Situating Problem Gambling: The Social Context of
‘Gambling Careers’
This three-year study is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, and the
Responsibility in Gambling Trust. It is being conducted by Dr Gerda Reith, who is the
Principal Investigator, at the University of Glasgow, and the Scottish Centre for Social
Research (ScotCen) www.scotcen.org.uk
The research benefits from the input of two Advisory Groups; a national group that
includes representatives from the fields of policy, voluntary organisations, treatment
providers and gamblers’ organisations, as well as an international group comprising of
academic and research specialists in the field of gambling studies.
In addition, Dr Rachel Volberg, President of Gemini Research and Director of the U.S.
National Council on Problem Gambling, will be acting as specialist consultant to the
research.
Summary of the Research
In the past decade, increasing liberalisation has transformed the climate of gambling in
Britain, bringing the activity to greater numbers of people than ever before and
culminating in the Gambling Act of 2005, which recognised and regulated this shift.
While most people, enjoy their gambling, a significant minority experience problems,
including poverty, debt, familial breakdown and personal hardship from behaviour that
has become out of control.
Despite the increased popularity of the activity among large sections of the population
however, surprisingly little is known about the actual motivations, characteristics and
lifestyles of gamblers and problem gamblers themselves. This study attempts to fill this
knowledge gap by developing a new conceptual framework for understanding the
pathways through which individuals enter into and recover from problematic gambling
behaviour in the notion of ‘gambling careers’. It aims to situate both gambling and
problem gambling behaviour in its social context in order to explore both how behaviour
changes over the life course of individuals, and how it is influenced by local cultures and
meanings.
It starts from the assumption that no-one is born a gambler, but rather that gambling is a
complex social activity that is learned over time. Through in depth interviews with
particular groups of gamblers over a three year period, the research will explore the
motivations, attitudes and self perceptions of gamblers and problem gamblers, drawing
out the meanings that gambling has for them, and how this influences behaviour in a
series of rich narrative accounts.
It is recognised that different types of people play different types of games, and for very
different reasons. There are significant differences between, for example, women playing
afternoon bingo; wealthy high rollers playing high stakes games in casinos and Internet
gamblers playing alone in their homes. Age, gender, class, ethnicity and even geography
are all likely to influence the cultures of different groups of gamblers. At the same time,
there may be similarities across all these types of behaviour, and it is this that this study
will explore. It will contact individuals from casinos, betting shops, fruit machine arcades
and bingo halls, as well as recruiting Internet and lottery gamblers, to analyse the
similarities as well as the differences in behaviour.
The research will investigate a variety of experiences of gambling: the pathways through
which individuals begin and continue gambling, enter problem behaviour and move out
of it, and the relation of these stages to broader socio-demographic factors, attitudes and
self-perceptions. The influence of families, friends and communities in shaping
individuals’ gambling careers, as well as the impacts gamblers’ behaviour has on them,
will also be explored.
Rather than viewing problem gamblers as a relatively small and distinct group, the study
will look at problematic behaviour as a particular phase that can affect many more
individuals at some point(s) in a gambling career, and will examine the way that
behaviour waxes and wanes among this larger group. It will focus on key moments and
processes of change such as, for example, how people begin gambling, points when
playing increases or decreases, when individuals realise they have a problem and decide
to seek help - or not - and the circumstances that surround this.
Experiences of treatment: perceptions of its benefits, as well as relapses and reasons for
leaving it, will also be explored. Given that the vast majority of problem gamblers never
seek treatment, the research will focus in particular on the phase of ‘natural recovery’ in
which problematic behaviour is resolved without formal intervention, and will explore
shifts in social, demographic and personal circumstances that are associated with it.
This approach to gambling will allow the research to move beyond more static
‘snapshots’ of individuals, to investigate the fluid and dynamic processes involved in
gambling behaviour, allowing an examination of the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of change over
time