Gamers might as well take that last step off the ledge.

Study findings from the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention in the United States and the University of Adelaide in Australia suggest people who play games frequently have personality problems, an addiction, or both.

In the CDC study, behaviors of 552 Seattle-area adults ages 19 to 90 found that 45 percent of that group included video games in their and were, coincidentally, overweight and introverted. The Internet was their chief source of social interaction, and they were more likely to suffer depression than adults who weren’t frequent gamers.

The findings appeared to be a continuation of similar results that turned up among adolescents, the study said.

Meanwhile, in the report from Down Under, research on more than 2,500 Australian game-playing teens ages 13 to 17 turned up about half who also had tried gambling in the past year, thus making a connection between gaming and gambling addiction.

And that shortens the distance between Xboxes and casinos.

“If you’re a person who is playing very frequently, more likely if you’re a male, too, and doing it … year after year, it’s probably more likely you’ll have a pattern of activity which will make poker machines quite attractive when you turn 18,” said University of Adelaide researcher Paul Defabbro in an Australian Broadcasting Co. interview.

Neither study dove toward the root of these behaviors to include whether psychology, environment or economics played factors. Chronic risk-takers, for example, may delve into games and gambling for the thrills they provide and not simply to escape their problems.

Nevertheless, people who are critical of gaming now have more ammunition to fire at the subject.