TY - JOUR
T1 - On gambling research, social science and the consequences of commercial gambling
AU - Livingstone, Charles
AU - Adams, Peter
AU - Cassidy, Rebecca
AU - Markham, Francis
AU - Reith, Gerda
AU - Rintoul, Angela
AU - Dow Schüll, Natasha
AU - Woolley, Richard
AU - Young, Martin
N1 - Funding Information:
PA participated in research projects in the 1990s funded by two hypothecated funding sources; money levied from alcohol consumption and administered by a quasigovernment agency, the NZ Alcohol Advisory Council and the other from money levied from gambling consumption and administered by the NZ Ministry of Health. He is a Chief Investigator in an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant investigating mechanisms of industry influence in the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries. He has received no funding directly or indirectly from gambling or alcohol industry sources for any purpose.
Funding Information:
NDS has nothing to declare MY has previously received research funding from the Australian Research Council, Gambling Research Australia, and several Australian state government departments. His research is currently funded by the Community Benefit Fund of the Northern Territory Government. In addition to his Southern Cross University position, he is a Visiting Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, the Australian National University.
Funding Information:
AR is currently employed by the Australian Gambling Research Centre at the Australian Institute of Family Studies which derives most of its funding from Commonwealth Government appropriations. She also works on studies funded by the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation. In the past she has received a small amount of funding from the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Committee via the University of Waterloo for collaboration and Monash City Council to deliver community education as part of their prevention program grant from the VRGF. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect those of the Australian Government or AIFS. RW is a researcher at Ingenio (CSIC-UPV) in Valencia, Spain. In the past three years, he has been employed on projects funded by the European Commission, which are unrelated to gambling. In the past he has received funding from government agencies in South Australia and Victoria to conduct research on gambling and the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Committee via the University of Waterloo.
Funding Information:
CL has received funding from the (former) Victorian Gambling Research Panel, and the South Australian Independent Gambling Authority (the funds for which were derived from hypothecation of gambling tax revenue to research purposes), and from the Victorian Responsible Gambling Foundation, the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education, the Australian and New Zealand School of Government, and from non-government organisations for research into multiple aspects of poker-machine gambling, including regulatory reform, existing harm minimisation practices, and technical characteristics of gambling forms. He has received travel and co-operation grants from the Alberta Problem Gambling Research Institute, the Finnish Institute for Public Health, the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Committee, and the Problem Gambling Foundation of New Zealand. He is a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council-funded project researching mechanisms of influence on government by the tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries. He has undertaken consultancy research for local governments and non-government organisations in Australia and the UK seeking to restrict or reduce the concentration of poker machines and gambling impacts, and was a member of the Australian government’s Ministerial Expert Advisory Group on Gambling in 2010–11. He did not receive funding for any activities associated with the preparation of this article.
Funding Information:
FM has received funding from the Community Benefit Fund (Northern Territory Government). The Community Benefit Fund is a government-administered grant scheme, funded by a levy on EGMs in hotels in the Northern Territory. He has been employed on projects funded by the Australian Research Council, the Northern Territory Research and Innovation Fund (Northern Territory Government) and the Australian Capital Territory Gambling and Racing Commission (ACTGRC). Funding from the ACTGRC is obtained from a levy on EGMs in the ACT and is administered by the regulator. FM has had his expenses paid by the Alberta Gambling Research Institute (AGRI), a consortium of researchers at three universities, to present a keynote at an international conference. AGRI’s funding is provided by the Ministry of Treasury Board and Finance of Alberta. FM is a member of the Public Health Association of Australia.
Funding Information:
GR has received funding for her research from a range of organisations, including the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Scottish Government and the Responsibility in Gambling Trust. The latter was partly funded by contributions from the gambling industry, in conjunction with the ESRC, and was administered and overseen by the ESRC. In the past, she has been a member of The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board: the independent body that advises the gambling regulator and is funded through its resources, and she has also provided advice to GambleAware’s Treatment Advisory Panel, which is funded through industry donations. GR has received travel expenses and a daily allowance for her work in both of these roles.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2018/1/2
Y1 - 2018/1/2
N2 - Social, political, economic, geographic and cultural processes related to the significant growth of the gambling industries have, in recent years, been the subject of a growing body of research. This body of research has highlighted relationships between social class and gambling expenditure, as well as the design, marketing and location of gambling products and businesses. It has also demonstrated the regressive nature of much gambling revenue, illuminating the influence that large gambling businesses have had on government policy and on researchers, including research priorities, agendas and outcomes. Recently, critics have contended that although such scholarship has produced important insights about the operations and effects of gambling businesses, it is ideologically motivated and lacks scientific rigour. This response explains some basic theoretical and disciplinary concepts that such critique misunderstands, and argues for the value of social, political, economic, geographic and cultural perspectives to the broader, interdisciplinary field of gambling research.
AB - Social, political, economic, geographic and cultural processes related to the significant growth of the gambling industries have, in recent years, been the subject of a growing body of research. This body of research has highlighted relationships between social class and gambling expenditure, as well as the design, marketing and location of gambling products and businesses. It has also demonstrated the regressive nature of much gambling revenue, illuminating the influence that large gambling businesses have had on government policy and on researchers, including research priorities, agendas and outcomes. Recently, critics have contended that although such scholarship has produced important insights about the operations and effects of gambling businesses, it is ideologically motivated and lacks scientific rigour. This response explains some basic theoretical and disciplinary concepts that such critique misunderstands, and argues for the value of social, political, economic, geographic and cultural perspectives to the broader, interdisciplinary field of gambling research.
KW - Gambling
KW - anthropology
KW - political economy
KW - social science
KW - sociology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85030177751&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85030177751&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/14459795.2017.1377748
DO - 10.1080/14459795.2017.1377748
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85030177751
SN - 1445-9795
VL - 18
SP - 56
EP - 68
JO - International Gambling Studies
JF - International Gambling Studies
IS - 1
ER -