Dias, Stephanie EDowling, Nicki AHawker, Chloe ORodda, Simone NGandhi, Monique NMerkouris, Stephanie S2026-03-232026-03-232026-03-10Current Addiction Reports, ISSN: 2196-2952 (Print); 2196-2952 (Online), Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 13(1), 25-. doi: 10.1007/s40429-026-00731-52196-29522196-2952http://hdl.handle.net/10292/20799Purpose of reviewThis systematic review and meta-analysis examined the strength of associations between gambling motives and problem gambling severity.Recent findingsDespite previous reviews highlighting the importance of gambling motives, none have synthesized evidence across all validated measures and sample types.SummaryA systematic search of peer-reviewed literature (1993-2025) identified 63 studies (66 articles), with 53 studies (54 articles) included in meta-analyses of 15 validated motives subscales. With the exception of the Intrinsic-Motivation Toward Knowledge subscale of the Gambling Motivation Scale, all motive subscales demonstrated significant positive associations with problem gambling severity, with effect sizes ranging from small (r=0.21) to large (r=0.53). Overlapping confidence intervals across subscales indicate that gambling motives should be viewed as interrelated contributors to problem gambling severity. Findings were generally consistent when analyses were restricted to studies using unadjusted data and those rated as strong-moderate for risk of bias. While there were insufficient estimates to conduct subgroup analyses for several study and sample characteristics (i.e., sample gender, study design, sample type, and sampling type), exploratory meta-regressions suggested that sample size contributed to heterogeneity for specific motives, whereas problem gambling severity measure did not. These findings have implications for the development of targeted, motivation informed prevention and intervention efforts.Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.52 Psychology5201 Applied and Developmental Psychology4201 Allied health and rehabilitation science5202 Biological psychology5203 Clinical and health psychologyGamblingMotivesSystematicHeterogeneityInterventionJournal ArticleOpenAccess10.1007/s40429-026-00731-5