Final Report Summary - GAMSOC (Gambling in Europe)
Our project used social anthropology to explore fast changing gambling environments in Europe. The four team members conducted fieldwork in previously unstudied spaces including the trading floor of a spread betting company in the City of London, a croupier training school in Nova Gorica and the newest casinos in Cyprus. Our work in these diverse and challenging spaces enabled us to ask questions about the changing place of risk in everyday life, the use of technology to manufacture commercial risk, definitions of ‘gambling’ and how they differ from ‘investment’ or ‘play’, and the architecture of an expanding industry that is characterized by globalizing technologies and distinctive local practices. We published our findings in an edited collection, Qualitative Research in Gambling, which was published by Routledge in 2014.
We also conducted the first ever qualitative study of gambling research, asking academics and policy makers in Europe, Asia and Australia why certain topics, including work which focuses on 'problem gambling' for example, are better funded than work which takes a broader public health approach to gambling. People working in gambling studies told us that their field is dominated by academics who are funded by the industry, that access to data is limited to trusted academics who focus on 'safe' topics and that there are no consistently observed procedures for declaring sources of funding in journal articles or at conferences. We wrote up our findings in a report called Fair Game: producing gambling research. You can read the report at:www.gold.ac.uk/gamblingineurope/report/.
We also conducted the first ever qualitative study of gambling research, asking academics and policy makers in Europe, Asia and Australia why certain topics, including work which focuses on 'problem gambling' for example, are better funded than work which takes a broader public health approach to gambling. People working in gambling studies told us that their field is dominated by academics who are funded by the industry, that access to data is limited to trusted academics who focus on 'safe' topics and that there are no consistently observed procedures for declaring sources of funding in journal articles or at conferences. We wrote up our findings in a report called Fair Game: producing gambling research. You can read the report at:www.gold.ac.uk/gamblingineurope/report/.