Shared digital, social, and cognitive mechanisms in gambling and pseudo-investment schemes in Kazakhstan: a multi-source qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: In Kazakhstan, online betting, online casinos, and pyramidal pseudo-investment schemes increasingly occupy overlapping mobile and platform-mediated environments. Shared channels may support common engagement mechanisms. Participant-level sequential entry into a second domain, continued participation in that domain, and durable migration require separate empirical assessment. AIM: Guided by three qualitative research questions, the article examines: (1) how digital, social, and cognitive mechanisms shape entry and retention; (2) which participant-level records document temporally ordered participation across gambling and pseudo-investment domains and which cross-source records document shared cross-domain infrastructure; and (3) which contextual conditions concerning recruitment, visibility, household recognition, and crisis response are illustrated in the material. METHODS: A multi-source qualitative design combined 25 interviews with persons reporting gambling-related problems, 19 with pseudo-investment participants, 22 family or co-resident interviews concerning gambling-related focal persons, 22 psychologist or psychotherapist interviews, 12 law-enforcement interviews, and five macro-regional focus groups. The 44 first-person accounts formed the trajectory denominator. Respondent groups were coded within source type and integrated through provenance-preserving joint displays. Direct first-person evidence determined participant chronology and case counts; collateral and cross-source evidence informed mechanism interpretation. Cross-domain coding used three grades: temporally ordered second-domain entry, continued participation beyond a single trial, and durable substitution or reorientation. Direction-specific elicitation was systematic for P → G in the pseudo-investment guide and general for G → P in the gambling guide. RESULTS: Case-level mapping identified five recurrent within-domain stages and unevenly supported adjacent links. Eleven cases documented the complete five-stage order, 17 contained other partial ordered sequences, 12 were nonlinear, recursive, or alternative, and 4 were trial-only or nonconsolidating. Adjacent transitions were EXP → ENT in 35 cases, ENT → CON in 39, CON→ESC in 30, and ESC → CRS in 27. Thirteen unique cases bypassed at least one intermediate stage. The tested six-element order with cross-domain change between escalation and crisis/exit occurred in zero cases. Two of the 19 pseudo-investment participants with systematic adjacent-risk elicitation documented post-crisis P → G entry; these were also two of the 44 first-person cases overall. P04 progressed to repeated gambling and escalation. P17 reported one lottery purchase. The durable-migration criterion was unmet in both cases. Direct records contained zero G → P cases under general elicitation. Regional metadata were reportable for 20 of 44 first-person cases and unavailable or suppressed for 24. The contextual analysis centered on mechanisms, with region and gender retained as source metadata. CONCLUSION: The data support a heterogeneous cross-case framework of recurrent within-domain stages and uneven transition possibilities. Cross-domain evidence comprised two post-crisis P → G entries: one case progressed to repeated second-domain participation, and one remained a single trial. Durable cross-domain migration occurred in zero cases. The study integrates three evidence categories: recurrent shared mechanisms, shared cross-domain infrastructure, and graded participant-level sequential entry.