Gamblers tell their stories: Life patterns of gambling

was less controlled than they would like it to be. Consequently, it tended to be people who
had sought counselling for their gambling, and had thus admitted to having a gambling
problem, ex-problem gamblers, and those who only gambled occasionally who tended to
volunteer the most to participate to the study. However, the $30 gift card given after each
interview also worked as an incentive for low income participants to volunteer for the study.
As well as metropolitan recruitment, we wanted to ensure that we had a sample of gamblers
from a rural/regional area in Victoria so that we could probe for differences in experience
across metro/rural areas. Recruitment here also took some time. We initially contacted
gamblers’ help organisations, as well as libraries, other community organisations, and RSL
and sports clubs in both Gippsland and Mildura. The gambler’s help manager in Mildura
was particularly supportive and assisted us in finding several participants. We also had two
other volunteers from Mildura come forward as a result of internet advertising, so we
selected Mildura as our regional area, interviewing a total of 10 people from this region. The
original intention was to conduct 50 interviews but we felt we reached theoretical saturation
with 48 interviews with the groups we were able to interview. Despite concerted efforts
across a number of months we were unable to recruit further participants from the groups we
felt were under-represented in the sample: ethnic minority groups and internet/sports betting
gamblers, therefore we halted recruitment at this point resulting in a final sample of 48
participants.
Interviews started in October 2010 and the 48 interviews were completed by May 2011.
Seventeen interviews were conducted in the Eastern suburbs, six in the Southern suburbs,
15 in Western and Northern suburbs, and 10 in Mildura. In each case interviewers explained
the research procedures and followed protocols in terms of informed consent. All
interviewees signed a consent form which included their permission to record the interview
electronically (see Appendix 2). The interviewer also completed a sheet containing summary
demographic information and a PGSI questionnaire (see Appendix 3). The interviews lasted
between 1 and 2 hours, and averaged about one and a half hours. They were conducted in
a conversational style following the themes outlined in the interview schedule (see appendix
4): gambling patterns and behaviour over time, early family background, educational
background, employment history, relationships with family, friends and other gamblers,
health, and decisions for the future. The nature of the interviews meant that they were often
not linear, that is, working through the themes and questions chronologically. No inquiries,
complaints or issues were received about the interviews in terms of ethics procedures.
Interviews were electronically recorded and transcribed by professional transcribers;
verbatim transcription thus contributed to the validity of the data.
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