International research on gambling and problem gambling

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International research on gambling and problem
gambling

• Robin Room
• SoRAD, Stockholm University
• robin.room_at_sorad.su.se
• Presentation at the
• Nordic Seminar on Gambling and Gambling
  Dependence, Helsinki, 14-16 March, 2005

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Gambling studies a relatively young field

• Few specialized journals
• Journal of Gambling Studies 1985
• e-gambling (electronic journal) 2000
• Most research from relatively few countries
• Netherlands, U.S., Australia, Canada, New
  Zealand, U.K., Switzerland, Sweden ...
• Split between orientations
• addiction/pathological gambling
• economic analyses community and national levels
• ethnographic and social history analyses

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Research centres on gambling 1.
gambling-specific

• Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling
  and Related Disorders, Division of Addictions at
  Harvard Medical School
• both a research centre and a granting agency with
  money from industry sources (National Center for
  Responsible Gaming -- NCRG)
• Institute for the Study of Gambling and
  Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada,
  Reno
• secondary university campus funding from US
  Dept. of Justice also from industry sources?
• Games and Gambling Research Group, Tilburg
  University, Netherlands
• university in transition
• New Zealand Gaming Survey, Massey University,
  Auckland
• a study becoming a research program, funded by
  government gambling money
• Australian Centre for Gambling Research,
  University of Western Sydney
• secondary university funding from govt and
  semi-govt gambling agencies

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Research centres on gambling2. As part of
addiction studies

• Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto
• funding from provinces health dept, also from
  NCRG
• Centre for Addiction Studies, University of
  Minnesota, Duluth
• funding from state health department
• Addiction Research, Zürich
• funding as part of legislated social
  responsibility of casino
• Amsterdam Institute for Addiction Research
• government-funded projects

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Otherwise commissions, research networks,
individual researchers

• US National Gambling Impact Study Commission
• Report, Pathological Gambling A Critical Review
• national survey by National Opinion Research
  Corporation (NORC)
• Productivity Commission, Australia
• report Australias Gambling Industries
• Rachel Volberg as a nexus of population surveys
  on gambling
• adult and adolescent prevalence studies in U.S.,
  Canada, New Zealand, Sweden
• European Association for the Study of Gambling
• 6th European Conference on Gambling Policy
  Policy Issues, Malmö, Sweden, 29 June 2 July
  2005
• individual scholars
• Mark Griffiths, Robert Ladouceur, Harold Wynne,
  Patricia Stokowski, Brian Castellani, Michael
  Walker, Susan Fisher others

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Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?(who will oversee
the overseers?)

• Gambling as a state-directed activity even in
  neo-liberal heartlands
• internationally, often the same agency directs
  the gambling and regulates it
• government gambling agencies often resistant to
  definitions of the situation and research which
  raises questions about their practice
• research funding as public relations for private
  interests
• gambling industry influence on which research
  questions are asked
• Internet gambling as checkmate for the state?
• thinking about international regulatory regimes
• gambling as a locus for money-laundering

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Issues in gambling studies1. How to
conceptualize and measure gambling problems

• the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) and its
  discontents
• DSM-IV pathological gambling (Fisher)
• modeled on alcohol/drug dependence
• but 5 criteria instead of 3
• (4 in DSM-III-R 3 in DSM-III)
• manic episodes excluded
• Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI)
• Intensity of gambling, problem gambling
  behaviour, adverse social health consequences,
  correlates of gambling
• mixed epistemology gambling behaviour,
  craving/loss of control, social consequences,
  correlates
• Life-areas problems measure

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Issues in gambling studies2. How much do
different modes have in common?

• What are the limits of gambling?
• the stock market (day-traders)
• the action (Goffman) testing oneself with
  risks
• Different payoff time-cycles
• immediate for the Jack Vegas machine, the scratch
  card
• short-term for the horse or dog race
• longer term for occasional lotteries, etc.
• The different social worlds of gambling
• bingo halls, horse racetracks, international
  casinos, regular poker among friends
• different modes appeal to different demographics

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Issues in gambling studies3. overlaps mutual
influences with other addictions

• Complementarity between gambling nicotine,
  gambling drinking
• The opportunity of smoking bans in pubs and
  gambling halls/rooms
• 11 decline in slot machine revenue in Victoria
  the year smoking banned around gambling machines
• What happens to gambling (Jack Vegas machines),
  to drinking when smoking banned in Seddish
  pubs/restaurants, 1 July 2005
• Policy impact research, but also
• A rare opportunity to study complementarity how
  one behaviour changes when another does.

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Issues in gambling studies4. The social
location of gambling

• Social definitions
• family fun
• fun for grown-ups
• where the action is
• at the margins of society
• Gambling and social exclusion
• one more test of skötsamhet
• relative deprivation gambling a regressive
  tax?
• International comparisons
• cultural propensities
• availability policies regulation and promotion
• comparative EU study?

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Issues in gambling studies5. Where do problem
gamblers go for help?

• Ontario experience
• treatment provision in addiction treatment system
• but few come where do they go?
• gambling problems in acute form as money
  problems, relationship problems?
• welfare system
• money problems advisors?
• need to study trajectories of problematic
  gambling

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Issues in gambling studies6. Developing an
evidence base on treatment modalities

• only a small base of controlled studies
• developing and testing a treatment modality
• what is it that is to be treated?
• errors in cognition
• a bad habit
• craving/loss of control
• problems for the family and in daily life
• treatment system studies
• where should help be located?
• how to build effective referral mechanisms
• early interventions?

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Issues in gambling studies7. Prevention studies

• education
• teaching the odds as prevention?
• the general failure of school-based approaches
• how to impress teenagers
• the lesson of Florida tobacco attack the
  marketers motives
• community prevention trials
• a next step for the casino communities?
• Can Nordic social solidarity restrain and
  reintegrate the problematic gambler?
• what are the limits of community action?

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Issues in gambling studies8. Regulating
gambling modalities to diminish the harm

• Studying situational characteristics which hold
  the problematic gambler in the situation
• play and payoff timing, lighting and ambience,
  alcohol
• reverse engineering the built-in attractions
• Policy impact studies on the effects of controls
  of availability
• opening hours days
• limiting locations
• limiting payoffs

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Issues in gambling studies9. Supply and
regulation

• Studying the industry and the regulators
• internationalization of the industry (and of
  commercial knowledge)
• the regulators reconciling mixed motives
• the scope for local action controlling
  nuisances or beggaring the neighbours?
• Internationalizing regulatory knowledge

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Building a research tradition

• A coherent research plan, but also room for new
  ideas
• Stable sources of funding
• Building a cadre with careers in the field
• Research networks and centres
• Inter-Nordic cooperation?