Sweden’s gambling participation rate remained unchanged in 2018 but the number of gambling addicts rose by nearly half, and female addicts now outnumber men.

This week, Sweden’s Folkhalsomyndigheten (Public Health Authority) released the results of its 2018 survey of Swedish gambling habits. The survey (viewable here, in Swedish), was conducted last August with the participation of just over 5k respondents.

The survey found that 58% of respondents engaged in some form of real-money gambling last year, unchanged from the results of the 2015 survey. Of these gamblers, around 225k were found to be at some risk of developing problem gambling behavior, a significant decline from the 322k respondents who were deemed to be ‘at risk’ gamblers in 2015.

Similarly, the number of actual problem gamblers fell from 134k in 2015 to 101k in 2018, but that’s where the good news ends. The number of individuals deemed to be pathological gamblers in 2018 was 45k, nearly 50% higher than the 31k who earned that dubious designation in 2015.