order model with seven factors achieved better fit in contrast to all other models. The seven factors include intinsic motivation (IM) for knowledge, IM for accomplishment, IM for stimulation, extrinsic motivation (EM) due to identified regulation, EM due to introjected regulation, EM due to external regulation, and amotivation. However, the seven-factor model did not reach the conventional fit indices for good fit. After some posthoc modifications, the revised model achieved adequate fit. Moreover, the seven factors were significantly related to frequency of gambling, amount spent for gambling, gambling behaviors and Victorian Gambling Subscales. Generally, results showed that modified GMS with seven factors can be used with Chinese population, more specifically with Chinese casino employees.