View
3
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
The ‘Problem Gambler’ And Socio-Spatial Vulnerability
Authors: Dr. Marc Welsh, Professor Rhys Jones, Dr. Jessica Pykett, Professor Mark
Whitehead
Affiliation: Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University
Abstract
This chapter takes a discussion of the construction of the ‘problem gambler’ as a
starting point for exploring questions of vulnerability in a socio-spatial, rather than
individualised setting. The representation of problem gambling and the problem gambler, in
legislative and political discourses, as an individualised medical condition feeds into (and
constrains) the ways in which political and regulatory measures relating to gambling are
devised and implemented. Understanding the connections between ‘problem gamblers’, as
vulnerable individuals, and the communities within which they live and work is an under-
examined aspect of problem gambling research. Problem gambling is played out through
social relations that are embedded within particular places. We argue that there is a need to
consider the connection between problem gambling and social and spatial vulnerability. We
illustrate the above through reference to a case study focusing on the perceived proliferation
of bookmakers on the British high street.
1. Introduction
How we frame the issue of problem gambling has implications for how we conceive
its origins and understand its expression in certain individuals and in society at large (Korn et
al., 2003). As a medicalised discourse, problem gambling is readily identifiable and treatable
using a variety of interventions (psychological, psychiatric, pharmacological) upon a category
1
of vulnerable people called ‘pathological gamblers’. As a moral discourse, problem gambling
is located in a weakness of character, raising issues about reform of those with an
uncontrollable compulsion to gamble and about the effects of gambling upon the wider
community. As a socio-cultural discourse problem gambling is one component of a spectrum
of heterogeneous gambling behaviours distributed through the population influenced by a
wide variety of factors ranging from the type of game being played, where it is being played,
who is playing it and why they are playing it (Strong 2011; Reith 2007).
It is fair to say that a medical model has dominated problem gambling research and
regulatory discourses of gambling since the classification of pathological gambling as a
disorder of impulse control in the American Psychiatric Associations Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) (American Psychiatric Association, 1980)
(for critiques of the medical model in relation to gambling see Castellani, 2000; Cosgrave &
Klassen, 2001; Reith, 1999, 2007; Schüll & Zaloom, 2011; Young, 2010). More recently,
neurobiological and psychological investigations of ‘problem gambling’ have examined the
neurological and behavioural changes that occur in the etiology of gambling as a ‘pure’
addiction (Shaffer 1989). While still under-researched, these new approaches have provided
valuable insights into the processes through which certain individuals develop difficulties
regulating their gambling behaviour (Bowden-Jones & Clark, 2011; van Holst et al., 2010).
More broadly integrative models operating within a frame of a ‘biopsychosocial perspective’
are now advocated as a basis for capturing the range of factors that influence the emergence
and maintenance of harmful gambling behaviours (Blaszczynski & Nower, 2002; Griffiths &
Delfabbro, 2001; Griffiths, 2005; Griffiths et al., 2010; Sharpe, 2002).
In this chapter we take a broadly socio-spatial approach to ‘problem gamblers’. We
discuss in particular the construction of vulnerability in relation to gambling. In an era of
economic austerity and a shrinking state, constructions of ‘vulnerability’, and the protection
2
of vulnerable groups of people, have become increasingly significant in debates over
government social policy. The malleable notion of vulnerability encompasses a whole range
of different factors (e.g. risk of exposure, capacities to cope, potentialities of serious
consequence) that, when viewed as a whole, may capture whether an individual is in danger
of becoming a ‘problem gambler’. These include their exposure and sensitivity to gambling
temptations; and their resilience in coping with or withstanding them (cf. Turner II et al.,
2003). We are interested specifically in the way in which vulnerable individuals are
conceived of within academic and recent policy literature on gambling. As well as discussing
the various psychological and social cues that lead a vulnerable subject to become a ‘problem
gambler’, we focus on how the formation of ‘problem gamblers’ takes place within what we
term vulnerable communities. It is clear that particular communities form “spaces of
vulnerability” (Watts & Bohle, 1993), within which various risk factors combine to promote
the expression and maintenance of gambling related problems in potentially susceptible
individuals. Our broader aim, therefore, is to understand the connections between ‘problem
gamblers’, as vulnerable individuals, and the communities within which they live and work;
or, in other words, to examine the socio-spatial vulnerabilities of ‘problem gamblers’.
2. The pathologising of gambling
Analysis of problem gambling and of gambling generally has adopted an
individualistic perspective (Cosgrave & Klassen, 2001, p. 2), reflecting the discursive shift of
gambling and problem gambling from a moral to a medical framework (Castellani, 2000).
Where, for much of Western history, excessive gambling was represented and regulated as a
moral problem in the twentieth century (Miers, 2004) it came to be explained in terms other
than the moral and legal notably starting with the publication of Edmund Bergler’s ‘The
gambler: A misunderstood neurotic’ in 1943. Bergler contended that compulsive gamblers
3
are caught in the grip of an illness and needed medical treatment rather than moral
condemnation (1957). As described by Rosecrance (1985) in America a coalition of interests
(support groups like Gamblers Anonymous and clinicians) mobilised a medical model of
compulsive and pathological gambling which gained legitimacy and authority in legal and
scientific discourse during the late 1970s and 1980s. This was most visibly expressed in the
classification of compulsive gambling as an impulse control disorder in DSM III and IV
(American Psychiatric Association, 1980, 2000). This process is captured by the term ‘the
medicalisation of deviance’ (see Conrad & Scheider, 1980), where the ‘moral neutrality’ of
the medical model (ibid, p. 35) provides one discursive strategy through which particular
ways of knowing and representing the world are afforded the status of ‘truth’ and others are
denied it. As such the naming and claiming of a state of being, like pathological gambling, is
a highly contingent and political act.
As a social construct ‘problem gambling’ served to pathologise specific behaviours
emphasising the responsibility of individuals to seek help to treat their illness. Over the past
40 years the problem gambling construct has gained currency, legitimacy and authority as
government, commercial gaming interests and treatment professionals refined, codified and
institutionalised it (Volberg &Wray 2007, p. 58). Centrally, this set of discourses
conceptualised ‘problem gambling’ as a form of individual pathology to which some people
were susceptible and exceptionalised against a norm of ‘responsible gambling’ (Rosecrance,
1985). This individualisation of illnesses tends towards a shearing of behaviour and
symptoms from social context. The latest iteration of the DSM renames the illness (‘gambling
disorder’) and relocates it as (the only behavioural) addiction in the broader category of
‘substance-related and addictive disorders’ (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The
rationale for this change is in part based on the growing scientific literature that reveals
4
commonalities between gambling disorders and substance use disorders (in clinical
expression, brain origin, comorbidity, physiology, and treatment).
Such a move has been contentious, not least because for some it exemplifies a wider
critique of DSM V for continuous diagnostic expansion (e.g. see Frances, 2012). For
example, in their response to the American Psychiatric Association consultation on DSM V,
the British Psychological Society challenged the ‘continuous medicalisation’ of responses
that may be ‘natural and normal’ in the context of lived experiences. Concerned at the
subjective and normative dimensions inherent in diagnostic criteria such as the DSM V, they
argued that ‘We are also concerned that systems such as this are based on identifying
problems as located within individuals. This misses the relational context of problems and the
undeniable social causation of many such problems’ (BPS 2011, page 2).
Of course, such themes echo the work of Foucauldian scholars who have argued that
one of the features of ‘advanced liberal’ or neoliberal governmentality (Rose 1996; 1999) is
an emphasis on subjectification through the responsibilisation of the self (see also Clark,
2005; Dean 1999, 2007; Foucault 1991; 2007; O’Malley, 1996, 2004). Advanced liberal
governmentalities seek ‘to govern not through “society”, but through the regulated choices of
individual citizens, now construed as subjects of choices and aspirations to self-actualisation
and self-fulfillment. Individuals are to be governed through their freedom’ (Miller & Rose,
2008, p. 24). In this neoliberal discursive frame (contra welfare state practices) government
transfers risk to individuals through constructing social risks (poverty, crime, health) not as a
responsibility lying with the state or the collective, but lying with the citizen as the consumer
of state and market services.
Responsibilisation as a strategy of government regulates freedom through the moral
and legal cultivation of normative and idealised forms of responsible and rational citizen-
consumers. Whilst reducing the size and scope of intervention of government, government
5
(not limited to the state, but ‘government’ conceived more broadly as the ‘conduct of
conduct’ (Dean, 1999, p. 10) becomes increasingly reliant on technologies that point
individuals to choose the rational, prudent course. One of the ironic aspects of the discourse
surrounding problem gamblers, of course, is the fact that they are cast as both responsible and
yet irrational citizen-consumers. The medicalised discourse largely promotes a notion of the
problem gambler as an individual who is responsible for the predicament in which they find
themselves. At the same time, the problem gambler has arrived at that position precisely
because of their inability to act in rational ways.
More broadly, the net effect of this individualisation through medicalisation and
responsibilisation discourse is a depoliticisation of social problems associated with gambling,
transposing them to individual sites of responsibility. The problematisation of the problem
gambler therefore has the discursive effect of undermining consideration of social (the
distribution of effects through society) or structural issues (questions of supply, accessibility,
type of product and their circulation in various formats) in political discourse. This rather
narrow focus on a category of pathological or problem gambler draws attention away from
the wider effects of gambling on communities and societies as a whole (Reith, 2006).
From a sociological perspective, conversely, health or illness is socially constructed.
That is, it is defined by the labels or the meanings attached to particular ways of being, and
by how the labelled and those doing the labelling act in relation to those socially produced
labels and meanings. This is not to say that a disease does not exist with causes, symptoms
and treatments but rather that how those causes, symptoms and treatments are discursively
produced and mobilised is a social process and inherently contingent upon asymmetrical
power relations. In relation to disability, for example, a medical discourse leads to disability
being understood as an individual problem, that a person is both socially positioned and
positions themselves against a normative standard of ‘health’ and acts accordingly. In effect
6
disabled people become ‘the problem’. A social model of disability locates disability as an
unequal relationship within society which through systemic barriers, cultural attitudes and
processes of deliberate or accidental exclusion or disempowerment mean that society actually
‘causes’ the disabling of people. A social model frames our questions in terms of how
disability is socially produced and therefore places focus on looking at society and structural
factors for both the causes and the solutions to problems facing ‘disabled people’.
So, a social model of analysis focuses attention on the social distribution of socially
determined characteristics, like problem gambling or vulnerability, and how these become
stabilised or change over time. The object of analysis is the mechanism by which something
like problem gambling is both socially constructed and socially caused. As a consequence
there is a presumption that the setting in which an individual or community experiences some
form of harm is a key factor in the social production of that harm. In this case ‘setting’ does
not merely mean the situational characteristics of, for example, a casino, but also the socio-
spatial, socio-economic and socio-cultural relations of those involved and in which the social
practice takes place.
Taken together, such themes illustrate the need to examine how vulnerable subjects
and problem gamblers are socially constructed within policy and popular discourses. They
also demonstrate the need to examine the way in which particular spaces of vulnerability can
lead individuals to succumb to the buzz of gambling. It is to these socio-spatial impacts on
vulnerability and problem gambling that we turn in the following section.
3. The vulnerable gambler
Much academic work has attempted to map out the key areas of vulnerability that lead
certain individuals to become problem gamblers. We can distinguish here between research
that has attempted to chart the most vulnerable individuals and that which has sought to
7
determine those groups who are at risk of becoming problem gamblers. While there is some
overlap between these two bodies of research, there are also interesting discrepancies
between them. The research on individuals tends to adopt more of a biological and
increasingly a psychological take on problem gambling, while the research on groups,
conversely, tends to explain problem gambling through recourse to social factors.
We have alluded to the individualised conceptualisation of the problem gambler in the
previous section. In this set of explanations, the ‘problem gambler’ is constructed as victim
of their own biology or life experience. They are a vulnerable minority whose own ‘midbrain
mutinies’ (Ross et al., 2008) 1 when repeatedly stimulated by the prospect of a quick bet. As
these people behave irrationally, struggling to regulate their behaviour, the objective is to
provide tools to recover their rationality, whether in the form of technologies to regulate their
gambling practice (e.g. timers, self-exclusion) or treatments to respond to their condition.
Conceiving problem gamblers as vulnerable individuals also opens up worrying potentials of
using psychological and neurological techniques as a means of screening these individuals
and intervening at an early stage of their descent into pathological gambling behaviour. Such
interventions entail determinate actions (actions with real world effects) that are focused on
individuals in response to what are probabilistic outcomes. Following Conrad & Schneider
(1980), and more recently in relation to an emerging logic for the conduct of conduct as being
to ‘screen and intervene’ Rose (2010, p. 97), we write of ‘worrying potentials’ here for a
couple of reasons. Whilst the innate hope associated with such techniques is that they could 1 The authors argue that the best way to understand the phenomenon of
irrational consumption, exemplified by disordered and addictive gambling, is with a
hybrid picoeconomic-neuroeconomic model. Pathological gambling is characterised
here as a true addiction involving physiological disruption in the balance of the
midbrain dopamine and frontal serotonergic systems but (contra substance addiction)
without the ingestion of a chemical agent.
8
allow for intervention to prevent damage to individuals or wider society, here
‘medicalisation’ can also be conceived as a form of social control, the focus being ‘fixing’ the
person rather than looking at the social system in which the behaviour is embedded. There is
also an innate anxiety around the regulation of behaviour through an increase in preventative
interventions in the name of public protection.
A range of biological, psychological and social risk factors have been identified that
may promote the development and maintenance of gambling related problems, particularly
pathological gambling behaviour (e.g. see Welte et al., 2004a; Fong 2005). Such risk factors
play out in the context of contemporary socio-economic relations and associated asymmetries
of power in liberal societies, and may work in concert to create vulnerabilities in certain
demographic groups. A number of groups of people have therefore been identified as
particularly vulnerable to developing unsustainable forms of gambling behaviour. These
include-those of a lower socio-economic status, minority and immigrant populations,
adolescents, elderly, those with co-morbid psychiatric or substance abuse problems (see Fong
2005, for an overview) and deficits in impulse control and executive functioning (Michalczuk
et al 2011; Ledgerwood et al 2012). There are also differential susceptibilities between the
genders (see Volberg, 2003; Volberg & Wray, 2007). This latter work has drawn attention to
the different experiences of problem gambling between men and women, as well as their
differing motivations for engaging in gambling practices in the first place (Potenza et al.,
2001; Griffiths, 2003).
When these factors are viewed together, there is a perception that the gambling
industry targets individuals who may be vulnerable to developing gambling related problems
and, as we discuss in the following section, the communities within which they live. This
perception has led some to maintain that there is a political and racial economy of gambling
9
that transfers resources vulnerable individuals and communities to sites of centralised ‘white’
power (Young et al 2011).
While much has been written in an academic context – at least implicitly – about the
notion of vulnerability, it is evident that the policy literature on the problem gambler as a
vulnerable citizen is, at best contradictory and at worst, non-existent. We want to highlight
three themes that arise when viewing this literature as a whole. First, and perhaps
surprisingly for the readers of this chapter, much of the policy literature undermines the
notion that there is such a thing as a vulnerable individual that is susceptible to problem
gambling practices. The report prepared by the Gambling Review Body in 2001 (the ‘Budd
Report’), for instance, presented a model of the gambler as essentially rational, engaged in an
activity in which ‘punters’ know there is a high probability they will lose (DCMS, 2001, p. 3;
see also DCMS, 2002) and who therefore choose to lose as a form of leisure entertainment.
Furthermore, the gambling industry and libertarians point out that the percentage of the UK
population, as evidenced from the British Gambling Prevalence Surveys (BGPS), that can be
described as problem gamblers has been relatively constant since 1999, despite the increased
gambling opportunities that become available over that period. An argument is thus made
that a proportion of the population is inherently predisposed to problem gambling but the vast
majority are not and, as such, restricting the freedoms of the majority to protect a minority is
antithetical to freedom itself. The Budd Report (DCMS, 2001, p. 4), for instance, makes
reference to the figure of the problem gambler as follows: “some individuals become
obsessed by gambling to the point at which they cease to function as normal members of
society and may do great harm not only to themselves but also to their families and possibly
to the general public”. The upshot of such an argument is that the problem gambler becomes
something that is marginal to the operation of a ‘socially responsible’ industry and a leisure
pursuit enjoyed by the majority. Problem gambling, in this scenario, almost disappears from
10
policy view since it only applies to a small minority of misguided and irrational individuals.
It is almost as if the policy literature views problem gamblers – and those individuals who are
vulnerable to becoming problem gamblers – as individuals who lie beyond the policy pale.
Second, and perhaps paradoxically, policy guidance and legislation seeks to define
those individuals that are vulnerable to becoming problem gamblers; but it does so in highly
limited and, to a large extent, ill-defined ways. These two aspects of the policy debate about
vulnerability and gambling are encapsulated in the fact that section 1(c) of the Gambling Act
2005 seeks to protect “children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited
by gambling”. Echoing in many ways Mills’ (1859) exhortation that the state should
interfere legitimately only in the lives of children and other vulnerable adults, this third
objective of the Gambling Act patently fails to define ‘vulnerable persons’. This may reflect
the legal complexity of defining a condition of vulnerability but the vague phrase ‘vulnerable
person’ has resulted in a primary focus, by the Commission, government and advisory bodies,
on children and young people (age verification) and (limited) measures to protect those
already demonstrating behaviour that may indicate problem gambling.
Whilst the industry regulator, the Gambling Commission, also does not define ‘vulnerable
persons’, it does go beyond the legislative text and for regulatory purposes sets out the
assumption that this group “includes people who gamble more than they want to; people who
gamble beyond their means; and people who may not be able to make informed or balanced
decisions about gambling due to mental health needs, learning disability or substance misuse
relating to alcohol or drugs” (Gambling Commission, 2012, para 5.22). In practice the
application of such guidance in situ is problematic, reliant primarily on self-presentation or an
assessment by staff of the mental state of a user of the premises. Accepting the complexity of
trying to meaningfully define the vulnerable in legal terms the prevailing discourse places
primary responsibility with the vulnerable person, with the gambling industry responsible (to
11
the best of their ability) for protecting the problem gambler only once they are exposed or
present themselves.
Third, it is clear that the policy literature on gambling presents a tautological vision of
the subject that is vulnerable to problem gambling. To put it bluntly, in political terms – and
those of the gambling industry itself – the subject that is susceptible to problem gambling is
the problem gambler themselves. The vulnerable ‘other’, in other words, has been
discursively produced as the problem gambler, a person by definition who is vulnerable to,
exploitable and potentially harmed by gambling. Thinking about vulnerability to gambling in
such a limited way means that the only real methods of responding are a series of technical
solutions that centre around the attempt to manipulate the gamblers decision-making
processes (see Jones et al., 2011a; 2011b; Whitehead et al 2011). Through the enforcement
of new codes of practice for licensed gaming locations, the government now requires that
businesses enable the irrational tendencies of the gambler to be coupled with technologies of
rationalisation. Such technologies include spending monitors and reality-check facilities,
which are specifically designed to counteract the emotional flow of gambling decision-
making processes. Perhaps the most significant aspect of the ‘Licence conditions and codes
of practice’ (Gambling Commission, 2008) 2 implemented as part of the 2005 Gambling Act
was the self-exclusion option. Self-exclusion works by separating out (in both time and
space) the rational choice not to gamble from the less-than-rational impulse that may take
hold when confronted by gambling establishments. Once the decision not to gamble has been
made, it is expected that gambling establishments will enforce these self-imposed restrictions,
with the assistance of the police if necessary (ibid, p. 32 (revised 2011 & 2012)).
Yet patently the problem gambler, by whatever form of categorisation adopted, is not
vulnerable to gambling as a future practice; they are already exploited and harmed by it. In
2 ‘Licence conditions and codes of practice’ are kept under review by the Gambling Commission. They were consolidated as LCCP 11/02 in 2012.
12
defining vulnerability in such a way, the state and the gambling industry absolves in any
meaningful way any responsibility for either considering the exposure of vulnerable
individuals, (however defined), to gambling opportunities, the sensitivity of such individuals
to the temptations of gambling, or the resilience that vulnerable individuals exhibit coping
with or withstanding these temptations (cf. Turner II et al., 2003). Instead, the state’s and the
gambling industry’s focus of attention lies on those individuals – problem gamblers – that
have failed on all counts in their attempts to deal with the varied temptations associated with
gambling. This seems to us to be a severely limited – and limiting – way of conceptualising
vulnerability with regard to problem gambling.
4. Gambling and vulnerable communities
4.1 Socio-economics of accessibility and ubiquity
As well as thinking about how vulnerability is understood socially – or in other
words, constructed in relation to the notion of the problem gambler – there is also a need to
examine the way in which certain communities or spaces influence gambling practices.
Much recent research has explored the way in which the increasing significance of internet
gambling creates new kinds of geographical questions about the location of gambling.
Wilson (2003), for instance, has examined the economic geography of internet gambling,
focusing specifically on how the internet and now mobile telecommunications are changing
the accessibility and availability of gambling opportunities yet they remain embedded in
place-based regulatory, fiscal and technical regimes. So for example off-shore gambling
websites may, for legal and financial reasons, be located in the Caribbean yet present
themselves at point of sale as based just down the road from the consumer.
13
Indeed the online realm destabilises notions of what gambling actually is. The rise of
‘social gaming’ has meant that not only is ‘real gambling’ for money now more available in
more places – the development of mobile applications to enable sports betting and mobile
casino gaming on the move makes it available in all places at all times – but increasingly
people can play risk free ‘simulated gambling’ games at any age. ‘Social gaming’ on
websites like Facebook tap into the demand for simulated gambling with games such as
Zynga Poker, Roulette Madness, online ‘slots’ machines and scratchcards all prominently
promoted. These are games people with an account can play for free in a limited manner or
use their credit card to purchase additional ‘Facebook credits’. In these games you are not
playing to win money as such but to win more credits or to progress in the game. Features of
these games mirror those of gambling games (rapid play, illusion of control, playing as the
end in itself, schedules of reinforcement, visual and aural stimuli, perception of skill)
combined with innovative narrative progression and social networking elements. The
boundary between such simulated gambling and real gambling games is increasingly blurred
and under-researched (see Griffiths et al., 2009; King et al., 2009; Griffiths & Park, 2010).
The potential for monetizing the social gaming experience has become so tempting that
Facebook amended its policy in 2012 to allow real money gambling, partnering up with
Paddy Power in 2013 to trail real money sport-betting for the first time.
Yet while remote gambling is one of the fastest growing forms of gambling – the
Remote Gaming Association estimate worldwide online gross gaming revenues at US$30
billion in 2010 (Ernst & Young 2011) – it is dwarfed by revenues from gambling in physical
locations dedicated to the sale of gambling products such as betting shops and casinos (gross
global gaming revenues were estimated at US$358 billion for 2008 (ibid)). In a very material
sense gambling, in many cases, remains a practice that is rooted in particular communities
14
that are geographically defined. It is these kinds of themes that we want to focus on in
remaining paragraphs of this section.
Despite protestations to the contrary by the gambling industry, it is patently clear that
in many of the jurisdictions that have liberalised gambling regulation there is significant
clustering of gambling establishments providing access to new gambling technologies, in
particular Electronic Gaming Machines (EGMs) – called generically Fixed Odds Betting
Terminals (FOBTs) in the UK, Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs) in Canada. EGMs in
different contexts and jurisdictions are associated with higher rates of problem gambling
(Griffiths 2009; Productivity Commission, 2010; Young & Stevens, 2009) and are the subject
of our case study below. While we are cautious of reading across analysis from one socio-
cultural context to others (for example, in the use of screening instruments to assess and
compare rates of problem gambling amongst populations, e.g. see Svetieva & Walker, 2008;
Volberg & Wray, 2007), research in Western jurisdictions seems to reveal some consistent
relationships between the spread of EGMs and problem gambling. Research in New Zealand
and Australia, in particular, has shown how there is a close correlation between the location
of high levels of problem gamblers and gambling opportunities. More specifically there is
also a positive relationship between the socioeconomic status of neighbourhoods, the density
of gambling sites or gambling opportunities located in those neighbourhoods and levels of
expenditure (see Doughney, 2006; Gilliland & Ross, 2005; Livingstone, 2001; Marshall,
2005; Pearce et al., 2008; Welte et al., 2004b). The only UK study to map gambling machine
location with socio-economic and socio-spatial measures found a positive correlation
between machine density and areas of lower income, economic activity and employment
status (NatCen, 2011). However, this was a first stage study looking at all gaming machines
and was not able to look at different machine categories, such as the politically sensitive B2
FOBTs.
15
Research by Livingstone et al., provides findings “consistent with other studies, that
poker machine losses tend to be higher in communities with lower incomes. At the CED
[Commonwealth Electoral Divisions] level, those communities with lower incomes also tend
to have higher numbers of poker machines, a factor that is also associated with higher
average losses” (2012, p. 4; see also Wheeler et al., 2006; Marshall & Baker, 2001).
Countering the gambling industry’s claims that the industry provides a community benefit, in
relation to employment and investment in the community, Livingstone et al. (2012, p. 4)
further maintain that ‘the actual level of community support provided by poker machine
operators, and documented by their official reports to regulators, is miniscule in comparison
to the amount of money lost by poker machine users within local communities’ (p. 4). It is in
these contexts that certain authors have argued for the existence of a political economy of
gambling, in which the gambling industry can be accused of siphoning resources from
disadvantaged communities to centres of financial and political power (see Young et al.,
2011).
The gambling industry’s response to such accusations is that they are merely catering
to the demands of gamblers. The relatively successful move to reinvent gambling as a simple
leisure pursuit, rebranded ‘gaming’, and its increasing visibility and ubiquity in the material
and virtual places people dwell, have in part been aided by the shift to a medicalised
discourse in the context of a broader responsibilisation and neoliberal (freedom manifest
through market choice) political discourse. Argument founded on explicit moral norms is
presented as antithetical to freedom in these terms, its refutation disingenuously but implicitly
presenting gambling liberalisation as a morally neutral, objective, position. Argument
founded on associations and relationships between social problems and social practices is
challenged by industry representatives as not being sufficiently ‘evidence based’ or
categorical to justify any pause or derailing of on-going government liberalisation programs.
16
It is hard to demonstrate categorically lines of causality in this respect, but many
studies now argue that increased accessibility to gambling opportunities does not merely cater
for but creates a demand for gambling. Pearce et al (2008), working in New Zealand, found
that residents living in neighbourhoods with the closest access to gambling opportunities
were more likely – even when adjusted for age, sex, socio-economic status at the individual-
level and deprivation, urban/rural status at the neighbourhood-level – to be a gambler or
problem gambler. Storrer et al. (2009), in their meta-analysis studying the accessibility and
availability of gambling opportunities in Australia and New Zealand, demonstrate that there
is a statistically meaningful relationship between increasing per capita density of EGMs and
the prevalence of problem gambling and gambling related harms (see also Marshall, 2005,
2009; Thomas et al., 2011; and in US/Canadian contexts, Welte et al., 2004b; Cox et al.,
2005; Rush et al., 2007). Significantly, Storrer et al. (2009) found no evidence to support the
hypothesis that the number of problem gamblers would plateau or level off as density of
EGMs increased. This finding, whilst controversial, seems to undermine industry and
libertarian arguments that locate problem gambling as inherent to the individual such that a
given community has a fixed number of individuals susceptible to developing problem
gambling irrespective of the accessibility and availability of gambling opportunities within
the community.
Whilst exposure to gambling opportunities and the development of gambling related
problems are clearly related, the relationship is complex. Correlation does not imply
causation and in the case of gambling understanding the complex web, and relations between,
an array of factors that influence gambling behaviours in particular sites is not reducible to a
simple question of density and demographics. The concentration of gambling locations, their
size and numbers, the types of gambling product offered, accessibility (opening hours, ease of
access), sociocultural acceptability (see McMillan & Doran, 2006; and Thomas et al., 2011)
17
and the socioeconomic characteristics of host and user communities are all identified as
external determinants that influence gambling behaviour (Marshall, 2005). Throw in
considerations of the physical environment, inclusive of infrastructure (urban and residential
development, transport routes, community facilities), path dependencies and historical
legacies (existing gambling sites, past economic activities, regulatory regime, local class
structures) and the idiosyncrasies of ‘place’ more generally, and that complexity is multiplied
many times.
Consequently one size fits all explanations of problem gambling and gambling related
harm as a consequence of simple exposure are problematic, not just between countries but
within them. This sensitivity to local context is reflected in more place-based attempts to
understand how gambling and communities interact in particular localities. The remaining
sections of this chapter explore some of these interactions with reference to the politicisation
of the location of betting shops on the UK high street.
4.2 Betting on the bookies
Betting shops are a small but increasingly significant player in the UK high street and
wider economy. Occupying 9,000 retail sites, they provide 55,000 jobs and generate lots of
money for the gambling industry and government exchequer. For 2010, the gross gambling
yield (GGY) for the betting shop industry was £2.8 billion (Gambling Commission, 2011b).
Nearly two thirds of these shops are owned by three companies: William Hill, Ladbrokes and
Gala Coral. And nearly half of their income now comes from a category of EGM called the
B2 FOBT.
Whilst the number of betting shops has remained relatively stable, the number of
machines they host has increased substantially, doubling between 2006 and 2011 to 32,000
FOBTs. Recent shifts in the location of betting shops, particularly in deprived urban
18
environments, is linked by community activists and betting shop corporations themselves to
attempts to increase availability and accessibility of FOBTs. Following the Gambling Act
2005, the location of betting shops, and in particular their role as supplier of these machines
(dubbed pejoratively the ‘crack cocaine of gambling’) has become a major local and national
political issue and formed a focal point for debates about vulnerability and the ‘problem
gambler’.
Betting shops not only report much greater proportions of their profit from these
machines but also the amount of profit each machine generates rising year on year. For
example, Ladbrokes PLC reported a ‘gross win per terminal per week’ of £923 for the first
quarter of 2012, a 24% increase on the previous year (Deutsche Bank, 2012). In part this
reflects a broadening of the customer base, with EGMs attracting a younger demographic
(18-34 year olds). Betting shop corporations are also encouraged to continue maximising
revenues ‘through the use of yield management techniques, which involves the use of
predictive modelling and analysis of player behaviour to help maximize usage and spend’
(ibid, page 13).
Given their reliance on EGMs for continued profitability, it is unsurprising that the
industry has sought to expand this revenue stream by increasing their availability, either in
existing or new premises. Even industry representatives accept that there has been a recent
‘proliferation of betting shops on the high street, […] largely driven by unsatisfied demand
for FOBTs’ (Written Evidence submitted by the Gala Coral Group to the CMS Select
Committee (GA 06), June 2011, para 8.4).
Barely 4% of the public used these machines in 2010 and yet they accounted for 13%
of the UK land based gambling industry’s GGY. A key question is how this growth and profit
has been achieved. In large part the answer seems to be: from the spatial targeting of
vulnerable populations in vulnerable communities. The British Gambling Prevalence Survey
19
(BGPS) reveals that users of EGMs are likely to be young, single and male, more likely than
the national average to be unemployed or a student, with a lower than average personal
income, spending a relatively high amount of time and money playing the machines and have
approximately a nine percent chance of meeting criteria for being a problem gambler (BGPS
2010). The number of problem gamblers is estimated by the BPGS at somewhere around
360,000 and 451,000 adults depending on which screen is used. In other words, this is about
the same number of people as live in the city of Leicester or Leeds. Evidence from Australia
and other countries that liberalised the regulation of EGMs earlier and to a greater extent than
the UK suggests that the distribution of EGMs and their concentration in areas and venues is
largely responsible for the different problem gambling rates observed within a region (Reith,
2006; Marshall & Baker, 2005; Young et al., 2006).
The combination of gambling establishments and the socio-economic characteristics
of communities gives rise to the emergence of what might be termed ‘debtogenic landscapes’.
Two levels of vulnerability can be identified here. In one respect, particular kinds of
community are vulnerable in terms of the particular socio-economic and cultural mix of
people that live within them. The vulnerability of such communities is heightened in a
second way by the way in which the gambling industry saturates them with different kinds of
opportunity for gambling. In this context – and echoing the points made in the previous
section – an almost tautological argument emerges in which those communities that are
vulnerable to problem gambling are precisely those communities in which there are plentiful
opportunities to engage in gambling.
It is evident that such issues are beginning to exercise the minds of politicians and the
public alike in the UK as gambling establishments begin to cluster in particular areas of
towns and cities. The following sub-section discusses the current debates surrounding the
20
clustering of betting shops in the context of the construction of more broadly ‘debtogenic
landscapes’ in certain areas of London.
4.3 Debtogenic Landscapes
Proximity and the embedding of gambling as a normalised behaviour within
neighbourhoods is seen as a key element of the development and management of gambling
related problems over time (Reith & Dobbie, 2011; Valentine & Hughes, 2008). It is clear
that gambling opportunities have been increasingly embedded within particular urban spaces
in the UK over the past few years.
Much of the furore and hyperbole surrounding the passing of the Gambling Act
related to the promotion of destination gambling at mega-casinos as a means of economic
regeneration of deprived areas. This seems to have somewhat misdirected attention away
from the wider social impact of liberalisation. The Act was presented by New Labour as a
classic ‘third-way’ solution, simultaneously harnessing the engine of economic liberalism for
social benefit, (through economic stimulus and revenue potential), whilst protecting the
public from social harms associated with gambling (notably through measures to protect
children and undefined ‘vulnerable’ adults). Perversely one of the outcomes of the Act is the
appearance of clear targeting of poor, working-class communities by a gaming industry
actively contributing to the production of debtogenic urban landscapes, with gambling related
harm the inevitable social consequence.
Where the Gambling Act 1960 begrudgingly recognised the existence of an extensive,
yet illegal, gambling market and sanctioned the opening of betting shops, the stigma
associated with them meant that they tended to be located in off-high street locations, in
places of little visibility. In the 1980s, with the advent of live television coverage in betting
shops and the growing political and economic influence of gambling corporations, the
21
industry consolidated into a few dominant corporate entities and betting shops began to
relocate to more prominent retail locations in order to broaden the socio-economic appeal of
the industry. Since the 2005 Gambling Act, the trajectory of changing locational patterns of
betting shops in the UK (see Jones et al., 1994; 2000) has accelerated leading to the
colonisation of the high street by gambling establishments in ever greater numbers,
particularly those high streets located in relatively deprived areas.
Under the current planning and licensing system, betting companies find themselves
one of many choice architects in the design of the debtogenic urban landscape, most notably
in economically disadvantaged areas. The 2005 Gambling Act makes provision that
licensing authorities should ‘aim to permit’ the use of premises for gambling unless it is
thought that such premises would endanger vulnerable persons or promote crime and
disorder, without need for an assessment of the levels of demand for such a development, and
provided that assistance is made available to those who could experience problems by being
exposed to new gambling opportunities (Gambling Act 2005: section 24; section 153). The
removal of the notion of ‘unstimulated demand’ was a particularly radical shift. As a result,
local licensing agencies did not possess the wherewithal to restrict the opening of new
gambling establishments, even when public opinion within the locality was strongly voiced
against such establishments.
Compounding the impotence of the local community and its regulatory capabilities, a
quirk of Town and Country Planning (Use Classes Order, 1987) allows changes of use
between premises of the same class. Betting shops are in these terms equivalent to banks,
estate and employment agencies, and financial service companies and therefore can be
occupied without planning permission. Additionally premises such as cafes, restaurants and
pubs can also become betting shops without permission for change of use. It is primarily
through taking over such premises as they become vacant that betting shops have been able to
22
occupy such a prominent position on the high street, leading to the perception of the, almost
epidemiologically described, ‘clustering’ of betting shops.
Access to money is central to the activity of gambling. Increasing demands for credit
is seen by treatment providers, clinicians and gambling operators as a classic symptom of a
gambling problem. As a problem gambler we interviewed put it, ‘the gambler will look for
any form of money with which to feed their habit. So obviously credit is a good way of
feeding habit […]; the role of credit for me really has been as an enabler to gambling’
(Source: Interview, recovering gambler, male, late 30s). The creation of debtogenic
landscapes has been further fuelled by the growth in opportunities for obtaining credit within
particular urban spaces. According to a Local Data Company report (“Pawn is Reborn”),
between 2008 and 2010 the number of pawnbrokers increased by 44% (Source: Retail
Gazette, 1st November 2010).
The problem in many cases, moreover, is the co-location of gambling opportunities
and credit facilities. For example, on Deptford High Street between numbers 14 and 70 you
will find five betting shops. Sandwiched between them you will also find four pawnbrokers3.
Tour Tottenham and along with ATMs, pawn brokers, cash converters, and high interest loan
‘money shops’, the ever present ‘money transfer’ facilities common in places with significant
immigrant and transient populations are accompanied by the words ‘cheques cashed here’
and ‘payday loans’. The co-location of gambling opportunities and credit facilities takes
place at an even smaller scale than this. In the UK, gambling on credit is not illegal, contrary
to the US, for example, where it is illegal to use a credit card to fund online gambling).
Betting shops and casinos can offer clients a credit facility if they want to. Whilst EGMs in
betting shops do not accept credit or bank cards, they may conveniently provide ATM
machines.
3 Source: Crosswhatfields.blogspot.com, September 14th, 2011
23
Loopholes in the licensing and planning laws, therefore, have led to the creation of
particular choice environments in many urban neighbourhoods, in which gambling has been
normalised in both social and spatial contexts. This situation has been further exacerbated by
the proliferation of credit facilities within such environments. It is in these contexts that the
gaming industry contributes to the creation of debtogenic landscapes - places designed to
encourage us to spend beyond our means. The creation of such landscapes has, not
surprisingly, led to considerable consternation within these neighbourhoods and it is to these
contestations that we turn in the following sub-section.
4.4 Battling the bookies – Tottenham tales
Recent debates over the impact of the deregulation have generated a vigorous
campaign to limit the migration of betting shops onto the high street. Betting establishments
are presented as attracting anti-social behaviour, reducing the attractiveness of the high street,
exploiting the poor and vulnerable, siphoning money from the locality, normalising through
exposure gambling amongst passers-by – specifically children – and of creating an
environment in which the community has to accommodate a growing number of people with
gambling related problems. Local community activists, faith groups, and numerous local and
national government representatives have sought to interpret different aspects of the law or
introduce new legislation in such a way that the “blight” of betting shops on Britain’s high
streets (see the Coalition government commissioned, Portas Review 2011, page 29) can be
controlled.
Tottenham High Road, with fifteen betting shops along or within 500 metres of its
length, has become something of a totemic site in the battle of the high streets. The
Tottenham constituency hosts 39 of the 65 shops found in the Haringey Borough of London.
(see Figure 2). That the bookies of Tottenham function as leisure sites, as places for
24
entertainment, social interaction and banter is obvious. Yet community concern about the
proliferation of betting shops and more particularly FOBTs within the community has been
particularly vociferous here, a regular feature of local news media reports, council meeting
agenda, community fora, and an active campaigning issue for local MP David Lammy.
Given the presumed consent surrounding the awarding of licenses to high street
betting establishments, it should come as little surprise that Haringey has witnessed a
congregation of betting establishments within its constituency. Councils, local residents,
GP’s, the Director of Public Health and local police officers have argued during the licensing
process of links to crime and risk to children and vulnerable people, but both are hard to
prove empirically in relation to an individual application for license and as such subject to
challenge in the courts. Such appeals have consistently gone against those individuals and
groups contesting the actions of the gambling industry.
Opposition to the opening of new betting shops mostly focuses around social harm
associated with them. Many residents are concerned over crime and anti-social behaviour in
the vicinity of betting shops, a worry seemingly borne out by representatives of betting shop
staff themselves. ‘Community’, the betting shop workers union, reported in 2009 a ‘massive
explosion of reported anti-social behaviour’ in and around betting shops, up 65% between
2005 and 2008 (Community, 2009). Many opponents report on a detrimental change in the
feel and appearance of the high street as a public space, particularly with the loss of local
landmarks (post-offices, pubs, banks, restaurants) that convert to betting shops. Thousands of
residents have signed petitions against further betting shops in their community, local traders
associations have opposed licensing and planning applications fearing both an effect on local
rents, the social mix of customers, and rise in crime. And, unsurprisingly, active campaigning
at local and national levels has been led by faith groups based in communities affected. There
is an obvious moral tone to these discussions. Any hint of moralising is criticized by
25
representatives of the betting shop industry, seemingly believing their industry, the market
philosophy it promotes and debate about its practices are somehow outside of or shorn of
moral imperative.
Community representatives in Tottenham point to a number of features of the area
that suggest heightened vulnerability in the community: extensive mental health care
facilities (St Ann’s Hospital), vulnerable adults living in care in the community, and an
unusually high number of Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) with large numbers of
poor quality small units. These are often found to be homes of young single men, with many
of them vulnerable adults: recent migrants, asylum seekers, and those who lack the means to
live anywhere else (Written Evidence by the Ladder Community Safety Partnership to the
CMS Select Committee (GA 08), July 2011).
As one resident of Tottenham said in his submission to the 2011-2012 UK Parliament
Culture, Media and Sport Committee (CMS) Inquiry into the implementation of Gambling
Act4, there should be ‘wealth [sic]warnings on the outside of betting shops […]; all
promotion on the outside of betting shop is about winning and nothing about losing. And yet
overall, gamblers lose. […] These modestly-sized machines [EGMs] are the fastest legal way
of transferring money out of poor communities’ (Written Evidence by Clive Carter to the
CMS Select Committee (GA 18 ), July 2011). The location of betting shops and Adult
Gaming Centres for campaigners such as the above is seen as inherently an issue of
protecting the vulnerable within particular communities.
As well as being an issue that has exercised the minds of local campaigners, it is clear
that the location of betting shops and the FOBTs they contain became keenly contested in
formal political circles. Local MP David Lammy, for instance, says that in his eleven years
as representative for Tottenham ‘by far and away the local issue I have received the largest
4 in July 2012 the Committee published the first report of its inquiry into the Gambling Act 2005 as “The Gambling Act 2005: A bet worth taking?”. Copies of written and oral evidence given to the Committee inquiry were included in the report.
26
amount of representation on is the clustering of betting shops’ (Written Evidence to the CMS
Select Committee (GA 47), July 2011). His opinion – one consistently reflected in the words
of many other activists and local representatives – is that the ‘gambling industry is targeting
deprived areas, saturating them with more outlets’ (Evening Standard, 25th February 2010).
It is a process described by his colleague Harriet Harman MP, in her report to the House of
Commons, as ‘predatory profiteering’ (Harman, 2011, p. 4). What we witness in statements
such as the above is an attempt to illustrate the insidious connections forged by a ‘predatory’
gambling industry between gambling and vulnerable groups of people located within
particularly vulnerable neighbourhoods.
However, Tottenham is illustrative, not exceptional. Where Tottenham High Road is
home to a number of betting shops, so are many other urban thoroughfares; for example,
Newham High Street has 18, Deptford High Street has eight, Luton High Street has eight, and
so on. Echoing the point made in the previous paragraph, activists point to the lack of similar
clustering and migration into wealthier neighbourhoods. They say there is a clear targeting of
betting shops ‘in the poorer areas of the borough [of Haringey] and those with a known
demographic which is more likely to gamble’ (Written Evidence by the Ladder Community
Safety Partnership to the CMS Select Committee (GA 08), July 2011). As a result, the sixty
six betting shops in the borough are clustered in much higher numbers (85%) in the poorer
wards than in the wealthier ones (like Muswell Hill and Highgate). Similarly Hackney
Council, which hosts 64 betting shops in the borough, finds that ‘a mapping of the location of
these shops reveals that they cluster in the poorer areas of the borough’ (Hackney Council
2009).
27
Figure 1 – Betting Shops in Haringey
Local residents and campaigners point to examples of clustering in economically
disadvantaged areas such as Hackney and Haringey. Islington hosts 82 betting shops, Ealing
87, Southwark 77, and Westminster 63. However, the issue is not restricted to inner city
London. Other urban authorities (such as Bradford, Liverpool and Middlesborough) have
found themselves under fire from community and trade representatives for not limiting the
proliferation of betting shops. And smaller towns have likewise faced the same concerns.
Councils in Paignton (Devon), Long Eaton (Nottinghamshire) and Bridgewater (Somerset),
all had their attempts to constrain betting shops from opening in their high street overthrown
on appeal.
28
The issue has become so contentious that in 2011 the Local Government Association
(LGA) called for more powers for local governments to limit the number of betting shops.
David Parsons, speaking for the LGA said ‘we are seeing a reckless gamble with our high
streets which is contributing to higher policing and health costs, in addition to reducing the
quality of life for local residents’ and called for a change in the law, claiming that high
numbers of betting shops result in ‘crime, disorder and misery for local people’ (‘Councils
fight against 'betting shop blight’, The Telegraph, 8th November 2011).
Notable in these discourses is that the problem gambler is a given – an inevitable
outcome of greater opportunities to gamble. Campaigns focus more on the injustice of
targeting vulnerable people in vulnerable communities in this way as well as the lack of
power for local communities to determine the look, feel and function of their high streets (e.g.
see the ‘High Streets First’ campaign). This latter dimension is particularly evident in the
rhetoric of politicians of all parties supporting attempts to introduce new legislation on the
issue. For example, in the 2012 London Mayoral election, all candidates supported a change
in the law. Since 2009, there have been three attempts to introduce legislation in Parliament
on the issue. In 2009, Hackney Borough Council used the Sustainable Communities Act to
apply to the government for stronger powers to control the concentration of betting shops; in
2011, David Lammy tried to introduce an amendment to the Localism Bill and, when that
failed, Joan Ruddock MP introduced the Betting Shops Bill as Private Members Bill. While
all three attempts failed, they testified to a widespread view among activists and politicians
alike that the gambling industry has been seeking to develop, since 2005, a pernicious but
highly profitable connection between gambling and vulnerable individuals and communities.
4.5 The industry response
29
The gambling industry and its advocates deny any targeting of vulnerable
communities. According to them, the perception of clustering is just that: a perception. In
reality, the number of betting shops is stable, their profitability marginal and facilitated by
shifts in consumption patterns from sports betting to EGMs. The relocation of a few of these
from less profitable locations has made them more visible but the economic benefits they
bring to communities means they are a boon to the high street, not a drain on community
resources. The driver for relocation is incomplete deregulation and the effects on the
community are unproven. As Dirk Vennix, Chief Executive of the Association of British
Bookmakers said: ‘If we look at the evidence, and this has been endorsed by the
[government] Minister […], there is no clear link between problem gambling and electronic
gaming machines, or FOBTs as they are being called.’ (Dirk Vennix, Chief Executive,
Association of British Bookmakers, CMS Gambling Act inquiry – Uncorrected Transcript of
Oral Evidence (HC 1554-i), 18th October 2011).
A further illustration of the argument is provided by Conservative MP Philip Davies’s
views. As a member of the 2011-12 House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport select
committee inquiry into gambling and also as an ex-bookmaker, he articulated in Parliament a
classic libertarian rationale arguing that the arbitrary restriction of B2 FOBTs to four per
betting shop results in localities where demand for the product is not met. Clustering is
therefore merely an artefact of an industry responding to market demand for FOBTs in
particular locations. The solution to the clustering of betting shops posited using this
argument is to increase the number of machines allowed in each shop. Indeed in the
subsequent Committee Report the members recommended giving local authorities the power
to “allow betting shops to have more than the current limit of four B2 [FOBT] machines per
premises if they believe that it will help to deal with the issue of clustering” (DCMS 2012,
para 66).5 5 Further the Committee recommend this limit of four become a minimum rather than maximum.
30
The Committee completed its first report in 2012. This coincided with three
developments that have changed the nature of the discourse somewhat. First, concerted
campaigning by newly established and organised groups such as the Campaign for Fairer
Gambling, Gambling Reform and Society Perception (GRASP) and Gambling Watch.
Significantly former ‘compulsive gamblers’ [sic] are actively participating in the work of
these organisations. Second, betting shop proliferation has been reframed as a national issue
with local ramifications, notably through local authority and parliamentary attempts to
increase the powers of local government to regulate the number and location of betting shops
in their areas. For example; the national body representing the interests of local authorities in
England and Wales, the Local Government Association (LGA), have made a number of calls
for changes to licencing and planning regulations to provide them with power to limit the
opening of book makers. Most recently they have reframed their argument from the location
to individual betting shops to a more public health framed one that seeks to allow council’s
the right to consider ‘cumulative impact’. Informed by approaches developed in New
Zealand, Australia and the United States of America they advocate “interventions at a
community and population level” (LGA 2013, p. 10).
Broadly, however, attempts to use existing legislation to prevent relocation of betting
shops have failed at appeal. Attempts to introduce amendments to existing or pass new
legislation in Parliament have similarly failed to secure support of the UK government, citing
the need for evidence based policy. However, combined with the third development, a series
of highly critical pieces in national and local television and print media, the terms of the
debate are being further reframed and politicised. National and regional documentary and
newspaper reports have focused primarily on the FOBTs and the clustering of betting shops
in poorer communities rather than the Gambling Act per se. Such reports have also
emphasised concerns around money laundering, criminality and anti-social behaviour. Whilst
31
the Labour government introduced the mechanism through which FOBTs have proliferated,
in opposition the party has since made the control of FOBTs a campaigning issue, framed
around a localism agenda to give local authorities the power to limit the number of FOBTs in
their area.6
What is striking about these debates is the position of the ‘problem gambler’ in the
discourses of different actors seeking to influence future regulation of the gambling industry
in the UK. Residents and community activists deploy the problem gambler as a category of
person subject to temptation, victim of the predatory tactics of a gambling industry that
targets the vulnerable in places that are more likely to host such people. The gambling
industry presents its activities in terms of simple supply and demand, the supply of which
afflicts a few unfortunate individuals with an inability to regulate what for the vast majority
of people is a trivial leisure pursuit.
As a rhetorical device, the focus on the problem gambler has been quite successful in
placing the onus on the community or academic or politician to provide evidence to
demonstrate that harm is caused, rather than that no harm is caused, by the different activities
of the industry. This is a rather perverse situation in a political culture that is supposed to
operate on the ‘precautionary principle’ – namely that the burden of proof for decision
making lies with the hazard creator, not the potential victims.
5. Conclusions
It is clear from the above case study of debtogenic landscapes in north London that
there is a need to consider the connection between problem gambling and social and spatial
vulnerability. Part of the significance of the emergence of these kinds of landscapes – at least
according to the campaigners that have aligned themselves against such developments – is
6 Most recently in January 2014 Labour were defeated in the UK Parliament on a motion to give local authorities control over FOBTs.
32
that they help to further normalise gambling within particular vulnerable groups and within
particular kinds of community. While those associated with the gambling may contest the
significance of such ideas, it is clear from the evidence amassed in this chapter that there
exists a pernicious connection between the gambling industry and particular groups of people
located in particular kinds of community. It comes as no surprise that gambling has been
found to represent a social and spatial extraction of surplus value from those that are least
able to afford it (Livingstone et al., 2012).
In discussing the significance of social and spatial vulnerability for the idea of
problem gambling, we have perhaps been guilty of separating them out into somewhat
discreet categories. And yet, as the case study of Tottenham showed, there is a close
connection between these two vectors of vulnerability; we need to think about socio-spatial
vulnerability and the way in which it is connected to problem gambling. Such ideas echo the
work of Reith and Dobbie (2011), who maintain that both geography and social relations
matter when seeking to explain emergence and social reproduction of (problem) gambling in
places. For these authors, when gambling begins and where it takes place feeds into its
development as a problem among adults. Moreover, they advocate a focus on individuals’
and groups’ experiences of gambling or, in other words, how gambling and gambling
problems are lived. The ‘place’ of gambling, thus, is important: extending beyond mere
accessibility to the social relations embedded in the places where gambling is encountered.
We contend that the twin notions of the vulnerable gambler and vulnerable
communities – which we have promoted in this chapter – also help to highlight how problem
gambling is played out through social relations that are embedded within particular places.
What we perceive in the context of the problem gambler – at least in the context of locations
such as Tottenham – is a peculiar concatenation of social and spatial factors that make certain
individuals and groups far more likely to engage in problematic levels of gambling. More
33
broadly, when grappling with the close connection that exists between social-spatial
vulnerability and problem gambling, one appreciates full well that problem gambling does
not come about because of the inability of a few unfortunate individuals to regulate
themselves, as the gambling industry maintains. Instead of abstracting the category of the
‘problem gambler’ from the broader society, we need to determine how practices of problem
gambling are enabled by the targeting of ‘vulnerable communities’/‘buoyant markets’ by the
gambling industry. Doing so, we maintain, can help to further a public health or societal
interpretation of the nature and impact of problem gambling.
The gambling industry has been highly successful in prescribing the way in which
gambling is discussed in terms of the problem gambler rather than public health or societal
discourses that emphasise gambling-related harms in a pluralistic sense. Its lobbyists,
political supporters and enablers have deployed a highly effective discursive strategy that
constrains consideration of gambling-related harms to the singular rather than social, to an
abstracted category of the ‘problem gambler’. This strategy also enrolls a carefully
constructed risk discourse that argues that the risk to the population as a whole is small
because only a ‘tiny’ number of people have a problem with their gambling at any one time.
Yet the evidence suggests that problem gambling, to the extent that it can be described, is a
fluid condition which many people recover from over time and many others will move in and
out of phases of uncontrolled gambling over their lifetime. It is also a socio-spatial condition;
the likelihood of a person or community encountering difficulties as a result of gambling
practices being contingent on a complex array of social and place-based factors, factors that
are not easily captured or translated into a political discourse that emphasises the
vulnerability and responsibilities of the individual. As a consequence, a political fetishisation
of the ‘problem gambler’ as a discrete, fixed, category of person unusually susceptible to
developing gambling related problems is perhaps a problem in itself.
34
35
Bibliography
Adams, P.J., Raeburn, J., De Silva, K. (2009). A question of balance: Prioritizing public health responses to harm from gambling. Addiction, 104, 688-91.
Alegria, A.A., Petry, N.M., Hasin, D.S., Liu, S.M., Grant, B.F., & Blanco, C. (2009). Disordered gambling among racial and ethnic groups in the US: results from the national epidemiologic survey on alcohol and related conditions. CNS Spectrums, 14, 132-142.
American Psychiatric Association (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd edn.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
American Psychiatric Association (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 4th edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
American Psychiatric Association (2013). iagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
Bergler, E. (1943). The gambler: A misunderstood neurotic. Journal of Criminal Pathology, 4, 379-393.
Bergler, E. (1957). The psychology of gambling. New York: Hill and Wang.
BGPS (2010). British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2010. Prepared by NatCen for the Gambling Commission by Wardle, H., Moody, A., Spence, S., Orford, J., Volberg, R., Jotangia, D., Griffiths, M., Hussey, D. and F. Dobbie. Retrieved 11 November 2012 from www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/PDF/British%20Gambling%20Prevalence%20Survey%202010.pdf
Blaszczynski, A. & Nower, L. (2002). A pathways model of problem and pathological gambling. Addiction, 97, 487–499.
Bowden-Jones, H., & Clark, L. (2011). Pathological gambling: A neurobiological and clinical update. British Journal of Psychiatry, 199, 87-89.
BPS (2011). The British Psychological Society – Response to the American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 Development, June 2011. Retrieved 10 October 2011 from apps.bps.org.uk/_publicationfiles/consultation-responses/DSM-5%202011%20-%20BPS%20response.pdf
Brown, S., Dickerson, A., McHardy, J. & Taylor, K. (2012). Gambling and credit: An individual and household level analysis for the UK. Applied Economics, 44, 4639-4650.
Burchell, G. (1993). Liberal government and techniques of the self. Economy and Society, 22, 267-282.
Castellani, B. (2000). Pathological gambling: The making of a medical problem. Albany: State University of New York Press.
36
Clarke, J. (2005). New Labour’s citizens: Activated, empowered, responsibilized, abandoned? Critical Social Policy, 25, 447–463.
Community (2009). Stop the abuse of staff. London: Community, the Union for Betting Shop workers. Retrieved 12 March 2012 from www.community-tu.org/information/104365/numbers/
Conrad, P. & Schneider, J.W. (1980). Deviance and medicalization: From badness to sickness (1992 edition with new afterword by the authors). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Cosgrave, J. & Klassen, T. (2001). Gambling against the state: The state and the legitimation of gambling. Current Sociology, 49, 1-15.
Cosgrave, J. & Klassen, T. (2009). Introduction: The shape of legalised gambling in Canada, in Cosgrave, J. & Klassen, T. (Eds.) Casino state: Legalized gambling in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Cox, B. J., Yu, N., Afifi, T., & Ladouceur, R. (2005). A national survey of gambling problems in Canada. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 50, 213–217.
DCMS (2012) The Gambling Act 2005: A bet worth taking? First Report of Session 2012-13, House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee Inquiry into the Gambling Act 2005, HC 421, London: The Stationery Office Limited
Dean, M. (1999). Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society. London: Sage.
Dean, M. (2007). Governing societies. London: Sage.
Deutsche Bank (2012). Global Markets Research: Ladbrokes PLC, 29th February 2012. Retrieved 29 May 2012 from www.scribd.com/doc/89284161/5/More-machine-growth-in-2012
Doran, B., McMillen, J., Marshall, D. (2007). A GIS-based investigation of gaming venue catchments. Transactions in GIS, 11, 245-65.
Doran, B. & Young, M. (2010). Predicting the spatial distribution of gambling vulnerability: An application of gravity modeling using ABS Mesh Blocks. Applied Geography, 30, 141-152.
Doughney, J. (2006). The poker-machine state in Australia: A consideration of ethical and policy issues. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 4, 351-368.
Dyall, L., Tse, S. & Kingi, A. (2009). Cultural icons and marketing of gambling. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 7, 84-96.
Ernst & Young (2011). Market overview: The 2011 global gaming bulletin. Retrieved 12 March 2012 from www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/2011_global_gaming-bulletin/$FILE/2011%20Global%20Gaming%20Bulletin.pdf
37
Fong, T. (2005). The vulnerable faces of pathological gambling. Psychiatry, 2, 34–42.
Foucault, M. (1991). Governmentality. In Burchell, G., Gordon, C. & Miller, P. (Eds.) The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality (pp. 87–104). London: Harvester.
Foucault, M. (2007). Security, territory, population: Lectures at the Collège de France. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Frances, A. (2012) Diagnosing the D.S.M., in The New York Times, May 11, 2012
Gambling Commission (2008). Licence conditions and codes of practice (LCCP), published October 2008.
Gambling Commission (2011a). Licence conditions and codes of practice (consolidated version). Retrieved 10 November 2012 from www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/pdf/LCCP%20consolidated%20version%20-%20December%202011.pdf
Gambling Commission (2011b). Industry statistics April 2008-March 2011. Retrieved 3 March 2012 from www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/pdf/Industry%20statistics%20-%20April%202008%20to%20March%202011.pdf
Gambling Commission (2012) Guidance to licensing authorities, 4th edition, published September 2012.
Gilliland J.A. & Ross, N.A. (2005). Opportunities for video lottery terminal gambling in Montréal: An environmental analysis. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 96, 55-59.
Griffiths, M.D., & Delfabbro, P. (2001). The biopsychosocial approach to gambling: Contextual factors in research and clinical interventions. Journal of Gambling Issues, 5 Griffiths, M. D. (2002).Gambling and gaming addictions in adolescence. Oxford: BPS Blackwell.
Griffiths, M.D. (2003). Fruit machine addiction in females: A case study. Journal of Gambling Issues, 8
Griffiths, M.D. (2005). A ‘components’ model of addiction within a biopsychosocial framework. Journal of Substance Use, 10, 191-197.
Griffiths, M.D. (2009). Problem gambling in Europe: An overview. Nottingham: Nottingham Trent University. Retrieved January 2014 from http://dspace.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/1880/47808/1/Prob_Gamb_Europe_2009.pdf
Griffiths, M.D., Wardle, H., Orford, J., Sproston, K., & Erens, B. (2010). Gambling, alcohol, consumption, cigarette smoking and health: Findings from the 2007 British Gambling Prevalence Survey. Addiction Research & Theory, 18, 208-223.
38
Griffiths M.D. & Parke, J. (2010). Adolescent gambling on the internet: A review. International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, 22, 59-75.
Hackney Council (2009). Chair’s Report to the Scrutiny inquiry on ‘The Concentration of Betting Shops in Hackney’. London: London Borough of Hackney Community Safety & Social Inclusion Scrutiny Commission. Retrieved 11 November 2012 from www.hackney.gov.uk/Assets/Documents/concentration-of-betting-shops-09-10.pdf Harman, H. (2011). The problem of betting shops blighting high streets and communities in low-income areas, prepared by Rt. Hon. Harriet Harman QC MP Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Member of Parliament for Camberwell and Peckham. Retrieved 11 November 2012 from www.harrietharman.org/uploads/d2535bc1-c54e-6114-a910-cce7a3eff966.pdf
van Holst, R.J., van den Brink, W., Veltman, D.J., & Goudriaan, A.E. (2010). Brain imaging studies in pathological gambling. Current Psychiatry Reports,12, 418-425.
Jones, P., Hillier, D., & Turner, D. (1994). Back street to side street to high street: The changing geography of betting shops. Geography, 79, 122-128.
Jones, P., Clarke-Hill, C. M., & Hillier, D. (2000). Viewpoint: Back street to side street to high street to e-street: Sporting betting on the Internet. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 28, 222–227.
Jones, R., Pykett, J., & Whitehead, M. (2011a). Governing temptation: Changing behaviour in an age of libertarian paternalism, Progress in Human Geography, 35, 483-501.
Jones, R., Pykett, J. & Whitehead, M. (2011b). The geographies of soft paternalism in the UK: The rise of the avuncular state and changing behaviour after neoliberalism. Geography Compass, 5, 50–62.
King, D., Delfabbro, P., Griffiths, M. (2009). The convergence of gambling and digital media: implications for gambling in young people, Journal of Gambling Studies, 26, 175-87.
Korn, D., Gibbins, R., & Azmier, J. (2003). Framing public policy towards a public health paradigm for gambling. Journal of Gambling Studies, 19, 235-256.
Ledgerwood D., Orr E., Kaploun K., Milosevic A., Frisch G., Rupcich N., Lundahl L. (2012) Executive function in pathological gamblers and healthy controls. Journal of Gambling Studies, 28, 89-103
Livingstone, C. (2001). The social economy of poker machines: Gambling in Victoria. International Gambling Studies, 1(1), 46-65
Livingstone C., Kipsaina C., & Rintoul A. (2012). Assessment of poker machine expenditure and community benefit claims in selected Commonwealth Electoral Divisions. UnitingCare Australia, Canberra.
LGA (2013) Problem gambling: Frequently-asked questions – briefing for councillors. Local Government Association: London
39
Marshall, D. (1998). Missing the jackpot? The proliferation of gambling in Australia and its effect on local communities. Australian Geographical Studies, 36, 237-247.
Marshall, D. & Baker, R. (2001). Clubs, spades, diamonds and disadvantage: The geography of electronic gaming machines in Melbourne. Australian Geographical Studies, 39, 17-33.
Marshall, D. & Baker, R. (2007). Unfair odds? Factors influencing the distribution of electronic gaming machines in Melbourne. Urban Policy and Research, 19,77-92.
Marshall, D. (2005). The gambling environment and gambler behaviour: Evidence from Richmond-Tweed, Australia. International Gambling Studies, 5, 63-83.
Marshall, D. (2009). Gambling as a public health issue: The critical role of the local environment. Journal of Gambling Issues, 23, 66-80.
Marshall, K. (2000). Update on gambling. Perspectives on Labour and Income, 12, 29–35.
McMillen, J. & Doran, B. (2006). Problem gambling and gaming machine density: socio-spatial analysis of three Victorian localities. International Gambling Studies, 6, 5–29.
Miers, D. (2004). Regulating Commercial Gambling: Past, Present and Future. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Miller, P. & Rose, N. (2008). Governing the present administering social and personal life. Cambridge: Polity.
NatCen (2011). Machines research 1: Mapping the social and economic characteristics of high density gambling machine locations. Authors: Wardle, H., Keily, R., Thurstain-Goodwin, M., and Astbury, G. for The Responsible Gambling Fund/The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board. Retrieved 11 November 2012 from www.rgfund.org.uk/images/stories/111118_Final_Report_Machines1_RGFapproved.pdf
O'Malley, P. (1996). Risk and responsibility. In A. Barry, T. Osborne and N. Rose (Eds.), Foucault and political reason: Liberalism, neo-liberalism and rationalities of government (pp.189–208). London: UCL Press.
O'Malley, P. (2004). Risk, uncertainty and government. London: Cavendish/Glasshouse.
Pearce, J., Mason, K., Hiscock, R., & Day, P. (2008). A national study of neighbourhood access to gambling opportunities and individual gambling behaviour. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 62, 862-868.
Portas, M. (2011). The Portas Review - An independent review into the future of our high streets, HM Government. Retrieved 11 November 2012 from www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/business-sectors/docs/p/11-1434-portas-review-future-of-high-streets
40
Potenza, M. N., Steinberg, M. A., Mclaughlin, S. D., Wu, R., Rounsaville, B. J. & O’Malley, S. S. (2001). Gender-related differences in the characteristics of problem gamblers using a gambling helpline. American Journal of Psychiatry, 158, 1500-1505.
Productivity Commission (2010). Gambling. Report no. 50. Canberra: Productivity Commission.
Reith, G. (2006). Research on the social impacts of gambling. Edinburgh: Scottish Executive.
Reith, G. (2007). Gambling and the contradictions of consumption: A genealogy of the “pathological” subject. American Behavioral Scientist, 51, 33-55.
Reith, G. (2008). Reflections on responsibility. Journal of Gambling Studies, 22, 149-155.
Reith, R. & Dobbie, F. (2011). Beginning gambling: The role of social networks and environment. Addiction Research & Theory, 19, 483–493.
Rose, N. (1996). Governing “advanced” liberal democracies. In A. Barry, T. Osborne and N. Rose (Eds.) Foucault and political reason: Liberalism, neo-liberalism and rationalities of government (pp. 37-64). London: UCL Press.
Rose, N. (1999). Powers of freedom: Reframing political thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, N. (2010). ‘Screen and intervene’: governing risky brains. History of the Human Sciences, 23, 79-105.
Rosecrance, J. (1985). Compulsive gambling and the medicalization of deviance. Social Problems, 32, 275-284.
Rush, B., Veldhuizen, S., & Adlaf, E. (2007). Mapping the prevalence of problem gambling and its association with treatment accessibility and proximity to gambling venues. Journal of Gambling Issues, 20, 193–214.
Schüll, N. & Zaloom, C. (2011). The shortsighted brain: Neuroeconomics and the governance of choice in time. Social Studies of Science, 41, 515-538.
Shaffer, H. J. (1989). Conceptual crisis in the addictions: The role of models in the field of compulsive gambling. In Shaffer, H.J., Stein, S.A., Gambino, B. and T.N. Cummings (Eds.) Compulsive Gambling: Theory, Research, and Practice, Heath and Company (pp. 3-34). Lexington, MA: D.C.
Sharpe, L. (2002). A reformulated cognitive-behavioral model of problem gambling - A biopsychosocial perspective. Clinical Psychology Review, 22, 1–25.
Strong, T. (2011). Approaching problem gambling with a discursive sensibility. Journal of Gambling Issues, 25, 68-87.
41
Svetieva, E. & Walker, M. (2008). Inconsistency between concept and measurement: The Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI). Journal of Gambling Issues, 22. Retrieved 11 November 2012 from www.camh.net/egambling/issue22
Thomas, A.C., Bates, G., Moore, S., Kyrios, M., Meredyth, D. & Jessop, G. (2011). Gambling and the multidimensionality of accessibility: More than just proximity to venues. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 9(1), 88-101. Turner II, B., Kasperson, R., Matsone, P., McCarthy, J., Corell, R., Christensen, L., Eckley, N., Kasperson, J., Luerse, A., Martello, M., Polsky, C., Pulsipher, A., & Schiller, A. (2003). A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 100(14), 8074-79.
Valentine, G. & Hughes, K. (2008). New forms of participation: Problem internet gambling and the role of the family. Economic and Social Research Council, University of Leeds. Retrieved 11 November 2012 from www.lssi.leeds.ac.uk/files/2011/03/New-Forms-of-Participation-report.pdf
Volberg, R.A. (2003). Has there been a feminisation of gambling and problem gambling in the United States? eGambling: The Electronic Journal of Gambling Issues, 8. Retrieved 11 November 2012 from www.camh.net/egambling/issue8/feature/index.html
Volberg, R.A. & Wray, M. (2007). Legal gambling and problem gambling as mechanisms of social domination? Some considerations for future research. American Behavioural Scientist, 51, 56-85.
Watts, M. & Bohle, H. G. (1993). The space of vulnerability: the causal structure of hunger and famine. Progress in Human Geography, 17, 43-67
Welte J.W, Barnes G.M, Wieczorek W.F, Tidwell M.C, & Parker J.C. (2004a). Risk factors for pathological gambling. Addictive Behaviour, 29, 323-35.
Welte, J.W., Wieczorek, W.F., Barnes, G.M., Tidwell M.C., & Hoffman, J.H. (2004b). The relationship of ecological and geographic factors to gambling behavior and pathology. Journal of Gambling Studies, 20, 405-423.
Wheeler, B.W., Rigby, J.E. & Huriwai, T. (2006). Pokies and poverty: Problem gambling risk factor geography in New Zealand. Health & Place, 12, 86-96.
Whitehead, M., Jones, R., & Pykett, J. (2011). Governing irrationality, or a more than rational government? Reflections on the rescientisation of decision making in British public policy, Environment and Planning A, 43, 2819–2837.
Wilson, M. (2003). Chips, bits, and the law: an economic geography of Internet gambling. Environment and Planning A, 35, 1245-1260.
Young, M., Abu-Duhou, I., Barnes, T., Creed, E., Morris, M., Stevens, M., et al. (2006). Northern territory gambling prevalence survey 2005. Darwin: School for Social and Policy Research, Charles Darwin University.
42
Young, M., Lamb, D., & Dorna, B. (2009). Mountains and molehills: A spatiotemporal analysis of poker machine expenditure in the Northern Territory of Australia. Australian Geographer, 40(3), 249-269.
Young, M. (2010). Gambling, capitalism and the state: Towards a new dialectic of the risk society? Journal of Consumer Culture, 10, 1469-5405.
Young, M., Lamb, D., & Doran, B. (2011). Gambling, resource distribution, and racial economy: An examination of poker machine expenditure in three remote Australian towns. Geographical Research, 49, 59–71.
Young, M. & Stevens, M. (2009). Player preferences and social harm: An analysis of the relationships between player characteristics, gambling modes, and problem gambling. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 7, 262-279.
Young, M., Markham, F., & Doran, B. (2012). Too close to home? The relationships between residential distance to venue and gambling outcomes. International Gambling Studies, 12, 257-273.
43
Recommended