The SOCTT is the scale most frequently used by researchers and clinicians working on gambling abroad in the assessment of pathological gambling behavior and especially in prevalence studies (Volberg and Bank 1990). Developed by the South Oaks Hospital Gambling Treatment Team in the United States of America, the SOKTT is a self-administered test consisting of 26 questions (Lesieur & Blume, 1987). Since the first three items and items numbered 12, 16j and 16k are not included in the scoring in the SOKTT, which can be administered quickly and easily, the test is evaluated over 20 items. Since each item is evaluated with one point, the scores that can be obtained in the SOKTT vary between 0 and 20 points. In the original English version of the test, a score of 5 is used as the "cut-off point"; therefore, those scoring 5 and above are considered as "probable pathological gamblers".
The SOKTT has been translated into French, German, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Lao, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Hmong languages; however, a validity and reliability study of the Spanish translation in Spain (Echeburua et al. 1994, Ursua and Uribelarrea 1998), no validity and reliability study has been conducted in any of the countries where it was translated (Lesieur and Blume, 1993).There are two studies to determine the reliability and validity of the SOKTT in Turkey. The first study on the reliability and validity of the SOKTT was conducted by Duvarcı et al. (1997) between October 1995 and July 1996 at Ege University Faculty of Medicine Psychiatry Clinic.
The second study on the reliability and validity of the SOKTT was conducted by Duvarcı and Varan at the Ege University Faculty of Medicine Psychiatry Clinic between March and July 1998. In this second study, which aimed to determine the characteristics of gambling behavior of individuals diagnosed with pathological gambling (see Duvarcı and Varan 2000), the reliability and validity of the SOKTT were re-evaluated in the light of newly collected data and the scale was finalized.