According to a University of Iowa study, problem gambling runs in families and excessive drinking, drug disorders and antisocial personality disorders also run rampant in families with pathological gamblers.

The study in the journal Psychiatry Research outlined researchers' findings and gives new insight into who may potentially suffer from these disorders.

Donald W. Black, M.D., professor of psychiatry in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine says, "Something is being passed along in these families that increases the persons' likelihood of engaging in impulsive and ultimately self-destructive behavior. In some persons, it manifests as substance abuse, in others as antisocial behavior, and in others gambling, and often the three are combined."