A Gambling Financial Harm Screener (GFHS) for Payment Institutions: Multi-Method Development and Preliminary Validation

Abstract Disordered gambling, a form of behavioral addiction characterized by persistent gambling despite harmful consequences, is inherently associated with financial harm. While established diagnostic instruments exist, they are primarily designed for clinical or gambling-service contexts and are not readily applicable within financial system infrastructures that process gambling-related transactions. The current study describes the development and initial validation of the Gambling Financial Harm Screener (GFHS), a psychometrically grounded instrument designed to assess gambling-related harm through financial activity patterns. The study drew on two separate datasets: real-world payment transactions (N = 2,301) to establish the feasibility of operationalizing behavioral indicators, and an independent survey-validation sample (N= 324) for psychometric evaluation. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported a two-factor structure that distinguished Behavioral Financial Harm (BFH) from Subjective Financial Distress (SFD), with high internal consistency across both factors (ordinal α= .887 and .890). The resulting self-report scales (13-, 9-, and 6-item versions) showed strong discrimination of problem gambling (PGSI ≥ 8; test-set AUCs = .89–.94). A transaction-only proof-of-concept version (GFHS-T6), evaluated using self-reported analogues of transaction-derived behaviors, showed good discrimination of problem gambling (PGSI ≥ 8; test-set AUC = .91) and demonstrated the feasibility of identifying harmful behavioral patterns from financial indicators. We conclude that the GFHS provides a structured framework for assessing gambling-related financial harm, whereas the GFHS-T6 demonstrates the potential for transaction-based screening in payment-system environments. Supplementary materials include developer guidance to support staged, non-commercial implementation.