Ethics approval for both the YSS and the YGS was granted by the University of Waterloo Research Ethics Office. Parental consent was obtained for all participating students via either an active permission protocol or an active information/passive permission protocol, based on the requirements of the corresponding school board or school. On the day of participation, all students were notified of their right to decline participation in the study.
Social casino gaming
Three items were used to measure whether participants have played SCGs, consistent with previous studies [15, 65]. Specifically, participants were asked how often they played the following games for fun (no money): Internet poker, Internet slots, gambling games on Facebook. Response options consisted of: “not in the past 3 months”, “about once per month” HappyLuke , “2-3 times per month”, “about once per week”, “2-6 times per week”, “daily”. Participants were categorized as being SCG players for each game type if they indicated that they played a given game with any frequency in the past three months. In cases where participants reported having played multiple types of SCGs in the past three months, their responses were assessed under each game-type category that they endorsed. Consequently, it was possible for a single participant to be represented under each of the three game-type categories in the study.
Modality of monetary gambling
Land-based gamblers were participants who reported gambling for money or for something of value at least once in the past three months through one or more of the following gambling activities: (1) lottery tickets; (2) instant-win or scratch tickets; (3) cards; (4) board games or dice; (5) video lottery terminals; (6) slot machines not online; (7) arcade or video games; (8) sports select; (9) sports pools or games not online; (10) horse races; (11) performance in games of skill (e.g., pool, golf, bowling, darts) or other activities; (12) a dare or challenge; (13) bingo.
Online gamblers were participants who indicated that they had gambled for money or for something of value at least once in the past three months on any of the following three activities: (1) Internet poker; (2) sports pools or games online; (3) slot machines online. In the current sample, only 1.9% of respondents (n = 74) gambled solely online. Therefore, our sample of online gamblers (n = 833) includes those individuals who gambled exclusively online as well as those who gambled both online and in land-
