The Gambling Establishment
Challenging the Power of the Modern Gambling Industry and its Allies

There are now signs that, after decades of phenomenal growth, the era of unrestrained gambling liberalisation may be coming to an end. However, the power of the Gambling Establishment is formidable, and it will certainly fight back. Drawing on research and policy examples from around the world, the book provides a unified understanding of the dangerousness of modern commercialised gambling, how its expansion has been deliberately or inadvertently supported, and how the backlash is now occurring.

The term Gambling Establishment is defined to include the industry which sells gambling, governments which support it, and a wider network of organisations and individuals who have subscribed to the ?responsible gambling? Establishment discourse. Topics covered include the psychology of how gambling is now being advertised and promoted and the way it is designed to deceive gamblers about their chances of winning; the increased exposure of young people to gambling and the alignment of gambling with sport; understanding the experience of gambling addiction; the various public health harms of gambling at individual, family, community and societal levels; and how evidence has been used to resist change. The book?s final chapter offers the author?s manifesto for policy change, designed with Britain particularly in mind but likely to have relevance elsewhere.

With detailed examples given of the ways a number of countries are responding to these threats to their citizens? health, this book will be of global interest for academics, researchers, policymakers and service providers in the field of gambling or other addictions specifically, and public health and social policy generally.

List of Tables

List of Figures

Introduction

1. The new backlash against the growth of commercial gambling

2. The Gambling Establishment: The industry and its allies inside and outside government

3. The establishment discourse: Five ways we were told how to think about gambling

4. How gambling is forcibly advertised and sold in the modern era

5. Is modern gambling fraudulent? How players are deceived about the chances of winning

6. Understanding gambling addiction: Bringing personal experience and theory together

7. Gambling’s harm to individuals, families, communities, and society

8. How the Gambling Establishment has used evidence to support its position

9. Resisting the power of the Gambling Establishment: A manifesto for change

References

Index

Jim Orford is Emeritus Professor of Clinical and Community Psychology at the University of Birmingham. He is a long-standing, internationally recognised researcher and writer in the fields of addiction and community psychology, one of the UK’s leading academics on the subject of gambling, and well-known for his critical views on policy. In 2012 he set up the Gambling Watch UK website to help campaign for a public health approach to gambling.