Fair Game Web Final

Fair Game:Producing gambling researchThe Goldsmiths ReportR. Cassidy, C. Loussouarn, A. Pisac

Text © Rebecca Cassidy, Claire Loussouarn & Andrea Pisac 2013Design by Sam KellyThe research leading to these results has received funding from theEuropean Research Council under the European Union's SeventhFramework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n.263443.On the back cover: Wordle illustration demonstrating the frequency ofarticle keywords drawn from the three most recent issues of the Journalof Gambling Studies and International Gambling Studies. InternationalGambling Studies, Volume 12 Issue 3 (2012) to Volume 13 Issue 2(2013); Journal of Gambling Studies Volume 29 Issue 1 (2013) to Volume29 Issue 3 (2013).1

AbbreviationsBGPSBritish Gambling Prevalence SurveyCAGRDCMSDEFRAERCESRCFOBTsILSIMRCNCRGNDANLCRGFRGTRiGTCompound annual growth rateDepartment for Culture, Media and SportDepartment for Environment, Food and Rural AffairsEuropean Research CouncilEconomic and Social Research CouncilFixed odds betting terminalsInternational Life Sciences InstituteMedical Research CouncilNational Council for Responsible GamblingNon-disclosure agreementsNational Lottery CommissionResponsible Gambling FundResponsible Gambling TrustResponsibility in Gambling Trust3

Why this report?By 2015, it is estimated that the global marketfor gambling will have grown to €351billion at a compound annual growth rate(CAGR) of 3%. The recovery of this sector since thefinancial crisis has been remarkable, from a low of1.9% in 2009 to a high of 8.8% CAGR in 2011. 1This growth is driven by deregulation and thesearch for tax revenue, new technologies and theopening of new markets. Although some nationalgovernments continue to ban gambling and to depictit as a vice or moral failing, others, includingthe United Kingdom (UK) and Australia, have recastgambling as a form of entertainment. Whilepresented as a response to changes in customerbehaviour, in practice, changes in the classificationof gambling are the result of interactions betweenthe state and other regulators, the industry, and theconsumer. In rolling out new policies based on thisunderstanding of gambling as entertainment, governmentshave claimed to rely on what they referto as ‘evidence-based policy’. However, in this reportwe show that the process of producingevidence about gambling is fraught with politicaland academic trade-offs. If evidence based policyis all that is protecting consumers from the potentialharms caused by the deregulation of gambling, justhow well does the system that produces evidencework?This report focuses on the production and consumptionof gambling research. Its purpose is to disruptexisting relationships between users and producersand to provide a set of recommendations aroundwhich discussions about the future of gambling researchcan take place. The report is based onqualitative data gathered using semi-structured interviewswith 109 gambling research stakeholdersincluding researchers, policy makers and membersof the industry in the UK, Europe, Australia, NorthAmerica and Hong Kong / Macau. It also makesuse of quantitative data gathered from the field ofgambling studies, including content analysis of journalsand conferences. It focuses on five themes:problems with gambling, evidence, the field ofgambling studies, money, and access.We asked academics to reflect on their own practices.How do they decide what questions topursue? What methods to use? How to securefunding for research? How would they characterisethe field of gambling studies? We askedregulators and policy makers how they used research.How is gambling policy devised inpractice? What counts as evidence? Gambling industryexecutives described their encounters withresearchers. What does the industry think of academicresearch? How do they feel aboutgranting access to data?Gambling research is not an external commentaryon the global process ofgambling liberalisation and contraction,but an important part of that process. As this reportwill show, it enables certain ways of thinking aboutgambling to flourish, and suppresses alternatives.As in many other research areas, money flows towardsconservative or ‘safe’ ideas, while seriousquestions may be left unanswered, or even unformulated.The lack of useful evidence on which to base gamblingpolicy has been noted in several recentreports, special issues of journals, and in literaturereviews. 2 However, this is the first report to explorethese ideas using qualitative data. Its unique contributionis to provide illustrations of precisely howpower operates in practice, in stakeholders’ ownwords.1 H2 Gambling Capital, 2012. ‘Leading global gambling nations – Asia and egaming continue to out perform’, URL:http://tinyurl.com/kqsay2d. 14 November. Accessed 22 October 2013.2 In the UK, see Culture, Media and Sport Committee, 2012. The Gambling Act 2005: A Bet Worth Taking? London: TheStationery Office. In Australia, see Productivity Commission, 2010. Gambling, Report no. 50, Canberra. See the section‘Further Reading’ (Appendix 3) for examples of special issues and literature reviews of gambling research.4

Conflicts of interestBetween 2006 and 2009 Cassidy and Loussouarnreceived £90,697.22 from ‘Researchinto Problem Gambling’, a collaborative researchinitiative between the Economic and SocialResearch Council (ESRC) (lead organisation) andthe Responsibility in Gambling Trust (RiGT). Themoney supported Loussouarn’s PhD study of Chinesecasino customers in London and Cassidy’sfieldwork in betting shops in London. All aspects ofthe grant were administered by the ESRC. TheRiGT did not communicate directly with Loussouarn.Near the end of the project, Cassidy was asked bythe RiGT to submit press releases for prior approval,a request that she declined. Between 2007and 2009 Cassidy received ad hoc support fromthe National Lottery Commission (NLC) for theGambling Research Network, a group of early careerand PhD researchers coming together inLondon two or three times a year. Money coveredrefreshments and no explicit restrictions or inducementswere placed on the group by the NLC.Cassidy, Loussouarn and Pisac have paid to attendindustry-sponsored events and attended free, industry-supportedevents. None of us have receivedany direct payments from the industry to conductresearch or speak at conferences or events.We have no other conflicts of interests to declare.We are grateful to the ERC whose mission ‘allowsresearchers to identify new opportunities and directionsin any field of research, rather than beingled by priorities set by politicians’. 3 With their support,we feel able to challenge the way thatgambling research is funded and produced.The wider contribution of this report is to providean illustration of the more generalprocess through which research cultures areformed and maintained. All research is embeddedin webs of significance that anthropologists mightrefer to as ‘culture’. Understanding how these relationshipsoperate is the first step to criticalparticipation in any field.3 European Research Council Web Pages, 2013. ‘Mission’. URL: http://erc.europa.eu/mission. Accessed 14 November2013.5

ContentsThe authors ......................................................................................................................................................................... 2Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................................................................... 3Why this report? ............................................................................................................................................................... 4Conflicts of interest ........................................................................................................................................................... 5What have we learned? ................................................................................................................................................. 8What should be done?................................................................................................................................................... 10Navigating this report .................................................................................................................................................... 12Stakeholder codes ..................................................................................................................................................... 12Glossary of expressions ............................................................................................................................................ 13How is research produced? ........................................................................................................................................... 15How is gambling research produced? ........................................................................................................................ 16Case study 1: The United Kingdom ........................................................................................................................ 16Case study 2: Croatia. .............................................................................................................................................. 18Case study 3: Macau ................................................................................................................................................ 19Problems with gambling ................................................................................................................................................ 21Evidence ............................................................................................................................................................................ 35The field of gambling studies ....................................................................................................................................... 47Money ............................................................................................................................................................................... 58Access ................................................................................................................................................................................ 70Appendices ....................................................................................................................................................................... 831. Methodology and scope of report .................................................................................................................... 842. Ethics ......................................................................................................................................................................... 923. Further reading ...................................................................................................................................................... 936

FiguresFigure 1 – Stakeholder codes ..................................................................................................................................... 12Figure 2 – The UK Model ............................................................................................................................................. 18Figure 3 – The Croatian Model .................................................................................................................................. 19Figure 4 – The Macau Model ...................................................................................................................................... 20Figure 5 – Problem gambling ..................................................................................................................................... 26Figure 6 – RGT funding plan for 2013–14 ............................................................................................................. 31Figure 7 – Gambling journal editorial board members........................................................................................ 49Figure 8 – Gross annual win vs RGT research spend, UK, 2012 ........................................................................ 61Figure 9 – Sample of focus group questions ........................................................................................................... 85Figure 10 – Interviewee data ..................................................................................................................................... 87Figure 11 – Percentage of interviewees quoted .................................................................................................... 89Figure 12 – Quote frequency ...................................................................................................................................... 907

What have we learned?Problems with gambling ((sections 1 to 14)Researching gambling is a complex and politicised activity. Findings are used and misused to further agendaswhich change according to the political climate. Politicians are keen to accept the revenue that gamblinggenerates, and to encourage the industry to base their operations within their jurisdictions, but they are alsowilling to accept the political capital which comes from opposing gambling when it suits them.In a climate of unpredictable alliances and priorities gambling researchers can find themselves either cooptedor strongly criticised. Gambling is a polarising subject – disagreements are often passionate ratherthan rational. Those who favour less regulation – libertarian politicians and members of the gambling industry– present regulation as a patronising restriction of freedom. Those who favour slower deregulation– Churches and pressure groups – might once have used religious arguments to support their position, butare today more likely to look at the consequences of gambling rather than its moral status.The debate is unified by a focus on ‘problem gambling’, which presents gambling as entertainment andplaces the blame for ‘bad’ gambling with the individual. ‘Problem gambling’ is silent on the relationshipsbetween the state and gambling operators.Evidence (sections 15 to 25)What counts as evidence is determined by political, rather than academic priorities.A narrow definition of evidence makes many of the questions asked by policy makers impossible to answer,either because they are too simplistic, or because the money does not exist to fund the projects which wouldallow them to be answered, or because the data required to answer them is inaccessible.The impact of evidence is unpredictable because its reception is contingent on factors including the constitutionof boards, the personalities of board members, timing and luck.The function of ‘safe’ gambling research is rhetorical. It enables the existing relationships between research,the industry and the state to endure, while meeting public expectations that research should take place.Finally, as in many other fields, policy makers do not make decisions about gambling based solely onevidence, however it is defined.The field of gambling studies (sections 26 to 34)The field of gambling studies is closed and tightly controlled. It is shaped by relationships with the industryand the state as well as within the academic establishment. Relationships between researchers, treatmentproviders and industry are often unmediated by formal academic structures.Conferences are dominated by industry interests and do not encourage critical debate. The industry isadept at discrediting research, leading some researchers to self-censor or opt out of publishing.Competition for limited funding has created a research culture that is suspicious, sometimes hostile and evenparanoid. This creates inefficiencies including unproductive rivalries and duplication. It makes it difficult toretain good researchers and to attract new recruits to the field.Gambling research can create reputational risks for institutions. Senior management are not always supportiveof colleagues working in this area. Entering and remaining in the field of gambling studies istherefore a considerable challenge, especially for early and mid-career researchers.Gambling journals are not highly rated and the peer review process is conservative.8

Gambling studies is not a prestigious field when viewed from other disciplines including anthropology,sociology, law, geography and economics. It is behind studies of tobacco, alcohol and drugs in terms ofanalysis, methods used, ethical transparency and dealing with conflicts of interest.There is a lack of collaboration between gambling studies and related fields and a reluctance to acceptalternative methodologies and wider definitions of evidence. The impact of creating disciplinary bunkers isthat internally homogeneous communities of referees and commentators participate in self-referential dialogues,rather than engaging in wider, more creative discussions.Money (sections 35 to 44)As budgets shrink, researchers are under increasing pressure from their institutions to attract external moneyand present the ‘impact’ of their work in economic terms. As a result, gambling research is increasinglydependent on industry support.In the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA, national research councils expect specialisedgambling charities to support research. The uncertainty of funding streams makes it difficult for researchersto join the field and commit to the topic.There are no neutral sources of funding. All funding bodies are motivated by particular priorities, shapedby distinctive administrative and bureaucratic cultures, and sustain methodological paradigms. The interestsof funders are reproduced in diverse ways, including in the questions that are prioritised in calls, the waysin which applications are assessed and the ways in which research is disseminated.Voluntary contributions to intermediaries responsible for commissioning research are conceptualised as gifts,rather than a cost of doing business. This allows the industry to maintain a sense of ownership over research.There was no consensus among our participants about the implications of accepting funding from industrysources, directly or indirectly. Some felt that research should produce benefits for funders, including theindustry. A few felt that industry funding did not affect their objectivity. Many were reticent, but pragmaticabout the necessity to work with industry support. Some rejected money from industry and were critical ofthose who did not.There is a lack of transparency about the conditions under which research is produced, and a poor understandingof conflicts of interests.Access (sections 45 to 54)The difficulty of gaining access to gambling environments and data is one of the biggest obstacles toproducing high-quality research. The industry has the most useful data but has limited incentives to share itwith researchers.Most requests for access to data are denied or ignored. The industry reserves the exclusive right to determinewhat is and is not ‘commercially sensitive’.In order to have their requests for access considered, researchers are encouraged to ‘seduce’ the operatorand to prove their trustworthiness by producing research that is uncritical, or commercially valuable.Granting access to researchers may enhance an operator’s reputation for social responsibility.Academics who produce research for the industry are often asked to sign non-disclosure agreements.Successful access is often the result of a serendipitous encounter, or the cultivation of long-term relationshipswith members of the industry. It is entirely unsystematic and often unrepeatable. Ad hoc arrangements ofthese kinds may be well-intentioned, well-structured and produce worthwhile insights, but they leave therelationship between commercial sensitivity and public accountability in the gambling industries untouched.In doing so, they detract from the systematic discussion of access which urgently needs to take place.9

What should be done?Problems with gamblingThe state should not represent itself as the neutral referee between operators and their opponents. Theyare invested in commercial gambling as both operators and collectors of tax revenue. They also play acentral role in sustaining the focus on ‘problem gambling’, an approach that obscures the relationshipsbetween the industry and the state.Critical studies of gambling should investigate a wider range of social processes, including not only individualbehaviour but also problem games, problem products and problem policies.EvidencePolicy makers should consult a wider range of experts and recognise a wider variety of evidence. Byfocusing exclusively on problem gambling and causal relationships they serve the interests of the industry,which is interested in limiting regulation and minimising change.The field of gambling studiesGambling studies should, like other disciplines, have a professional code of ethics.Where relationships exist between researchers and operators these should be a matter of public recordand embedded within formal academic structures.Gambling studies journals and gambling conferences should require authors and speakers to declare conflictsof interest, not limited to the particular article or presentation in question.Gambling studies journals should include referees and articles from a wider range of disciplines.Researchers should publish in a wide range of forums in order to raise standards, ensure that discussionsabout gambling are not restricted to gambling journals, and encourage colleagues outside gambling studiesto recognise gambling as a valid topic for research.MoneyGambling research should be funded by a compulsory levy that is administered by research councils.Calls for research should not focus exclusively on problem gambling.Research councils should prioritise interdisciplinary projects, particularly those that seek to use innovativemethodologies.Research applications should be reviewed by academics from a range of disciplines.There should be a range of funding available to provide support for researchers at every stage of theircareer, and for projects of all scales.Expert panels should be constituted by academics from a range of disciplines who are at different pointsin their careers.10

AccessAccess should be part of licensing and not based on ad hoc agreements.Researchers should not enter into exclusive agreements with particular operators.There should be a public discussion about the relationship between commercial sensitivity and public accountability.Questions to be discussed include the use of non-disclosure agreements and the right ofoperators to veto publications.Researchers should disclose, in every publication, conference or event in which they are presenting theirresearch, the conditions under which they have been granted access.11

Navigating this reportThis report quotes a wide variety of stakeholders identified by codes which are explained below. Thereport also uses expressions whose meanings are discursive and may not be instantly obvious. Their definitionsare found in the glossary, below.Stakeholder codesThe analysis presented in this report has emerged from our discussions with 109 stakeholders in the gamblingresearch field. Their opinions are presented alongside relevant arguments.We have devised a simple code which indicates the gender, type of stakeholder being quoted, the regionin which they work, their years of experience, and their case number. In some cases these details have beenwithheld in order to reduce the likelihood that individuals may be identified.GENDE RF – FemaleM - MaleSTAKEHOLDERResearch UserUp – Policy MakerUr – RegulatorUt – TreatmentProviderSTAKEHOLDERIndu stryIn – New Industr yIo – Old IndustrySTAKEHOLDERResearcherRa – AcademicRc – CommercialRi – Indu stryREGIONAU – AustraliaCA – CanadaHK/M – Hong Kong / MacauNZ – New ZealandOE – Other EuropeanSEE – South East EuropeUK – United KingdomUS – United StatesEXAMPLEFRaUS(11)66F – FemaleRa – AcademicUS – United States(11) – 11 years of experience66 – code numberYEARS OF EXPERIENCE(xx)NUMBERxxxEXAMPLEMInUK(2)51M – MaleIn – New Industr yUK – United Kingdom(2) – 2 years of experience51 – code numberFigure 1 – Stakeholder codes12

Glossary of expressionsThe ‘gambling field’ consists of the networks andrelationships between stakeholders, including thestate and the industry, researchers and treatmentproviders, their attitudes and interests. The relationshipsbetween research producers and thosewho commission, fund and use research create thepolitical economy of the gambling field: the structuralrelationships that frame the movement ofmoney, knowledge and policy between stakeholders.Gambling studies is a sub-discipline which is dominatedby the so-called ‘psy’ sciences andanchored in journals which include the Journal ofGambling Studies, based at the University of Nevadain Reno, and International Gambling Studies,whose chief editor is based at the University ofSydney.Gambling research refers to all academic studiesabout gambling carried out by members of a varietyof disciplines, including but not only, thediscipline of gambling studies.Problem gambling is a socially and politically constructedbehaviour which attributes the blame forexcessive gambling consumption to the ‘faulty’ individual.Classified as an impulse control disorder in the mostrecent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manualof Mental Disorders (DSM-V), pathologicalgambling is a narrower category of gambling disorderwhich meets the criterion of psychiatricdiagnosis.Commercial gambling refers to a profit-makingindustry which is legal, state-owned or regulatedand licensed to provide a variety of gamblingproducts, such as casino games, betting or onlinegambling.‘Gambling industry’ is a heterogeneous group ofoperators that vary across sectors and jurisdictions.It includes land-based operators such as casinosand betting shops, as well as online gambling providers.‘Psy’ disciplines include psychology, psychiatry,psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, which focus onindividual deficiencies, pathologies and deviationsfrom the norm.A conflict of interest is a set of circumstances andrelationships that might undermine researchers’ independencein the way they conduct, design andpresent their research findings. Conflicts of interestare commonly understood as benefiting the interestsof the gambling industry and the government,but may equally arise in relation to research undertakenfor an anti-gambling charity or indeedany interest group.Social responsibility is the expectation placed ongambling operators to provide adequate educationto minimise the risks of excessive consumptionamong their customers.Responsible gambling is a politically constructedidea that individual consumers should be responsiblefor managing their own excessive behaviour.Harm minimisation promotes the idea that managinggambling harms is a matter of educatingconsumers who are making poor or irrationalchoices in their gambling behaviour. In its least criticalversion, it assumes that harm is an inevitableconsequence of commercial gambling, but not areason to limit its supply. On the contrary, harmsare to be managed through the encouragement of‘responsible gambling’.13

The Goldsmiths Report14

How is research produced?We all conduct research in our everyday lives,whether this is searching online for a better dealfor car insurance or reading a review for a moviein a newspaper. We learn to recognise and rankdifferent kinds of evidence both formally, throughschooling, and informally, by accumulating experiencesof using data successfully or otherwise. Welearn to distinguish between paid-for infomercialsand genuine news items (although this distinction isincreasingly fraught). We go to trusted sources forinformation. Periodically, we experience crises ofconfidence when a previously reliable source is exposedas biased or incomplete. We adjust oursearches in relation to these events, and constantlyevaluate information on the basis of its origin, bothintuitively (correct spelling inspires confidence,emoticons may not) and in relation to structures includingregulators, parliamentary enquiries andthe wider media.Research has also become a specialised industry,delegated to the scientificcommunity, and subject to a plethora of professionalstandards. The most powerful recenttrend in this professionalisation is the emphasisplaced upon ‘impact’, particularly when measuredin economic terms. A host of accompanying terms,‘deliverables’, ‘outputs’, ‘added value’ and so on,have entered the academic lexicon. Professionalresearch, according to this model, is no longer anesoteric pursuit that takes place in the studies andlibraries of the ivory towers, but an outward-looking,commercially engaged and consequential,real-world activity.This model of research fits imperfectly with the industriesdescribed by Charles Livingstone andothers as ‘dangerous consumptions’ – gambling, tobacco,alcohol and drugs. 4 Is the role ofresearchers to contribute to the knowledge of thetobacco industry or gambling operators to maketheir products more profitable? Or is it to reducethe harms produced by these industries on behalfof the state? Both scenarios produce problems. Thefirst because, although it is now uncontroversial toassert that research should be leveraged to assistindustries, particularly on a national or regionalbasis, there is something distinctive about dangerousconsumption industries that makes this proposaldistasteful, or at least politically risky. Unlike farming,or computer design, these industries are to betolerated, rather than encouraged. On the otherhand, the idea that research orients the moral compassof the state in guarding against the harmsproduced by these industries is unrealistic – thestate is the greatest beneficiary of their activitiesin some cases. In Canada, the provincial and territorialgovernments are the monopoly operators oflegal gambling, which, in 2010– 11, generatedrevenue (after prizes paid, before operating expensesdeducted) of approximately$13,956,407,000. 5 In jurisdictions with private operators,gambling generates significant taxrevenue: in Australia, an average of 10% of thetotal tax revenue of state and territory governments,including 17% in the Northern Territory. 6This is the background to one of the pressing questionsraised by this report: what is the purpose ofgambling research?4 Livingstone, C. 2013. ‘Researcher profile: Monash University’, URL: http://tinyurl.com/lyrc97n. Accessed 14 November2013.5 Responsible Gambling Council, 2012. Canadian Gambling Digest 2010–2011.6 Hancock, L. and O’Neil, M. 2010. Risky Business: Why the Commonwealth Needs to Take Over Gambling Regulation. Geelong,Vic.: Alfred Deakin Research Institute, 11.15

How is gambling research produced?Academic research is usually produced at universitiesand may be unfunded or funded by nationalresearch councils (such as the ESRC in the UK), orinternational funding bodies, such as the EuropeanResearch Council. Gambling research which takesplace in universities and centres may also befunded by organisations and charities set up to distributefunds levied from the industry. Theseorganisations take a number of different forms andinclude the Responsible Gambling Trust (formerlyRiGT) in the UK and the National Centre for ResponsibleGaming in the US. Recently, and to anincreasing extent according to our participants, researchin universities is funded by directcontributions from the gambling industry.Commercial research is commissioned by varioustrade associations, such as, for example, the Associationof British Bookmakers in the UK, to commenton gambling trends and issues as well as to educatetheir key stakeholders. Commercial researchcan also be produced by financial investment companiesin order to explore, assess and promoteemerging gambling markets and products. For example,KPMG, a global network of professionaladvisory firms, has produced several reports ononline gambling: its key trends, regulation issuesand risks.Policy research, commissioned by local authorities,NGOs, Churches and governmental bodies, is undertakenby academics and professionalresearchers in order to collect data that can beused to assess the impact of new gambling venuesor products; new regulation; and new preventionand treatment programmes.Neither the personnel who work in thesethree fields, nor the data they produce,are neatly divided or homogeneous. TheBritish Gambling Prevalence Survey (BGPS), forexample, was conducted and produced byNatCen, a British independent social researchagency, in 1999, 2007 and 2010 with the aim ofmeasuring participation in all forms of gamblingand estimating the level of problem gambling. The1999 survey was commissioned by GamCare (acharity providing support and treatment for problemgamblers), while the 2007 and 2010 surveyswere commissioned by the Gambling Commission(the UK regulator) and funded by the Departmentfor Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). DCMS hasindicated that it will not support a further study. In2013 the Association of British Bookmakers offeredto fund a fourth prevalence study to becarried out by the Gambling Commission. 7Case study 1: The United KingdomIn 2012, five years after the Gambling Act 2005was fully implemented, a select committee foundthat, ‘an area of consensus between industry bodies,faith groups and academics alike was the needfor more and better evidence on problem gamblingand specifically about its causes’. Theyrecommended that ‘the Government works with theGambling Commission to provide a clear indicationof how it intends to ensure that sufficient high-qualityresearch on problem gambling is available topolicy-makers’. They also noted that ‘it is particularlyimportant that research is seen to beindependent and comparable over time to showwhether or not there is a change in the levels ofproblem gambling’. 8The UK-based researchers we interviewed havebeen supported by a variety of sources includingthe gambling industry, research councils [the ESRCand the Medical Research Council (MRC)], non-departmentalpublic body the National LotteryCommission, and charities such as the ResponsibleGambling Trust (RGT). RGT is funded by voluntarydonations from the gambling industry. In the yearending 31 March 2014 RGT plans to distribute atotal of £5,307,960: 84% of this money will be7 Anonymous. 2013. ‘British bookmakers make prevalence study offer’, TotallyGaming.com.8 Culture, Media and Sport Committee 2012. ‘Conclusions and recommendations’, in The Gambling Act 2005: A Bet WorthTaking?, 2.16

spent on treatment, 10% on research and 6% oneducation. 9Although the funds allocated to research bythe RGT are limited (recent examples ofMRC grants on gambling range between£214,202 and £1.6 million, for example), becausethey are funded on a voluntary basis by the industryand have specific responsibilities to supportgambling research, they act as a bellwether, reflectingand anticipating important changes in therelationships between industry, research, the regulator(the Gambling Commission) and the state.RGT was formed in 2012 when a short-lived experimentwith a tripartite structure whichseparated fund raising, distribution and setting theresearch agenda failed. 10 RGT is currently responsiblefor both raising and distributing funds, inaccordance with a research strategy which is advisedby the Responsible Gambling StrategyBoard and endorsed by the Gambling Commission.The chief executive of the RGT is Marc Etches, wholed the campaign to create a casino in Blackpooluntil 2004, afterwards acting as a consultant forclients with interests in ‘leisure, gambling, hospitality,and tourism’. In 2004, The Guardian describedhim as ‘the gambling lobby’s most visible face’. 11 Ayear after taking up his post in 2013, he told Intergamethat, ‘Gambling is a legitimate andpopular leisure activity and the industry’s record ofsupport for those who do suffer with problems is agood one and perhaps ought to be more celebrated.’He added that the industry is ‘kept atarm’s length’ from research and that ‘the governancearrangements that we are putting in placewill ensure that everyone can have absolute confidencein the independence and objectivity of theresearch process’. 12Of the 27 interviewees who discussed RGT, 18 expressedserious doubts about their independence.Eleven researchers told us that they would not considerapplying for funding from this source, eitherbecause it didn’t provide grants that were largeenough to support meaningful projects, or becauseit constituted a conflict of interests, or because itwould negatively impact their reputation for independence.Neil Goulden, Chairman of RGT, began his careerat Ladbrokes before moving to Gala Coral. At thetime of writing he is also Chair of the Associationof British Bookmakers (ABB), although he has recentlyindicated his intention to step down from thisrole. In 2013 Goulden wrote that, ‘There is veryclear evidence that problem gambling is about theindividual and not any specific gambling productor products.’ 13 As our report will show, this idea isstrongly resisted by many researchers, who supportthe more nuanced perspective that the harmscaused by gambling emerge from a complex encounterbetween people, products andenvironments.Goulden’s role at RGT has attracted criticismin the UK among anti-gamblingcampaigns and also from within the gamblingindustry. Consultant Steve Donoghue hasblogged that, when research into electronic gamblingmachines is published in September 2014,during the build-up to the general election, ‘it willbe Neil Goulden who has to present its findingswith his RGT hat on and then respond to the resultswith his ABB hat on. A farcical situation that canonly end up with those campaigning against theFixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTS) arguing thatthe results have been influenced by the cuckoo inthe nest.’ 149 Responsible Gambling Trust Web Pages, ‘Commissioning plan’, URL: http://www.responsiblegamblingtrust.org.uk/Commissioning-plan.Accessed 14 November 2013.10 For a description of the demise of this structure see Culture, Media and Sport Committee 2012, The Gambling Act 2005:A Bet Worth Taking?, paragraphs 85–93.11 Mathiason, N. 2004. ‘The man with a winning bet on Blackpool’, The Guardian, 26 September.12 Liddle, S. 2013. ‘RGT stresses independence in Cat B research’, Intergameonline.com, 7 February.13 Anonymous, 2013. ‘Gaming machines policy must be evidence based’, Centrallobby.politicshome.com, 13 April.14 Donohue, S. 2013. ‘Why many hats don’t help when the sky falls in’, GamblingConsultant.co.uk, 22 February.17

Voluntary LevyThe UK ModelTaxIndustryStateAcademic FundingBodiesIntermediaryResearch EducationTreatmentFigure 2 – The UK ModelCase study 2: CroatiaThe Ministry of Finance is responsible for regulatingand licensing games of chance, including thelottery, casino games, betting and slot machines inCroatia. The Croatian Lottery (Hrvatska Lutrija) hasthe monopoly on lotto games and a licence to organiseall other games of chance. Other gamblingoperators, who must be registered in Croatia, mayapply for licences for all other games of chance. 22All gambling operators pay a fixed annual licencefee (valid for 15 years) and a fixed monthly taxdeducted from their monthly turnover. Fees and taxrates vary between sectors. Lotto, for example,pays no annual fee and monthly tax of 10%. Slotmachines pay an annual fee of HRK 10,000.00(€1,313.00) per slot machine and monthly tax of25%.Croatia’s income from gambling tax wasHRK 668,868,424.18 (€87,829,781.62) in2011 23 and HRK 675,389,111.46(€88,686,019.55) in 2012. 24 The Ministry of Financecollects the tax from gambling operatorsand decides how it will be distributed. Currently,50% of the total is spent on supporting goodcauses. There are no specific funds for treatinggambling problems, educating people about gamblingor for gambling research. For example, in2013 the 50% of total tax revenue was distributedas follows: development of sport (35%); dealing22 2009. Zakon o igrama na srecu (Gambling Act). Narodne Novine, no. 87. URL: http://www.zakon.hr/z/315/. Accessed21 September 2012.23 2011. ‘Izvjesce o obavljanoj reviziji godisnjeg izvjestaja o izvrsenju drzavnog proracuna Republike Hrvatske za 2011’(Croatia’s 2011 Annual Budget Report). Drzavni ured za reviziju. URL: http://tinyurl.com/q2ddrq9. Accessed 29 November2013.24 2012. ‘Drzavni proracun 2012’ (Croatia’s 2012 Annual Budget Report). Ministarstvo Financija Republike Hrvatske. URL:http://tinyurl.com/p7zk5av. Accessed 29 November 2013.18

with drugs misuse and treating all other addictions(5.58%); humanitarian activities (9.11%); helpingthose with disabilities (16.2%); promoting technologies(5.18%); promoting culture (11.89%);education of children and youth (4%); promotingcivil society (13.04%). 25 In Croatia, all academicresearch is funded by the Croatian Science Foundation(Hrvatska zaklada za znanost): no themesor subjects are specified as high priority.The Croatian Lottery often, but not regularly, contributesmoney to self-help groups for treatinggambling-related problems. However, these arrangementsare based on relationships betweenstakeholders, rather than structural. This situationmay change as the Croatian Lottery has joined theEuropean Lotteries and the World Lottery Associationand may seek social responsibility credentials.Treatment providers are particularly anxious thatthere is no provision in the Gambling Law to channelrevenue specifically to the treatment of peoplewith gambling problems.The Croatian ModelTaxIndustryLotteryStateAcademicFunding BodiesTreatmentHumanitarianActivitiesSportHelping thosewith disabilitiesResearchTechnologyCultureCivil SocietyEducationFigure 3 – The Croatian ModelCase study 3: MacauIn 2006, Macau overtook Las Vegas to become theworld’s most lucrative gambling market. The largestproportion of expenditure is generated byvisitors from the Chinese mainland playing highstakes baccarat. In 2012 gambling generated $33billion (or €23.2 billion), 40% of GDP; 1.6% ofgross gaming revenue is paid to the Macao Foundation,which distributes funds to support not-forprofitprojects.According to their website, ‘The Macao Foundationis instituted to promote, develop or research on cultural,social, economic, educational, scientific,25 2012. ‘Uredba o kriterijima za utvrdjivanje korisnika i nacinu raspodjele dijela prihoda od igara na srecu za 2013.godinu’ (Criteria for the distribution of tax revenue to good causes) Narodne Novine, no. 144. URL: http://narodnenovine.nn.hr/default.aspx.Accessed 21 September 2012.19

academic and philanthropic activities, as well asactivities that promote Macao. The Macao Foundationmainly conducts its activities in Macao, andconducts exchanges and co-operations with institutionsat home and abroad having similar ideals.’The Macao Foundation received 4.09 billion patacas(or €388.7 million) in 2012 and receivedcriticism from the Commission of Audit for poor supervisionof its chosen investments. 26 In addition tocultural and social activities, it funds academic researchand has emphasised ‘responsible gambling’for the past two years.According to researchers, there are threesources of funding for research in additionto the Macao Foundation. Industry maycommission research but in practice rarely does so,arguing that, as a highly taxed industry, they havealready provided the necessary support. Researcherscan also apply to research funds atpublicly funded universities but these are not specificto gambling. The Social Welfare Bureau, thewelfare services division of the Macau government,regularly commissions policy-oriented research.While funding for research is described as adequateby our interviewees, high-quality,independent research is severely restricted. Academicsat public universities are not allowed to gointo casinos except on particular public holidays, orwhen they have applied for special permission (seesection 47). The government is ‘not easy to workwith’ and ‘not as transparent as in western countries’(see section 47). Not every discipline issupported. The Science and Technology Fund doesnot, for example, recognise psychology as a science(see section 39).Contributes 1.6% of its Gross RevenueContributes 83% of Public RevenueThe MacauModelIndustryStateAcademicFunding BodiesIntermediaryResearchTreatmentSocial andEconomicDevelopment(Culture, Arts, Charity, Community, etc.)Figure 4 – The Macau Model26 Quintã, V. 2013. ‘Macau Foundation locks down subsidies’, macaubusinessdaily.com, 7 August.20

Problems with gambling“Problem gamblers have been used by politicians and regulators.They say they are passing the law to protect theplayer but what they really want is to make money. Politiciansuse the casino industry to stigmatise problem gambling,then they win votes. But these gambling operators pay mosttax, and end up blamed for problem gambling. So they loseon all sides. MUrSEE(25)1021

Headlines• Gambling is an increasingly significant sourceof revenue for governments. (section 1)• Gambling research is dominated by strongvested interests, and findings may be used inappropriately.(section 2)• Gambling is divisive. It provokes passionatedisagreements between defenders of religiousor ethical positions and those who advocatefreedom of choice. (section 3)• Definitions of gambling are locally various.What counts as ‘gambling’ in one place maynot do so in another. (section 4)• The field is dominated by the idea of ‘problemgambling’. (sections 5, 6)• The idea of problem gambling normalises themajority of gambling while blaming the minorityfor not playing well. (sections 7, 8)• ‘Problem gambling’ is silent on the relationshipsbetween the state and gamblingoperators. At the same time, it is an essentialmechanism that sustains those relationships.(section 9)• Policy makers trust and demand numbers. (section10)• Framing gambling as a public health issuedoes not guarantee a strong research tradition.(section 11)• An emphasis on treatment, harm minimisationand responsible gambling sustains the currentarrangements between the state and the industry.(sections 12, 13)• The idea of responsible gambling is travellingthrough professional and informal internationalnetworks and standards from more toless mature jurisdictions. (section 14)22

Gambling makes money for governmentsGambling is increasingly legal and therefore regulated,enabling governments to capture revenuethrough taxation. In the past governments acted aspolicemen, either enforcing bans or keeping legalgambling crime free. More recently they have becomeimportant participants in gambling marketsas both operators and tax collectors.I remember when gambling was like the WildWest and some of us can tell you where all thebodies are buried. It’s not like that any more.The online business has really cleaned up its act,but in the early days it was hair-raising. It’s quitedull now that we are a regulated industry. Wehave to play it straight because our closest partnersare governments. MUrOE(21)93The state sees the gambling industry as theirgolden goose, filling their budget. I’ll be open:the state loves the gambling industry.MUtSEE(23)141If you did good reliable research on whichproduct is most addictive in all the EU countries,then you could change the legislation all around.But nobody wants that because of the taxes.MUpOE(20)6In the UK there has been a national lottery since1994. In Canada all forms of legal gambling arerun by provincial and territorial governments. InAustralia, gambling taxes from commercial operatorsaccount for an average of 10% of staterevenue: 17% in the Northern Territory. 27 Some ofour participants described a culture of dependency,where the state is less likely to suggestmeasures to protect consumers from the harms thatmay arise from gambling if they are likely to havea negative impact on profit and therefore taxation.The industry is interested in research as a publicrelations tool. They are terrified of research thatmight cut consumption. I think they’re pretty openabout that. They’re businessmen, they’re not goingto cut their legs off. My concern is more thegovernment complicity, the way in which governmentis involved. XXXXXGambling is dominated by vested interestsGambling research is a political activity. Researchfunding structures, no matter how different theyare from one jurisdiction to another, are affectedby the interests of the state as operator or regulatorand the gambling industry as a source ofrevenue. Research is thus always subject to co-optiononto political agendas, which may or may notbe transparent or consistent. Gambling researchcan be used by policy makers and the media inways that are unanticipated and may be inappropriate.Vested interests vary through time andspace and reflect the social histories of gamblingin particular jurisdictions.Gambling is a politically charged field. Anytime you do research you have some randomguy in [the] legislature use it incorrectly and misinterpretit, and it goes on like that so I thinkthere are all these things around it that makes itdifficult to do academic research. FRaUS(11)66You have so many different interests to try toanticipate: politicians, regulators, law enforcement.You have to see where the power lies andthat’s not always obvious and can change fast.MRiOE(15)89The problem is that the state issues licences andreceives a lot of money from that. So is it reallyin their interest to have research on gamblingwhen they make money on gambling? Is it reallyin their interest to know what the real situationwith gambling products and practices is? MIoSEE(20)3The state receives millions of euros, but thosewho become victims of gambling receive nothing.They are lost in the system: they becomevictims of loan sharks, their families are broken,they receive inadequate treatment, they spread27 Hancock and O’Neil, Risky Business, 11.23

the problem to others because others care aboutthem. MUtSEE(13)142Gambling is controversialDespite efforts to recategorise it as a form of leisure,gambling remains divisive. Debates are oftenpassionate and polarised between religious ormoral positions that seek to minimise opportunitiesfor gambling, and commercial or free choice modelsthat seek to submit gambling choices to the logicof the market only.How dare Nanny State tell me how I can spendmy money? This is a free country. MIoUK(11)42The traditional view was ‘Why should a Christianput their trust in chance?’, ‘Why should theybe worried about greed or money, when weshould be trusting in God rather than winning thelottery?’ However, the current position of thischurch, you could say has developed, some peoplewould say has been watered down. Whenthe gambling bill was going through that wasthe time to campaign on right and wrong. Carryingon complaining won’t do anything at all.It’s a waste of breath. It’s not like we’ve abandonedour principles, it’s just that for aconsultation document gambling is alreadythere and you can only really answer the questionsthey ask. MUpUK(6)99The gambling field started in some places froma position of advocacy so you really had peoplewho felt very strongly one way or anotheralmost morally about gambling, whether it’sright or wrong and so you had people who werekind of looking for evidence to support theirworld view. FRaUS(11)66Politicians can gain support by opposing or condemninggambling.Gambling will always be a matter of conscience.It is morally aspirational to opposegambling. MUpUK(40)87If you are a minister you don’t want to be anywherenear gambling because it is so politicallysensitive. Politicians are self-interested and theyare re-elected by local populations and so ifthere are things that can draw them to their localattention then they will take them up. Some willtake them up with a lot of passion and with a lotof knowledge, some will take them up with a lotof passion and very little knowledge and ofcourse there will be those who have very strongpersonal views about gambling. So in a waypolitics reflects, as often it does really, life ingeneral. That’s how most people are. There willbe a reason why you might have a view, and ifyou do have a view around things like gamblingit’s often quite a strong view. MIoUK(12)41There is no universal definition of gamblingAt the most basic level, there is no internationallyshared definition of what is, or is not, gambling.The gambling industry includes a range of sectorswith very different characteristics and interests including:lotteries, sports betting, casinos, arcades,online, bingo and poker. Even in neighbouring jurisdictionswithin Europe, gambling may beunderstood and regulated quite differently. As aresult, there is a mosaic of national markets andregulators, even at the same time as technologyreduces the significance of territorial and politicalboundaries for consumption. This variation has ahuge impact on research and means that findingsare not directly comparable across jurisdictions.You have to understand that there is nothing inherentthat gambling shares all over the world.Sports betting in the US is mob dirty. It cannotbe a part of the campaign to make online legal.Now where in Europe could you imagine a similarsituation? These things are very distinctive.Everything about them, the way that powerworks in the system, and the way that peoplegamble. MRiOE(15)8924

Research has many different problems, of personality,or comparability and of rigour. First ofall, there is no agreement about what ‘gambling’actually means, so, as lawyers, we areable to create all kinds of exceptions, evensome that seem contrary to common sense. Themotivation for this comes from many directions:from regulation, but also from commercial pressure,mainly taxation. So, we are not inagreement about what is gambling, we constantlytalk past each other. The differences arein fact locally significant, so this is not always afailure, but an attempt to take into account localsensibilities, understandings, culture if you will.It’s not a deliberate thing, it is part of the complexityof studying gambling, a process that isculturally diverse at the most profound level.MUrOE(7)91Most research focuses on problem gamblingGambling is a complex phenomenon which can beusefully studied in a variety of ways.It’s important to understand that this is reallyquite a hard thing to study. When I say that thestandard [of the research] isn’t particularly high,that should be set against the context that this isa difficult thing to study. Gambling is a multifacetedsocial psychological thing, and there arehuge numbers of ways of looking at it and understandingit. XXXXXDespite this, gambling research is dominated by afocus on ‘problem gambling’, variously definedand understood.Research producers and users regularly call for awidening of perspectives to include a greater varietyof approaches. However, the politicaleconomy of gambling research (including funding,commissioning and dissemination) is stronglyskewed towards problem gambling research, aswe will show. Narrow understandings of gamblingas a problematic behaviour associated with the individualhave stabilised under present conditions,reinforcing disciplinary divides at a time when multidisciplinaryapproaches are being encouragedoutside the field of gambling studies.The term ‘problem gambling’ implies an individualsubject and it’s quite difficult to break out ofthat given that there is such interest in continuingto focus on problem gambling and issues that fixindividuals rather than communities, and alsovested interest in not bringing too much scrutinyto bear on the parties that benefited so muchfrom the growth of the gambling industrythrough a period of deregulation.FRaAU(15)25The dominant strand is still a quantitative, positivistmodel and a psychological approach togambling is definitely dominant. Addiction is alwaysthe first thing that people want to talkabout. XXXXX25

Problem gambling dominates the entire fieldFigure 5 – Problem gambling. Data drawn from the papers given at the University of Nevada’s 15thInternational Conference on Gambling & Risk Taking (21–31 May 2013) and the European Associationfor the Study of Gambling’s 9th European Conference on Gambling Studies and Policy Issues (18–21September 2012).From policy making to research questions, problemgambling and the related concepts of ‘responsiblegambling’ and ‘harm minimisation’ dominate all aspectsof the field. Research focusing on problemgambling receives most funding and is most widelydisseminated. Funding structures which promote‘safe’ research inhibit academics, consciously or unconsciously,directing their attention towardsconservative themes. As a result, many ethical issuessurrounding gambling harm as a wider publichealth issue are overlooked.I have been interested in why the field is dominatedby problem gambling and it certainly hasto do with how the field is constructed and whereresearchers are getting their money. XXXXXThere are two sides to gambling research in Australia:there is a large group who uses gamblingresearch as they would with any research tobuild an academic career […] not having anyparticular purpose in mind, and then there is apublic health purpose which is to build an evidencebase in support of reform. XXXXXI tried my best but sometimes I felt alone. For thisreason, I think people try to write more on responsiblegambling, talking to visitors, talking togamblers. I think that’s relatively easy. I thinkthat also explains why we have lots of articlesabout problem gambling but not qualitative approachesto operations, how they work inpractice. Of course I can switch my research topicsto other areas. For example, I can askproblem gamblers, ‘What do you feel?’ ‘Whatcan government do to help you?’ That kind ofstuff would be relatively easy. But I’m boredwhen I read these articles. I can guess more orless what is going on behind them. That’s somethingwhich pushes me to do something different,I would say interesting. MRaHK/M(6)12The problem gambling paradigmYou should work on the political economy of theindustry, because it is completely fascinating.Have you read Polanyi? If you don’t get how theeconomy reproduces itself you have no idea ofhow to make an intervention. The gambling industryis impenetrable. It reproduces seamlessly,and the problem gambling stuff is a big part ofthat. MInUK(2)51The problem gambler is a socially constructed andvigorously maintained category which emerged inlate-modern consumer societies. A problem gambleris someone who is indulging in ‘inappropriate26

consumption’. 28 The dysfunction is therefore locatedwith the individual or citizen: the person,rather than in wider relationships. This idea is epitomisedin Margaret Thatcher’s famous assertionthat ‘there is no such thing as society’. 29A strong premise of the commercial gambling industryis that a gambler has a choice, as aconsumer, to spend their money as they wish. Bynormalising and institutionalising gambling, thestate has discursively created an abnormal categoryof people who cannot consume appropriately– the problem gamblers.Gambling regulation and the way gambling operatorsorganise gambling rests on the idea ofinformed choice, or ‘buyer beware’. 30 This modelpresupposes that if a consumer is presented withenough information about a gambling product andits possible harms, anything they do is their own responsibility(and fault).I am very much in favour of the informed choicemodel. If people have the information, they canuse it or not. The decision needs to be based ona voluntary basis. We need to give them informationto motivate them to decide they want togo home. If they have options, then they can decide.MUpOE(10)6Why should we spend time and money researchingthese things? Well, because as far aswe can in a free society we are not going toprohibit the consumption of crisps, what we wantto be able to do is create informed consumers.Now I’d be the first to recognise that this is anew form of conceiving citizenship in civil society.Governments allow opportunities to be createdthrough privatisation, licensing. If you want toyou can, you are a free agent, choose, we willput warning labels on food. Red, bad for hearts,green eat me, amber only a little. There’s a perfectanalogy: the food industry falling over itselfto complain about the way in which the FoodStandard Agency wants to do this. The food industrysays you’ve got to give consumers muchmore information and of course all they’ve gotis tiny print on the back of a bottle of Coke. Ultimatelyit’s a political question, how do youconceive of your society? MRaUK(40)57These choices, however, take place in environmentsthat are manufactured to maximise profits.The prevailing paradigm is one that is excusatory,it is one that not just by default but byexplicit design sets out to blame the individual[…] In the UK you’ve got a very discouragingpolitical context, in terms of free markets andinformed consumers: anything goes as long aspeople get a bit of information and then whateverthey suffer is their own fault and they haveto suffer and bear the blame. That then becomesquite an impediment to more critical researchbecause then they are working outside the paradigmso it’s more difficult to get funded.XXXXXImages of problem gamblersThe notion that there are problem gamblers isalmost necessary to justify gambling as a formof entertainment because it legitimises it and ifyou take that away from people it becomesmore difficult to construct gambling as an entertainment.The staff found it problematic if youencourage people to think of customers asfriends, then it upsets people if what you aredoing is hurting them. Whereas if you have themore traditional Las Vegas style that the customersare all idiots then you’re not that personallyaffected by anything that happens to them becausethey are constructed in a different way.FRaUK(2)58By categorising a small minority of people as‘problem gamblers’, the state and the industry areable to continue to promote gambling as a safeand legitimate form of leisure and entertainmentfor the ‘normal’ majority. Images of problem gamblersin our data are many. They include thoselabelled as losers, weirdos or simply those who28 Reith, G. 2007. ‘Gambling and the contradictions of consumption: a genealogy of the “pathological” subject’, AmericanBehavioral Scientist 51(1): 33–55, 41.29 Interview 23 September 1987, as quoted by Douglas Keay, in Woman's Own, 31 October 1987, pp. 8–10.30 Hancock and O’Neil, Risky Business, 11.27

don’t gamble well, but most are flattened out anddecontextualised accounts of problematic people.Industry’s views of problem gamblers, in particular,are often deterministic and derogatory. They areseen as people who are unable to control their behaviour.Some described treatment as a waste ofmoney, and people with gambling problems as‘problem people’.Problem gamblers are problem people. Theyare drug addicts, criminals, they are unable tocontrol their impulses and this is why it is impossibleand pointless trying to prevent them fromharming themselves. All the studies about comorbidityin Australia show this – these aredamaged people. The research in the UK is farbehind Australia. Treatment is standard cognitivebehavioural therapy. And this is why socalledtalking cures are worthless. They are anexpensive cosy chat with a friendly face, butthey don’t cure problem gambling. They mighteven enable problem gambling. The evidencejust isn’t there to evaluate these treatments. Thetreatment providers hide it because they knowit will show they don’t make any impact. If wehad that hard evidence it would show spontaneousrecovery as they’ve found in Australia andthe US, and the treatment providers would beout of a job, so they have a vested interested toconceal their recovery rates. MIoUK(11)42Gambling is about greed and it requires disciplinemore than anything, to walk away. Ask agambler why he has a problem and he will say‘I was unlucky or made a mistake on a card, ora cheque wasn’t paid through’. He’ll never say ‘Ijust lost £500 on a FOBT, my giro hasn’t comethrough’, the truth. MIoUK(20)74The industry people say: ‘We don’t want problemgamblers.’ It’s like the problem gambler is akind of species, it’s bizarre. It’s not only bizarrefrom a research point of view, from any kind ofcultural or social point of view it’s quite bizarre.The industry produces this figure. They reallysimplify it. The problem gambler is like a caricature.The problem gambler is someone whodoesn’t gamble well. Like in Australia, the ideais that people gamble money for fun, so this Australianproblem gambler is spoiling it for the restof us. It’s very much how it works. FRaAU(15)25In practice, there was disagreement within the industryabout how to understand and deal withproblem gamblers.At the end of the day we are running a businessand we don’t want to ruin lives, we don’t wantto wreck people. We have personally intervenedif people have got themselves intotrouble, we don’t want to have that on our consciences.I don’t think every company is the same.Some companies think of their customers as totallydifferent from themselves or their families.They objectify them and that gives them carteblanche to exploit them. Especially if they canlaugh at their problems. I would say that wehave retained our empathy compared to othergambling companies that I’ve worked with. Weare part of the world still and so that personwho can’t make their house payment could beyour sister or sister in law. And then you seethere is no real choice but to step in and sayyou’ve had enough. I think research should focuson patterns that indicate problems with gambling,but I can also see how that would be avery difficult thing to identify because you’vegot such varying expenditure. So you’ve got togo a lot with feel, what seems right and whatstinks. If it stinks, shut down the account, or talkto your customer. It isn’t impossible to do and itjust means don’t be greedy. That’s what theyshould teach gambling executives. Don’t begreedy. MInUK(10)45In shops we must get better at identifying problems.You are not allowed to tell someonethey’ve got a problem. Even if someone isclearly betting beyond their means they may beinsulted. Managers are now button pushers, noone wants them to manage they just want themto follow protocol. You imagine a Tote shop onthe corner of a housing estate, old Doris is shereally going to say, ‘Blimey Bob, you’ve gonefrom 50p to £50 a race! Are you sure?’ This isthe problem of a profit-related business. MIoUK(20)74Uncertainties about who the problem gambler isand how they come to occupy this category persist.Many stakeholders were aware of the lack of aclear definition of problem gambling, and insteadworked with various different images, dependingon their position, methodologies and agendas.28

We say we don’t want problem gamblers, butwhat’s the difference between a problem gamblerand a really good, loyal customer? It’s inthe eye of the beholder really. Does the personthink he has a problem? Can he sustain his expenditure?If he can’t he won’t be back. If he canthen who’s to say he has a problem? We shouldmake him welcome. He’s a bread and butter customer.Years ago he would be welcomed. Noware we saying that if you spend too much youhave a problem? Who gets to decide how muchis too much? It’s a free country and he can spendhis money how he pleases. What it’s got to dowith anyone else I don’t know. This is where thegovernment has got things wrong. My wife buysa lot of shoes and handbags. She doesn’t needthem. They are expensive. I don’t go to her andsay, ‘Madam, I’m afraid I think you have a problem.Could you please seek counselling?’MIoUK(17)54Poker is great, it’s a cure for problem gamblers.Those who become addicted to slot machinesand roulette should be treated with poker. Theproblem here is that when you say you playBela, it’s okay, but the moment you say you playpoker, they think you’re a gambler. Pokerdoesn’t allow you to form a habit and addictionis nothing but a habit. Poker has strong rules, itteaches you money and time management skills.An addict takes £10 and goes gambling hopingto win £10,000. This is madness. A poker playertakes £10 and plays hoping to win £12. There’sno skipping steps here. Poker builds strong character.MIoSEE(30)11The focus on problem gambling produces ‘safe’ researchThe so-called ‘psy’ disciplines of psychiatry andpsychology, by focusing on problem gambling asa definitive and measurable activity, produce‘safe’ research, which focuses on the ‘faulty’ individual,passing responsibility for the existence ofmarkets for risk-taking from the state to the individualconsumer. Gambling is studied as anindividual pathology, unrelated to the wider sociopoliticalcontext. This research is silent about relationshipsbetween the state, the industry and theconsumer.Psychology invites some very safe research inthat a lot of the research has come out of labsand is not really contextualised in any sort ofpolicy context. There are probably not thatmany psychologists who I would say have questionedthe prevailing paradigm that tends tolegitimate a lot of the government and industrycoalescence of interests. XXXXX‘Safe’ gambling research is also informed by andreproduced through the use of certain concepts.‘Responsible gambling’, for example, is a powerfulconstruct which, with ‘problem gambling’, filtersand narrows down research themes and methodologiesthat are rewarded by funders and journaleditors. Such key concepts also influence whatcounts as evidence both in academic terms and asa basis for policy making. The major policy contributionof problem gambling research is to promote‘responsible gambling’, a product that is difficult todefine, and possibly oxymoronic. Newcomers tothe gambling industry were struck by the use ofthese terms by gambling executives, and fascinatedby their political genealogies.Research looks at problem gamblers. Gamblingoperators talk about responsible gambling –how much did they have to pay to get thatphrase into the gambling jargon? ‘Promoting responsiblegambling’. Anyone who has readanything about messaging can see what a brilliantsleight of hand that was for the gamblingindustry. Well, just try out these two differentapproaches: Preventing problem gambling.Promoting responsible gambling. Which wouldyou rather have? What about cigs? ‘Preventingchain smoking’ or ‘Promoting moderate smoking’:which would you sign up for? MInUK(5)53When we came into his business we were absolutelyflabbergasted that there was a built-incushion for bad products. Problem gambling!When gambling goes wrong! (laughs) You know,you get this big let off. It says, ‘Don’t worry ifpeople get addicted to your machine or yourgame – there are some real weirdos out there.What can you do? People are weak.’ At a very29

asic level, it shifts responsibility from the industryto the consumer, and that is great for us, butnot so great for you. MInUK(2)51Policy makers trust numbersQuantitative research methods can produce fastempirical results that are commonly perceived ascredible and scientifically objective by policy makers.Numbers and statistics are particularly valued.Qualitative research methods translate less wellinto policy settings, as they are often based onspecific phenomena or contexts and may not producegeneralisable insights.Some disciplines like psychology are actuallyvery good at being able to do something fastand empirical and get the results out quickly.You can have a veneer of objectivity and scientificrespectability with numbers. That goes along way with the bureaucrats. MRaAU(12)98To have an impact, and I’m talking now as a lobbyist,you need something snappy and easy toexplain. You literally have minutes to make animpression. MRiOE(15)89Psychological research is regarded as morecredible and scientific and that’s in spite of longestablisheddisciplines of public health, of geography,public economics. FRaAU(15)25As cultural anthropologists, we were the onlygroup of researchers who used qualitative methods.No one else, not even sociologists, orcommunicologists, were trained in qualitativemethods. The general attitude is that such an approachis not scientific as well as representativeenough. Qualitative methods are currently suppressedat the Slovenian academic centres.FRaSEE(6)1The gold standard of this numbers ontology is theprevalence study, the most common metric used bypoliticians and regulators. It is used to assess theoverall ‘health’ of gambling, and, in theory, to assessthe ‘impact’ of changes in policy. At times,entire gambling policies appear to hinge on theoutcomes of periodic prevalence studies. In practice,as we show in sections 23 and 24, prevalencestudies often fail to capture much of what is consideredimportant about gambling by policy makersand researchers, and their findings are subject tohuge variations in interpretation.It’s really unhelpful that problem gambling is expressedas a proportion of 1%. I’ve heard thatfigure given at seminars and so on: the 1 versusthe 99 and it’s not right, it’s incorrect. Theyshould talk about the population numbers – the450,000. They have tried hard to introduce thisidea of behaviours on a spectrum so that youaren’t just focused in on one end of it, and sothat’s why they had all that information aboutpeople at risk, but it just got ignored. A lot ofpolicy weight is hung on the prevalence surveyand I think they would be better to take a morerounded perspective. If I’m looking through theeyes of policy makers, if you are looking for anevidence base, if you’ve got something thatpeople generally accept then it’s an easy optionto take, ‘Thank god it’s something they canagree on!’ FRcUK(6)62Is gambling a public health issue?In most jurisdictions, problems caused by gamblingare couched in terms of individual pathology. Inpractice, this means that the roots of the problem,as well as the solutions, are sought in the ‘addicted’individual, leaving societal factors unexamined.Anything to do with gambling products, their technologicalwiring, or their accessibility, is presentedas of secondary significance when devising treatmentapproaches or assessing policy.In New Zealand, Canada and Norway, problemgambling has been presented as a public healthissue to a greater or lesser extent and with varyingoutcomes. In its ideal form, a meaningful publichealth approach would include the state and the30

workings of the gambling industry as legitimateobjects of study, not just the ‘addicted’ individual.Many researchers suggested that the public healthmodel would produce a more nuanced approach,encouraging the production of diverse types of evidence.However, in practice, the politicalimplications of such an approach, and the potentialimpact on gambling consumption, limit its influence.I keep chuntering on and on about the regulatorymodel that’s applied in the gamblingcontext which is essentially a command-and-controlmodel, which I think is just hideously out ofdate, given all the technology that now aboundsin gambling, and really doesn’t address thingsfrom a public health perspective, and I’ll probablykeep going on about it till the grave but ifyou are truly interested in reducing harm as agovernment official then surely you should beusing the industry against itself and making surethat they use some of that expertise and someof that brain power that it’s recruiting to helpmitigate the downsides of its own products. Almostforce the industry into taking a longer-termperspective rather than what everyone admitsto: a year on year slash-and-burn policy towardscustomers. MInUK(8)35In New Zealand gambling is explicitly formulatedas a public health issue. I don’t think it’sgoing to happen in Britain. I can’t see the Departmentof Health wanting to takeresponsibility for it and I think there are plentyof powerful stake holders who think it works forthem where it is in DCMS. FRcUK(6)62Approaching gambling as a public health issuedoes not in itself guarantee a critical examinationof the underlying politics of the field.It has now gone from an illness [or] medicalisedversion into more of a public health one, but interms of influence of the industry, their understandingof public health is a very conservativeone and doesn’t take on board much about preventionapart from education and informationfor the individual to make more informedchoices, but the choices are constrained by thetoxicity of the product and the lack of care andvision in both the regulatory paradigm and theway that venues are run by operators. XXXXXThe industry would rather support treatment than fund researchFigure 6 – RGT funding plan for 2013–14. This shows the proportion of funds given to research andtreatment .The problem gambling model emphasises treatmentand harm minimisation rather than usingresearch to investigate the causes of harm and howit can be prevented. Focusing on treatment suggeststhat harms are the inevitable price of acommercial gambling industry.31

The danger is that when lobbying for greaterindependence and objectivity in research the industrywill say ‘Well, we are paying tax, avoluntary contribution for treatment and alsopaying a voluntary contribution for somethingwhich is of no benefit to us and there’s a lot ofresearch that puts us in a negative light.’ I’veseen GamCare in a public meeting where themost vociferous and aggressive member presentfrom the industry said, ‘I don’t know what all thisfuss is about! We should just write a cheque forGamCare.’ And GamCare were present andthey nodded. So, that really is (laughs) that reallyis the position, in terms of independentresearch. MRcUK(10)79Well, industry fund GamCare, one has to recognisethe reason for that: it is a nice little crossover for everybody. It’s probably still a bit of amix of ‘Hmm, slight worry, but we had better gowith it’ and some are going with it rather moreopenly than others. It is not a homogeneouswhole. That’s always played out in funding,bingo people say ‘But we are soft! It’s the machinespeople who should be stumping up’.MRaUK(40)57The political sensitivity around the funding of Gam-Care in the UK illustrates how relying on a singlesource of industry funding – either as a researcheror a treatment provider – makes one vulnerableand unable or unwilling to ask challenging questions.Working with the agencies, because their fundingis coming from the industry, there is a certainparty line. They are very, very careful for examplewhen it comes to what they say about theFOBTs which I know do cause a significantamount of problems for a significant amount ofpeople that did not have gambling problems inthe past. But because GamCare is afraid of upsettingthe gambling industry by saying thatthey tend to downplay it. And I’d like to say I’mcertainly not anti-gambling, I’m not anti-industry,in fact I have a very good relationship with theindustry, but yes, I feel that one is stifled whenworking with agencies that receive all theirfunding from that source because they are veryafraid of saying anything negative that mightupset them. XXXXXGamCare have now said publicly that they haveno intention of taking a view on fixed odds bettingterminals because that’s biting the hand thatfeeds them. And informally most of them willsay, well and truly, ‘Yes, betting terminals arethe devil’s work.’ But it’s true that there’s a certainreluctance on the part of some of the bigplayers to actually come out and say it becausethey fear for funding. Research has taken abackward rather than a forward step. Which inturn is predicated on GamCare’s desire to notrock the boat. MRcUK(10)79Can problem gambling be cured?If problem gambling existed then it would be aproblem for the NHS and they would find a curefor it. MRcUK(4)56The treatment of problem gambling reflects theidea that it is an individual pathology. This model,several treatment providers have noted, treats theproblem gambler – a politicised construct – ratherthan a person with a gambling problem.GamCare has shifted. It was once much moreabout someone’s social problems. It’s starting toshift a bit more now, taking on board thatmaybe there might be an aspect of brain chemistryfor example, more of a disease modelstance on it, and saying there’s no gender differenceis all a part of that, like saying, now weare treating a problem gambler rather than anindividual who has a gambling problem andwhy. Treat the problem gambler rather than theperson who has developed a gambling problem.Shorter-term, more medical models, a focuson data collection to an extreme degree, a focuson completing accurate paperwork ratherthan time with clients. More number-crunchingdata from treatment, rather than freeing timefor face to face. Demand on therapists is increasingin terms of the number of people theyare expected to see in a day. And this is demandingwork, there is a limit to what you can32

process. Now it’s how many people can we getthrough as efficiently as possible. XXXXXSome treatment providers chose a ‘middle way’,emphasising the environmental and temporal factorsin gambling behaviour and presentinggambling as a form of exchange which relies onand creates various relationships. This approachstresses the importance of learning and unlearningdifferent types of behaviours.I want to take the middle way. There are thingsgoing on in the person that have either predisposedthem to having a gambling addiction orhave actually triggered it because there are issuesin their lives and there’s a personality area.That’s my natural orientation. But increasingly Ihave a lot of sympathy for the public healthmodel, which is looking at the fact that there isa huge public health dimension and the extremeexample of that is New Zealand. They wouldtake a radically other stance and say basicallyit’s [the] industry. Psychologists are employed inworking out time in front of slot machines and soon and machines themselves are addictive. […]And so you’ve got a kind of a radical view ofthe public health, it’s all the fault of the industry,it’s all their fault, it’s a bit like drugs, it’s antisocialand it shouldn’t be allowed. Where I sit is Iwant to see both sides of those. I would adhereto, not a medical model, I don’t see it as a disease,I see it as a maladaptive learnedbehaviour. That with therapy, counselling support,can be unlearned. MUtUK(27)82If clients express anxiety about gambling brainsand genes, I say, let’s talk about learned behaviour.We learn how to be a woman, how to bea man. To me gambling is all about relationships.Those that don’t work, do work, havingthem or not having them. There are so many differentways of gambling now, and thepsychology of problem gambling hasn’tchanged. We’re wasting money on that.XXXXXIn Hong Kong and Macau, treatment providers suggestedthat therapy focused on a sovereign,isolable individual may not be appropriate outsideEurope and North America, highlighting the factthat the ‘problem gambler’ is a social and historicalconstruction.For Chinese people there are family membersinvolved, not like western people where you areresponsible for yourself. It’s not the case for Chinesepeople. […] So in our centre we emphasisehelp for the family members. MUtHK/M(13)103Exporting responsible gamblingThe problem gambling paradigm is being exportedfrom mature to younger jurisdictionsthrough international trade organisations which callfor responsible gambling measures. In mature jurisdictionsproblem gambling has been subjected tocritical attention, even if this has not succeeded inpromoting alternatives. Elsewhere a focus on problemgambling is regarded as a necessary first stepin the attempt to encourage the industry to engagein greater ‘social responsibility’. In south-easternEurope and Hong Kong / Macao, for example,there is a sense that the government should take amore prominent role in developing responsiblegambling policies. This role would also involve commissioningand directing research, which hashitherto been motivated by commercial incentives.Previously the government focused on the developmentof the gaming industry so they wouldencourage competition to increase the gamingrevenues. They didn’t do a lot on responsiblegaming and were publicly criticised.MRaHK/M(2)13The casinos are not very active in this area ofproblem gambling because it doesn’t makemoney. Their interest is more to make moneythan other things. I haven’t heard them do anyresearch in Macau. FUtHK/M(8)106In Croatia the first prevalence study of the adolescentpopulation was an important step in raisingawareness that gambling could produce socialharm.The first prevalence study in Croatia was importantfor us because we could finally draw onthe evidence gathered in our own country. Until33

then, I’d always use data from EU countries orCanada or Australia. I was never sure how Croatiandata compares to those others. It turnedout that our problem gambling rate in adolescentsis higher than in Europe. My conclusion isthat gambling in Croatia is not regulatedenough or not regulated well enough, with verylittle awareness of responsible gambling on thepart of the operators. MUtSEE(23)141With no systematic funding structure in place, treatmentproviders and researchers from the newerjurisdictions find it important to frame gambling interms of addiction in order to invite a more committedresponse from the state. They must also becareful to avoid antagonising either operators orthe state.In my opinion, measuring the problem gamblerincidence rate and prevalence rate betweendifferent places: growing the evidence baseand localisation is the purpose of gambling research.FUtHK/M(6)107When we set up self-help groups we had toavoid stigmatising gambling operators. Wewanted a truce, so we spoke of the pathologythat can be a result of games of chance ratherthan of games of chance being pathological inthemselves. We received support from bothstate-run and private gambling operators.MUtSEE(23)141In mature jurisdictions this process took place sometime ago.In the early days I exploited problem gamblingto the hilt, to get the issue on the agenda. Theindustry got a bit fed up with it and I could seewhy. XXXXX34

Evidence“The Daily Mail has had more impact on policy than any researcheror centre. Is this evidence-based policy? I think not!It is politics pure and simple. MUpUK(18)10035

Headlines• Research does not produce the kind of evidencerequired by policy makers in order tochange legislation. (sections 15, 16)• There are basic and profound disagreementsabout what constitutes evidence in gamblingresearch, even within stakeholder groups. Arecognition that different research questionsand methods produce a variety of forms of evidenceis missing. (sections 17, 18, 19)• Policy makers do not make decisions aboutgambling based on evidence, however it is defined.(section 20)• Research in natural environments and in laboratoriesis complementary. These ways ofworking and their findings need to be productivelycombined in multidisciplinaryexperiments. (section 22)• Data produced by prevalence surveys aresubject to widely different interpretations.(section 23)• Prevalence studies do not produce evidence ofcausal relationships. (section 24)• A narrow definition of evidence makes manyof the questions asked by policy makers impossibleto answer, either because they aretoo simplistic, or because the money does notexist to fund the projects which would allowthem to be answered, or because the data requiredto answer them is inaccessible. (section25)36

The tyranny of evidenceHave you got actual evidence that FOBTs causeproblem gambling? Because that is the only waythat we will get them banned. Listen, I didn’tcome into politics to liberalise gambling, I cantell you. MUpUK(11)88It is conventional for stakeholders to assert that thegrowth of commercial gambling should be managedby evidence-based policy. The UKgovernment, for example, will not make anychanges to policy unless it is presented with unequivocalevidence that problem gambling iscaused by particular products or pieces of legislation.This was made clear during a discussion in theHouse of Commons in January 2013:Hugh Robertson: Yes, the Government areseriously concerned about problem gambling.This is one of those quite tricky areaswhere common sense suggests that it is a majorproblem but there is a lack of evidence toback that up. I very much hope that the majorresearch project that is being undertaken willgive us the necessary evidence and, absolutely,once the problem is proved to exist,the Government will act.John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Conservative):Does the Minister agree thatthere is currently not much evidence to provethat fixed odds betting terminals are the mostaddictive form of gambling? Although I applaudhis concern for the problems caused byproblem gambling, will he reassure the Housethat he will proceed only on the basis of firmevidence when that is available? 31Politicians are held to this guarantee by each other,and also by the industry. In April 2013, Chairmanof the Association of British Bookmakers NeilGoulden said that: ‘The Government has promisedan evidence-based policy review and we will holdthem to that promise.’ 32There is a dearth of evidence on which to base policyPolicy makers complained that research did notprovide the kind of evidence they required tomake decisions. They struggled to apply findingsfrom other jurisdictions to their own, and to comparethe methods and metrics used by differentresearchers. They were unable to bring researchtogether into a single coherent body.We have absolutely no research on which tobase policy. Nothing is directly translatablefrom the US or Australia. Yeah, you can kind ofmake a leap and say, well what has happenedwhen they introduce machines in these places, orwhatever, but really it is guesswork and ministersdon’t want that, because they need to justifypolitical decisions on the basis of black-andwhiteevidence. We just don’t have that. There’sa huge gap. I’d say expectations of stakeholdersare completely unrealistic. We find onepiece about opening a casino in Atlantic Cityand they just jump on it and you say, well it’s notquite that straight-forward because you mightneed to look at who wrote it and when, and theparticular context and all that and they look atyou with panic! MUrOE(8)92Unfortunately there is absolutely no reliable researchin this area and we can’t work out why.Is it because the government won’t support it, orbecause the industry won’t play ball? It’s reallyfrustrating. We all felt on the council that beforewe made such a big move we would need tounderstand the implications, but we just couldn’tfind any relevant material. That’s why welooked into commissioning ourselves, whichturned into a complete joke. Gambling researchis just like local politics! Factions, vested interestsand no money! That turned out to be an expensivered herring. MUpUK(3)9531 House of Commons Debates, 13 January 2013, col. 443.32 Anonymous, 2013. ‘Gaming machines policy must be evidence based’, Centrallobby.politicshome.com, 13 April.37

The problem is that research often cannot giveus concrete answers because there are problemswith methodology, the industry often won't participate,then the conclusions andrecommendations are very limited. I do knowthat it took us 100 years to get good researchon alcohol and we are not many years in[to] thisresearch. Research that is there is reliable forthe moment in which it's being produced. I don’tsay it’s bullshit, but it’s very difficult to compareand be relevant more broadly. That makes itdifficult. And it has to do with politics as well.Researchers can write and say what they likebut it’s the politicians who make decisions.MUpOE(20)6Where do policy makers look for evidence?In 2011 Gary Banks, chairman of the ProductivityCommission in Australia, spoke of the importanceof consulting a wide variety of evidence in orderto formulate gambling policy, referring to a ‘triangulation’approach, which drew systematicallyfrom a range of sources. 33 Despite his intervention,the 49 witnesses consulted by the most recent selectcommittee on gambling in the UK included 25 industryand trade organisation representatives. Thecommittee also heard from six regulators, six representativesof faith groups and two treatmentproviders. Only two researchers, Professor Jim Orfordand Heather Wardle of NatCen, were called.After presenting their findings, chair John WhittingdaleMP, concluded that:Gambling is now widely accepted in the UKas a legitimate entertainment activity. Wetook a lot of evidence in this inquiry, from allsides, and while we recognise the need to beaware of the harm caused by problem gambling,we believe that there is considerablescope to reduce and simplify the current burdenof regulation and to devolve decisionmakingto a more local level. 34Their central recommendation: to remove the limitson the numbers of FOBTs in betting shops in orderto reduce clustering on British High Streets was describedas ‘completely illogical’ by the LocalGovernment Association: ‘It’s clearly not sensible toincrease the number of slot machines in bettingshops to tackle the problem of too many slot machines.’35Evidence of what, for what, and by whom?Gambling policy is not based on evidence, buton the politics of what counts as evidence. It iswhoever decides this question who holds thecards. MUpOE(18)100There are basic and profound disagreements evenwithin stakeholder groups about what counts as evidence,and what level of proof is required tosupport a statement or argument. Despite this, anexplicit discussion of the concept of evidence orhow it is used in practice is often missing from policydebates and consultations. Certain kinds ofevidence are favoured, and others discounted, forreasons that are rarely made explicit.The awareness that evidence is always of or forsomething, and therefore that it exists in relation toa question, is lacking. The knowledge-making practicesof the gambling field determine that thisquestion is often ‘What causes problem gambling?’Some industry participants in particular expresseda preference for proof of causal relationshipsbased upon large-scale, quantitative data.The industry likes empirical research, based onquantitative data and hard evidence. Evidence33 Banks, G. 2009. ‘Evidence-based policy making: What is it? How do we get it?’ (ANU Public Lecture Series, presentedby ANZSOG, 4 February), Productivity Commission, Canberra.34 ‘Reduce centralized gambling regulation, says Committee’, www.parliament.uk, 24 July 2012. URL: http://tinyurl.com/bqhmmjs.Accessed 14 November 2013.35 Clyde Loakes, vice-chair of the LGA’s Environment and Housing Board, quoted in Bridge, T. 2012. ‘LGA: Action againstgambling clusters is “completely illogical”, LocalGov.co.uk, 24 July.38

means if x then y. They don’t want low-qualityresearch that focuses on problem gamblers andis based on hearsay. They don’t want researchthat threatens profits, like work on Fixed OddsBetting Terminals. They are the goose layinggolden eggs. MIoUK(11)42Others expressed dissatisfaction with this approach.We cling onto this sort of position that is personifiedby Harvard in particular, this uberempiricistworldview where everything can beobjectively measured in some way, whereas Ithink that research that has been done from aqualitative perspective actually sheds a greatdeal more light on what gamblers really think.I’m very pragmatic in my views of what is goodenough evidence. The old idea of taking a precautionaryprinciple is entirely apt when it comesto social harms like gambling and alcohol andso the quest for the sort of levels of causalityand association and proof that the commissionand the strategy board keep chuntering onabout are a waste of time. MInUK(8)35Researchers also called for recognition of a varietyof forms of evidence on the basis that differentproblems called for different types of questionsand therefore different methods. Too often problemgambling is presented as the only possibleproblem. Problem games, problem products andproblem policies, for example, receive much lesscritical attention.I think that one of the things that frustrates meabout the research environment at the momentis that there is not enough appreciation of differentmethods and how every method isquestion relative. You have to think about thequestion you are trying to answer. XXXXXSome felt that gambling studies was slow to recognisethe importance of qualitative approaches,unlike alcohol research, and suffered from a narrowdefinition of evidence which was not shared byrelated disciplines (see also sections 26–34).One of the ways in which the industry-friendlyacademics attacked us at workshops and conferenceswas around the fact that our stuff wasonly anecdotal and that we were cherry pickingthings that were negative or bad. In fields likealcohol or leisure studies there’s a huge amountof qualitative research … they recognise it as avalid evidence base and I think that’s partly whythe narrow policing of the field around a particulartradition of quantitative research is partof the way in which they are able to underminemore critical work. Because they just don’t careto accept the same kinds of evidence which otherfields or disciplines would. FRaUK(7)67What kind of evidence does the industry value?The industry commissions and welcomes researchwhich suggests that gambling is a positive socialactivity which is not harmful for the majority ofgamblers.Have you read the new book by Patrick Basham?Gambling: a healthy bet. It’s one of thenew bits of work coming out which proves thatthe idea that gambling is harmful has been createdand nurtured by do-gooders and religiousnuts. This is the kind of work that we want to see– open and accurate, evidence-based and unbiased.Gambling is educational, sociable, itteaches them about risk, it is enjoyable, it is partof every culture. If gambling was bad for us thenit would have died out! People aren’t stupid. It’sgood for us, this is Basham’s point, and welloverdue. Time we had someone providing a scientificview in research when we find so muchmisinformation that the press loves and the industrydespairs about. MIoUK(2)32Betting shops are very sociable places aren’tthey? Very sociable. Very misunderstood. Wonderfulcharacters there. You should writesomething about that. That would really be quiteunique and we would welcome that kind ofwork. MIoUK(5)31Other members of the industry use research to betterunderstand how to produce addictive or ‘sticky’products.What we want to know is what could we offerto big poker players in order to be more attractiveto them? I also think we would need to know39

etter how a poker room would communicatewith the rest of the casino. You know, how to getthese players to play other table games, to reallygamble. MIoSEE(15)5The only thing I might use gambling research foris to tell me how to set up stakes and prizes. SoI might look at a problem gambling paper, orread Natasha Schull’s book to see how I makemy products sticky, addictive, or whatever.MInUK(5)53Policy is not based only on evidenceThe difficulties of producing evidence-based policiesare not unique to gambling. In 2012, Daviesused four UK case studies to illustrate that althoughthere are relatively few cases in which unequivocalevidence can be used directly, data may also beused ‘conceptually’: to enlighten and thereby indirectlyinfluence policy and ‘symbolically’, ‘tolegitimate and sustain predetermined positions’. 36The impact of evidence is not predictable, because,as Banks has argued, its reception is contingent onmany other factors: ‘policy decisions will typicallybe influenced by much more than objective evidence,or rational analysis. Values, interests,personalities, timing, circumstance and happenstance– in short democracy – determine whatactually happens.’ 37From a lawyer’s perspective this is why evidence-basedpolicy is a bit of a red herring. Itdraws a veil over a lot of more complicatedeconomic and political issues. MRiOE(15)89The main issue for gambling with the exceptionof Las Vegas and Macau is that it’s just not important.If you say the laws are outdated thegeneral response is ‘well, yeah’. There’s no realattractiveness for a politician to say ‘I’m goingto change the gambling law’! Then, when you doask for a decision, no matter what evidence youput in front of them they make their minds up onthe weirdest and most irrational grounds. It ispredictably unpredictable. If you don’t like thedecision today, wait until tomorrow and tryagain! MUrOE(9)90At the most mundane level there was a lack of timeto devote to understanding complex questions andarguments.Gambling is a complicated subject and politiciansdon’t have time to understand it. It’s allabout politics … MRiOE(15)89At a local level, policy making was circumscribedby national legislation.Even if the research showed that there was adirect correlation between betting shops anddeprivation there’s nothing we can use it for exceptraising awareness. In practical termsresearch is useless when you have national regulation… real politics takes over. FUpUK(2)96At all levels, policy makers were mindful of potentiallyhostile media reactions to changes inlegislation.Gambling is a poisoned chalice for ministers andpoliticians. There are no votes in gambling, nogood news stories, just the Daily Mail breathingdown your neck, waiting for the next singlemother on benefits to rack up an enormous debtwith some bookmaker. Then you get it in theneck. Legislating is a nightmare. People don’t respondto the evidence, they have preconceivedideas about gambling, and you can’t unsettlethem using evidence, that is such an idealistic approach.Those attitudes are deeply ingrainedand they are there to represent their constituents,and so they reflect their views as best theycan. MUpUK(40)87Several stakeholders suggested that continually referringto a lack of evidence justified a ‘wait and36 Davies, P. 2012. ‘The State of Evidence-Based Policy Evaluation and its Role in Policy Formation’, National Institute EconomicReview 219 (1): R41–R52.37 Banks, Evidence-based policy making: What is it? How do we get it?40

see’ policy of inaction and was part of a widerpower game in the field. This constitutes a ‘symbolic’use of evidence, according to Davies’categorisation.This issue is becoming a really hot potato andeverything that we do must be accountable. Weare looking at votes, and the council would liketo commission research to be seen to be doingsomething. FUrUK(2)94We did a study of how to implement in highschools a programme on problem gambling prevention.We gave the commissioners concreterecommendations of how to introduce peoplewho would moderate such programmes atschools and educate the general public. [...] Unfortunately,the research probably ended upsomewhere in an archive, the project was closedand that’s it. Such is the practice in this country.FRaSEE(6)1One civil servant told me the industry was pressuringgovernment to have more pokie machines.They were having trouble saying no becausethere was no evidence at all, and the very factthat we could start this programme, they couldsay ‘Well let’s wait and see what the evidencesays before we make a decision.’ Even if the evidenceis in process or they didn’t use it, theycould use it to put a buffer in between industryand individuals or government. I found that outafter the fact that [because of] us running thatprogramme there was no increase in poker machinesin that time. So in a way the effect onpolicy wasn’t a positive one, it was one youwouldn’t have noticed, it was the fact that nothingdid increase while you were doing it as partof a process rather than I had some unique interventionthat could either help problemgamblers or help efficiency of management orregulation. It was more that you could be usedas part of the discourse and that in itself had anoutcome. MRaAU(12)98Size mattersThose who used quantitative methods favouredlarge samples and criticised ‘evidence’ based onsmall samples. The most common complaint, fromeconomists in particular, was that psychologistsused small-scale surveys to support generalisationsabout the wider population.I review a lot of gambling research and I haveseen what I think is poor practice in terms ofpeople making highly questionable inferencesfrom very small and highly selective samples, interms of the survey evidence people have used.I might be partial being an economist, but I thinkthere are some poor practices in some of thegambling literature: very questionable inferences,making very strong inferences from veryweak data. XXXXXI’m not hostile to psychology or qualitative researchbut I think there is overconfidence inpsychology that your findings are strong enoughthat you would tell regulators that you shouldchange policy, when in fact you’ve talked to toofew people to interfere in a commercial sector.You need evidence which is stronger than interviewingpeople. XXXXXThose who used small samples argued that conclusionsbased on small samples, whether ofquantitative or qualitative data, needed to bemeasured and provisional, but could nonethelessgenerate important insights.I cringe at some of the papers published nowthat have a dataset of 1 million. The first paperI wrote was based on eight gamblers. It’s still anice little paper. The idea of datasets of hundredsof thousands is quite recent. XXXXXBetween the real world and the laboratoryThere is a long tradition of researchers attemptingto reproduce the conditions under which gamblersmake decisions in the laboratory, commonly usingpsychology students as their subjects. Lab-basedstudies are thought by some to be capable of41

providing evidence about causal relationships betweenfrequency of bet or volume of stake andbehaviour. They are often contrasted with studiesthat take place in ‘natural’ environments includingbetting shops and casinos where it is far more difficultto attribute changes in behaviour to isolatedvariables.I think the naturalistic studies inherently have anumber of limitations, in terms of you have verylittle control over the environment and I thinkthat’s where the lab-based stuff that we do hassome advantages. I often end up in conversationswith people about the importance of thelab stuff, they just say ‘These simulations, theyare too basic, they don’t capture what we’re interestedin and it all should be field research.’And I suppose I feel as though I’m banging myhead against a brick wall in that I don’t seemable to convince them. In the laboratory our approachis a very piecemeal [one] and I admitthat but we basically take structural characteristicsmore or less one at a time. So, okay, let’sjust do a study on near misses, we’re going tostrip a slot machine down to its bare bones andwe are going to either present different rates ofnear misses or we are going to present nearmisses and ask them to give some sort of ratingor some sort of behavioural measure after them,and we are going to try to work out how thenear miss works in this experiment. This is verymethodical, very piecemeal work, but that wayyou can, if you see an influence of that thing thatyou’ve manipulated, I think you have a veryclear signal that that does something and hopefullythat would then converge with somenaturalistic fieldwork that might give you a cluethat that was a relevant variable in the firstplace. I think it’s very hard from the field researchto know that this is from the rate of nearmisses, or whatever. It’s the lab studies that allowus to identify which is the key thing that weshould be legislating. XXXXXStakeholders in every sector felt that lab-basedstudies could also produce unrealistic depictions ofgambling experiences.A lot of the literature is quite medicalised andquite quantitative, but also that whole neuroscienceliterature trying to look at the medicalnature of addiction and seeing that stuff wherethe brain lights up when they play a fruit machine,and I have quite a few concerns aboutthat approach because it’s quite reductive anddeterminist. FRaUK(7)67The stuff on risky decision making done withPsych 101 students, I have some difficulties withthat. These are very simple tasks which are veryalien from the environment in which you wouldbe making those decisions. And you’re lookingat adolescents up to 25. They are not representativeof the adult population.MRaUK(40)57There has been necessarily, and I understandwhy, a lot of lab work and a lot of work withstudents at universities and so on as proxies forreal behaviour but actually let’s really try andlook at what real people do in real time. MIoUK(12)41Being incredibly cynical, we all hear stories ofdrugs companies wanting to sell their drugs. Ithink it’s incredibly disempowering for clients tohear that. There was a bit in a programmewhere a brain was scanned and it frightened theliving daylights out of so many clients, becauseif there’s something wrong with my brain howam I ever going to be able to change my behaviour?But again my evidence suggests that ifit’s been argued that problem gambling existsbecause of something faulty in their neurotransmitteror something, how do we explain peoplewho do stop gambling and have still stopped ayear later as a result of actually looking at whatit was that triggered it in terms of their relationshipsand their lifestyle? How do you explainthat? XXXXXNone of our participants suggested that lab studiescould replace naturalistic studies, and many feltthat both were essential, as they answered differentquestions and provided different kinds of data.When you’re looking at processes that you’dlike to in some sense measure, you really haveto have good experimental design, sometimeswork in the lab, sometimes work on the internet,and then, just bring some really sort of goodquantitative methods, I think they are complementary,I don’t think that one is prior, they arethere to understand things at different levels42

and I’ve become much more catholic in the methodsthat I use, I really don’t mind using differentmethods now. XXXXXPrevalence studies – the holy cow of gambling researchLet’s just take prevalence research for a moment.It’s one of those holy cows, whereeverybody recognises that this cow is slightly imperfectand it’s been in the field quite a fewyears now but actually it sort of works and it sortof gives you an output of milk called surveys thatare done from time to time, but nobody everasks the question of whether conducting prevalenceresearch in the way that we do is the rightapproach. […] And so much is predicated onthis. And so we don’t talk about that, it’s the imperfectcow in the corner of the field that we allknow and love and milk and actually perhapswe ought to be thinking whether some otherbeast might serve our purpose better but I thinkthat would be a question just too hard to ask atthe moment. MInUK(8)35Prevalence studies express the number of problemgamblers as a percentage of the population. Theyare commonly commissioned by the state as well asbeing accepted as authoritative by the industry. Asthe recent select committee report in the UKshowed, they are of limited value as a basis forpolicy because they are subject to widely differentinterpretations. The select committee described theevidence provided by the prevalence study, andthe range of possible interpretations of its findings.It is important to note that, whilst the increasein the number of problem gamblers observedbetween 2007 and 2010 is most likely to be0.9% (a 50% rise), the increase could in factlie within a range of between 0.7% and1.2%. In other words, the percentage increasecould be in the order of between 16%and 100%. Whilst the most likely level of increaseidentified by the BGPS is 50%, thisresult is defined as only marginally significantdue to factors such as the relatively smallsample size. 38It then goes on to quote an alternative interpretation.Whilst it is agreed that the findings of theBGPS are significant in the sense that theyare ‘statistically significant’, there is debateas to whether this translates into ‘real-world’significance. Gambling industry representativesargue that little has changed, with theBingo Association stating that: ‘levels of problemgambling remain broadly the same asbefore the Act was implemented’. 39As well as problems of statistical significance, thereis limited consensus on who qualifies as a problemgambler and whether self-reported data is asound basis for such a survey.I think that the methodology behind trying toidentify who is and is not a problem gamblercould have had a different approach that wouldhave been more effective. I’m not convinced bythe history of those three surveys. I will wait andsee what comes out of the replacements, but Isuspect that I shall have similar reservationsabout that. This is of course because they arebased on screens which are questionable andvariable, but also because so much of it comesout of self-report and of course if you are beingasked whether you have a problem I think naturallyyou would shy away from saying that youhave. MIoUK(12)41There is also no agreement as to how the study cancapture people who are at risk and have not yetdeveloped a problem, or whether this measurementis significant. The prevalence survey providesa snapshot of problem gamblers without givingany indication of how this behaviour changesthrough time. It does not include data about hownon-problem gamblers are affected by problemgambling.38 Culture, Media and Sport Committee, The Gambling Act 2005: A bet worth taking?, paragraph 25.39 Culture, Media and Sport Committee, The Gambling Act 2005: A bet worth taking?, paragraph 26.43

The large population surveys have been donethousands of times. Most funding around theworld has been sucked into this. Mainly, I wouldargue, because they are very convenient for industryand government because most of thesurveys pretty much say the same thing, that 1to 2% per cent of the population has got problemgambling issues, but beyond that there isvery little investment, except some investment intreatment research. XXXXXI don’t think the prevalence study is any good,that sounds horrible, because it’s a big studyand it’s quite well done, but the questions arenot fabulous. The data that you get relates tothe questions that you ask. FRaUK(11)61There are alternatives to using prevalence studiesto express the number of problem gamblers as apercentage of the total population, including referringto the actual number, or identifying additionalcategories such as people at risk of developing aproblem.I’m less interested in the proportion of the wholepopulation that has a gambling problem. I’mmuch more interested in the number of gamblerswho have got a gambling problem. If we wereonly to concentrate on that issue then we couldstop some of this daft talk about ‘Well it onlyaffects a tiny number of people’ blah de blahand ask ‘Who’s at risk?’ MInUK(8)35In policy it’s typically a quantitative basis, tiedto the evidence-based policy, where numbersseem to be the most important thing. You look atprevalence studies and those kinds of things, theinterest is not the number of problem gamblersbut the percentage, which is interesting becausethat percentage could be a large number ofpeople. It’s funny how it becomes acceptable forindustry or state to say the rates are 1 to 3%and therefore that’s fine. Gambling studies, atleast in the main journals, is dominated by anumbers ontology. XXXXXPrevalence studies paradoxesWhen commissioned, the Gambling Commissiondescribed how the prevalence study would be usedto provide comparisons between ‘pre- and postimplementationof the Gambling Act 2005’ and ‘tohelp develop policy for the regulation of gamblingand to advise the Secretary of State on gamblingissues’. 40 However, the type of evidence called forby policy makers and industry is much more specificthan the type of evidence that the prevalencestudy produces. The prevalence study measures thepercentage of problem gamblers in the population,while evidence which supports a change ofregulation is expected to capture causal relationshipsbetween particular products or policies andproblem gambling. This understanding of evidenceis described in statements from the Gambling Commission,for example:To date there is no evidence that establishesthe nature of any causal link between gamingmachines (fruit machines, slot machines) andproblem gambling. While rates of problemgambling may be higher amongst gamblerswho participate in certain activities, this doesnot necessarily mean that the type of gamblingin question causes people to developproblems to a greater extent than otherforms of gambling. 41According to this understanding of evidence, nosignificance can be attached to higher rates ofproblem gambling associated with any particularproduct, as problem gamblers may choose to usethese products, but their problem gambling mayhave been ‘caused’ by anything (a genetic or personalitypredisposition, for example). This use ofevidence is also illustrated by the select committeeof 2012:The imprecise nature of [the BGPS] findingsalso results in part from the lack of any significantstudies on the causes of problemgambling. Professor Orford told us that the40 Gambling Commission Web Pages, 2013. ‘British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2010’. URL: http://tinyurl.com/keuzf2y.Accessed 14 November 2013.41 Gambling Commission Web Pages, 2013. ‘Frequently Asked Questions’. URL: http://tinyurl.com/lkpkqkw. Accessed 14November 2013.44

increase in problem gambling levels was asa ‘consequence of the changes introduced underthe Act’. Whilst we recognise that thefigures from the BGPS show a likely increaseof 50% in the numbers of problem gamblers,we have seen no hard evidence to supportthe view that this increase was the result ofthe 2005 Act. 42The prevalence study supports and enables strategicinertia. Between prevalence studies theapproach to policy can be ‘wait and see’. Onceresults are known, they may be endorsed or condemnedas having fallen short of the standard ofevidence required to justify changes to policy.The prevalence study we wait for and if it’sgood news and stands up then it will be useful.If it doesn’t it gets rubbished, we just ask is itrobust and will it stand up in court. It dependson what hat I’m wearing. If the rate goes up andI’m objecting to a licence or to deregulation inanother sector then that will be of use. MIoUK(20)74Gary Banks, chairman of the Productivity Commissionin Australia, has described the doublestandard employed by the industry in argumentsabout evidence:The industry essentially owes its existence andcurrent size to the lack of an evidence-basedapproach to liberalization, which has resultedin extensive ‘community-based gambling’. Itsubsequently protested only a little at thelack of evidence for most of the (ineffectual)harm minimisation measures introduced overthe past decade, despite their compliancecosts. But it has been insistent on high standardsof proof for measures that promise tobe effective. One major industry group evensuggested that no measure should be introducedif the possibility of error was morethan 1 in a 1000! 43In the UK, the situation is comfortable: the government,the regulator and the industry all endorse theposition that problems with gambling are causedby faulty individuals rather than dangerous productsor policies.Research conducted outside the control of the industrywas treated with huge caution and evensuspicion because there was a fear that workmay suggest that gambling problems are notonly caused by the weakness of character ormental health but could actually reflect the waythat gambling is marketed and provided. Whatno one will say and what the (UK Gambling)Commission has refused to say throughout is thatcausality may run in both directions. Or, if not inboth directions, then at least to the extent ofsaying, well, it could be the product and not theperson. Essentially, they say: ‘no, let’s just throwall our money at treatment’ and all members ofthe industry held quite closely to that.MRcUK(10)79Beyond prevalence studiesThere was no agreement as to whether or not itwas in principle possible to produce evidence ofcausation between particular products and problemgambling, or between changes in policy andchanges in the rate of problem gambling expressedas a percentage of the total population.A mixture of longitudinal studies, qualitative studiesinto gambling behaviour and its environments,complemented with lab experiments to assess theway both gamblers and non-gamblers interact withproducts, could provide evidence from a numberof different perspectives. However it would bevery expensive and still might not meet the standardsof proof called for by the industry, regulatorsand policy makers.In order to establish causality, you need longitudinalstudies. Let’s start with an example, let’ssay the hypothesis is ‘Slot machines cause gamblingproblems’. That is often stated as a fact inthe field, but if you look at the bulk of research,what’s been done is asking gamblers in treatmentwhich game they played that got them intotrouble and the bulk of those people will say slot42 Culture, Media and Sport Committee, The Gambling Act 2005: A bet worth taking?, paragraph 27.43 Banks, G. 2011. Presentation to South Australian Centre for Economic Studies, Corporate Seminar, Adelaide, 30 March,6.45

machines. So your evidence there is retrospective.People looking back and trying to identifythe cause of their problems, and it’s based on avery small sub-sample of gamblers who haveproblems because we know that not many gamblerswith problems go into treatment. So youthen have some evidence that suggests there’sthis link. What you would need to do to establishthat with more certainty is to, if you didn’t haveissues of funding, which are huge, you would doa very large-scale longitudinal study startingwith people who may be prone to having gamblingproblems but you would have to startearly and see who plays what games and thenwho develops problems. That would be a firststep and you might find through that design thatpeople who ended up playing slot machineswould then have greater incidence of gamblingproblems. From there, you ask the question, wellis it slot machines causing gambling problems oris it potentially something about the people andtheir personalities that draws them both to slotmachines and draws them to potentially haveproblems as well, the third variable. And so thenI would say you might need to start moving towardlaboratory experiments, where you havea casino lab and you’re looking at some kind oflarge-scale study where people who haven’tbeen gambling are introduced to many differenttypes of games, maybe across a couple ofweeks, and you might see who has markers ofdeveloping problems based on that. That wouldbe more of a control study. So that’s one way togo about establishing evidence for that hypothesis.I think it’s important that you use multiplemethods – every method has its own problems.With casino labs the argument is that it is notvery realistic – even if you give people realmoney it’s not money that they earned that theycare about so they don’t think about it in thesame way. You really need a whole mix ofmethods and all the evidence pointing in thesame direction before you can be sure of acausal link. If you’re a funder and you don’thave a full understanding of these design issuesthen a longitudinal study is a lot more expensivethan doing the same kind of thing with a crosssectionalstudy. There’s debate as to what youcan measure with repeated cross-sectional studies.We would argue you can’t measurecausality and impact and other groups mightsay that you can get at it at least. FRaUS(11)6646

The field of gambling studies“Every discipline has a particular power structure, but gamblingstudies is so small and coherent: everyone knowseveryone, funding is limited to such particular streams, researchcouncils think that gambling is funded by the industrybodies, which has a particular remit. I probably won’t stay, Iwill go across to cultural studies, but then of course I will beignored by anyone in gambling. It’s a discipline that has donenothing to break down the boundaries between different approachesand different ways of doing things. It is inherentlyconservative and that makes me really sad. MRaOE(6)7247

Headlines• The aim of gambling studies is to produce datathat can be used to support policy. In practice,this means focusing on problem gambling. (section26)• Relationships between researchers, treatmentproviders and industry are often unmediatedby formal academic structures. (section 27)• Conferences are dominated by industry interestsand do not encourage critical debate.(section 27)• The industry is adept at discrediting critical research.(section 28)• Some researchers self-censor or opt out ofpublishing their work for fear of the industry’saggressive attention. (section 29)• The field of gambling studies is closed andtightly controlled. (section 30)• Entering and remaining in the field of gamblingstudies is a considerable challenge,especially for early and mid-career researchers.(section 30)• Gambling journals are not highly rated andthe peer review process is conservative. (section31)• Gambling research is not prestigious and cancreate reputational risks. (section 32)• Gambling studies is not an interdisciplinaryfield. There is a lack of collaboration with relatedfields and a reluctance to acceptalternative methodologies and wider definitionsof evidence. (sections 33, 34)48

Looking for evidenceWhat I do is I go to people like Mark Griffithsand I ask them this question: ‘What can you tellme about those things?’ And what they say isthat they don't know the answer. MUpOE(20)6Who are the gambling experts? How do they understandevidence? What are the conditions ofproduction of gambling research? How are disciplinarytensions between different approaches, forexample naturalistic studies and laboratory-basedstudies, resolved in practice?The deregulation of gambling has coincided withthe emergence of the sub-discipline of gamblingstudies. Gambling studies is dominated by the psydisciplines, particularly psychology and psychiatry.Important journals include the Journal of GamblingStudies, produced in the United States, and InternationalGambling Studies, which is produced in theUK but edited in Australia. Although both journalsclaim to be interdisciplinary, the majority of articlespublished focus on excessive gambling representedas a psychological problem, substantiatedlargely through quantitative methodologies.Gambling research is also produced outside thesejournals, particularly by social scientists. These contributionsinclude criticisms of some of the centralconcepts of gambling studies including ‘responsiblegambling’. 44Figure 7– Gambling journal editorial board members. 56% of editorial board members from the twoleading gambling journals have a background in Psychology, Psychiatry or Medicine. The majority ofthose who self-identify as Gambling Studies are also psychologists by background.44 See, for example, Kingma, S. 2008. ‘The liberalization and (re)regulation of Dutch gambling markets: national consequencesof the changing European context’, Regulation & Governance 2: 445–458.49

The club mentalityEvery research culture benefits from critically assessingits own practices. Gambling studies wasdescribed as a field that is unwilling to deal withchallenging questions. This lack of critical awarenessis particularly obvious at conferences.The gambling world suffers from what I wouldcall a cosy club mentality, particularly the largerconferences. It’s as if they say, ‘This is a community,and regardless of whether you are anindustry person or a researcher or a treatmentspecialist, we all need to get along with eachother.’ There are some unwritten codes abouthow that is done, and the limits of the discoursethat is possible. I think the discourse is particularlybland in the whole gambling area. Thereis a lack of challenge between various partiesand therefore the overall governance of gambling,particularly in Britain, and I think to someextent in Europe as well, is kind of weak becausepeople aren’t engaging with each other,they aren’t challenging each other, they aren’tgrappling with one another in a way that couldactually ensure greater safeguards and moremeaningful policy making. MInUK(8)35Some relationships between researchers, treatmentproviders and industry are unmediated by formalacademic structures.I’ve never known anything like the way thatsome of these gambling academics are in bedwith the industry. FRaUK(7)67The industry are very good, they can offer avery nice little perk. I was the recipient of quitea lot of corporate hospitality, very nice, thankyou very much! They can do that so they arevery good at getting people on their side bylegitimate acceptable ways in this country ornot. I mean I don’t know if they cross the line,they probably do at times, like everybody elsedoes. XXXXXI remember a professional organisation wantedto find out that the rate of problem gamblingwas less than 1% or something like that. My bosswas offered a £10,000 bribe paid straight intohis bank account. This bloke turned up in his Jaguarlooking a bit like Arthur Daley off Minder.MRaAu(12)98Some scholars have a close relationship with theindustry but some scholars don’t have so muchconnection. The gaming industry asks sometimessome specific scholars to do research for them.MRaHK/M(2)13There is no formal code of conduct governing theserelationships, something that is in place in other areasof dangerous consumption. The InternationalFederation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers andAssociations, for example, updated its code ofpractice in 2012 following high-profile settlementsby Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer Inc. of foreignbribery cases in the US. The eight-point code focuseson the ‘transparency of promotion’ andforbids doctors from receiving payments to attendconferences, for example. 45 Industry codes ofpractice do not prevent wrong-doing from takingplace if individuals have malign intentions, but theydo encourage stakeholders to engage systematicallywith ethical questions and conflicts of interest,something that does not seem to be taking placewithin gambling research.Although some participants felt that a code of conductwould be useful, others felt that it wouldsimply legitimate the wide range of practices thatcurrently endure, not all of which meet the ethicalstandards required of academic research.A code of conduct would really help, but I don’tthink it would prevent abuses. It would be helpfulbecause it would force participants toengage with issues that they are currently eitherblissfully unaware of or choose to ignore. Theoutcome would be a bit irrelevant. FRaUK(4)68A code of conduct would do precisely nothing tohelp this situation, because it would be sufficientlyloose to accommodate all the stuff thatgoes on already. The industry could then dressit up as everything being fine, and avoid theneed for greater scrutiny, as is its way. MIoUK(11)4245 IFPMA Code of Practice 2012. URL: http://tinyurl.com/6s2sxx2. Accessed 14 November 2013.50

Breaking the club codeAt the opposite end of the bland and unchallengingdiscourse of gambling research are the industry’sattacks on those who challenge the status quo. Severalparticipants had experienced or witnessedsuch attacks, some felt that they were orchestrated,others that they were spontaneous and reflectedthe industry’s lack of confidence.I have strong memories of seeing presenters attackedin those meetings in a way that was muchmore hostile than anything I’ve ever seen in anacademic environment, it was much more personal.It seemed more like ganging up, when youhad two or three people going for a presenter.Over time I got the impression that it was a preplannedand systematic attempt to discreditpeople rather than a normal academic discussion.FRaUK(7)67The industry are very clever. They have peoplewho are knowledgeable about the industry, whocan argue their case well, who are now verybright with a good education, and they can pickoff their detractors quite well. They are verygood at dividing people. They are very goodat lobbying. XXXXXTo be honest with you I’ve come to this conclusionfor a few years now that I’ve been reallyshocked by how red in tooth and claw the industryis really. The best that can be said for it isthat you never need to be disabused as to whattheir position is (laughs). Because it’s very clear!MRcUK(10)79Industry participants confirmed that such practiceswere strategic and felt that they were to be expected.People in the industry are just suspicious aboutresearch because, let’s face it, the likelihood isthat they already know if there’s a problem andtheir job is to keep it quiet. If research comes upthat we don’t like then you either say it’s notcomparable, because it comes from somewhereelse, or the offering is different, or regulation isdifferent or whatever, or you look at the methodologyand you say well it’s only based on 50people so it’s hardly representative, or you justget hold of some other research you’ve done alreadythat says the opposite. It’s not difficult.MIoUK(11)43Not all resistance to potentially disruptive researchtakes place in public. Some preferred to registertheir displeasure behind the scenes, providing anexample of the deployment of ‘soft power’ by theindustry, and the fraught relationship betweenfunding and research.How do we deal with bad news? We just don’trespond. Don’t provide any oxygen, but behindthe scenes we might give someone a bollockingfor funding a bit of research. If we sit on aboard we might show that we weren’t veryhappy. When GamCare comes round cap inhand we might point out that we weren’t veryhappy. Just the usual things that you would expectreally. MIoUK(17)54Treatment providers have also found ways to expressdisapproval of the industry at conferences.I’ve been in situations where I’ve felt very uncomfortablein New Zealand when, part of aconference I was attending, there was industrypersonnel asked to speak like they are askedhere and clinicians walked out. Because theythink ‘I’m not having anything to do with the industry’,because they think they are responsiblefor problem gambling. And so it’s polarised.MUtUK(27)82Forced to foldResearchers who experienced vehement criticismfrom the industry early on in the research processself-censored their subsequent publications. Somefound the experience so upsetting that they foundways to avoid repeating it. Others feared that beingexposed to further critical attention wouldundermine their academic reputation. They eitheropted out of publishing their findings, or left the51

field. The threat of aggressive criticism contributesto the maintenance of an uncritical, homogeneousdiscipline by rewarding conservative contributionsand marginalising alternatives.With the anxiety that I always felt about potentiallyupsetting the industry and colleagues whowere closely linked with them, I had enough. Ididn’t even finish writing up, because it was goingto be too much. So no one ever told me notto publish, but in a sense I self-sabotaged. I wasreally scared about potentially annoying the industryand then getting my reputation trashed,because I saw that happen at something and itreally was horrible. So I had a choice, say everythingis fine. In other words, lie. Or keep quietand not expose myself to that critical attention.Wasn’t very brave of me was it? FRaUK(5)77We ran some seminars and workshops to disseminateour findings and people came to thoseand attacked us – people from the industry primarily.Attacking us and suggesting that ourresearch was flawed and asking us about studieswe’d never heard of and then claiming wedidn’t know anything about the field; they weretrying to undermine our reputation. They tried tointimidate us indirectly in terms of what we published.And to discredit us in the eyes of otherpeople. No one tried to shape directly what wewrote, but I didn’t try to take the work forwardafter that. FRaUK(7)67When I was talking with the audience I steppedover the line very slightly and cor blimey, theygot very hot on me. It was quite good actually,it really brought me up, thinking. What I usuallysay in academic conferences, I’m quite free,whereas you’ve got to be really careful withthese audiences, you’ve got to be very sensitiveto them. I mean we don’t want to upset the operatorwho gave us access, but equally we don’twant to be their mouthpiece necessarily.MRaUK(2)59The industry are very good at knocking downresearch that they don’t agree with by questioningthe evidence and the industry usually gettheir arguments let alone their facts straight andthat’s when they will trot out their data so theyare very clever and they work it to their advantage.XXXXXClub politicsAt conferences and in public spaces the researchfield is shaped by networks of industry representativesand researchers. This shaping is also inevidence when academics apply for funding orseek to have their work published. The pool of refereesand assessors within gambling studies is smalland homogeneous. Established academics are allowedto ‘wear many hats’, serving on fundingboards, refereeing journals and applying for fundingthemselves. This circular flow of academicrecognition and legitimacy makes entering thefield, and in particular remaining in it, a considerablechallenge, especially for early and midcareerresearchers. Many young scholars are demotivatedand switch to other topics.Two problems with the field which is why I wouldnever really intend to work in gambling studiesagain. One is there’s a very tight controlling andpolicing of who is allowed to be in the gamblingresearch community by certain key academics.The other side of it is the way that the industryoperates … they operate both separately andtogether to decide who is allowed to do what ingambling studies. FRaUK(7)67As a small and closed field, gambling studies suffersfrom intense internal competition.I always thought that the field was very insular,uncritical and dominated by one or two reallyobjectionable individuals. FRaUK(5)77I do think that there’s a certain hostility betweenresearchers in the area and I think that’s a verydamaging feature of the way that gambling research,certainly in the UK, seems to work, it’spretty pernicious. XXXXXThe academic treadmill … the people with thecushy jobs and the research only, they are theones who manufacture these fake little agendas,because what they do is safe for the vested interests.There are these little cabals of52

esearchers who dominate the so-called bigranked journals with the same stuff year in yearout. They are quite exclusionary and self-reinforcing.XXXXXThe club newsletterPublishing articles in gambling journals has beendescribed as a vicious circle. While academicsneed to appear in them in order to get establishedin the field, they also lose out within their own disciplinesbecause gambling journals are relativelypoorly thought of outside the sub-discipline ofgambling studies.It’s a Catch 22 because if you don’t publish ingambling studies journals then they say you haven’tbeen cited in the field, you don’t knowwhat you’re talking about, you’re not an expert,and they completely discredit you. But what’s sofrustrating is that the quality of articles in gamblingstudies is so dreadful. FRaUK(7)67Researchers often preferred to publish their materialin more prestigious disciplinary focusedjournals.I didn’t publish in any gambling journals, theywere moderate at best. I think the best ideaswere coming out of the very few critical scholarswho dared to work outside the problem gamblingparadigm, but that is of courseunsustainable because they don’t get funded.FRaUK(5)77I publish in journals that I think are going to berecognised by the Research Exercise Frameworkand I don’t think gambling journals would.XXXXXI have contributed to some of those gamblingspecialist journals but that’s problematic. Theyare low rated journals and they are also dominatedby the characters that I have been talkingabout, so I prefer to publish in public health oraddiction journals. XXXXXSome researchers felt that changes were takingplace, and that the scope of the journals was widening.The journals, like conferences, have changed.They used to be only quantitative and economics.I think there is a lot more scope forqualitative work now. FRaOE(15)71If you look at the journals they don’t really makean impact. It’s because of the lack of experienceand knowledge of research methods but I thinkthey are very conscious of that and activelyseeking international partners. XXXXXResearchers still found it particularly difficult tohave accepted for publication work that criticisedthe established theories and approaches that dominatethe journals. Their impression was that achosen few tightly guarded gambling studies bydiscouraging critical thought and offering reviewswhich were difficult to address or did not invite dialogue.The first paper we wrote was rejected. I knewthat it was going to be very difficult to publishin gambling journals because of the way that wewere drawing on social data and using qualitativeapproaches, that doesn’t fit very well withthe approach of gambling studies journals.FRaUK(7)67I’ve never had any luck at all when I’ve submittedpapers. I’ve always had really negativecomments and requests for complete rewritesand things, so I’ve tended to publish in academicsociology journals. XXXXXMy experience has always been that it’s muchmore open in the addiction field more generally.You’d have more confidence that you are goingto get at least one sensible review, not necessarilya favourable one, but you’d hope you’dhave a fighting chance. I’d go so far as to sayit’s a disincentive to work in the area becauseyou just don’t know what’s going to come backto you, you know, whether you can address it,and I think it’s an active disincentive to work inthe field. I think it’s a real issue. XXXXX53

‘Why on earth are you working on gambling?’Gambling studies fails to attract new researchersnot only because it is tightly controlled, as describedabove, but also because the topic lacksprestige within other disciplines.Gambling is everywhere around us but in academia,it’s not given importance or legitimacy.There are very few people who would even admitthey ever studied gambling. FRaSEE(6)1When I was doing my PhD people laughed,people still laugh when I tell them I’m the world’sleading academic expert in this area. My supervisorwas fabulous and it was a very gooduniversity, but other members of staff would say,‘What’s she doing in this department? That’s notwhat we study.’ FRaUK(11)61Certainly I don’t have any regrets about goinginto gambling, but for a while I wonderedwhether it was a prestigious enough area tostudy and I don’t know why. It was not seen asa thing that sociologists should be studying.XXXXXWhen I’ve given presentations a few peoplehave said to me ‘Why on earth are you workingon gambling?’ Because gambling is seen as afrivolous thing and many academics see it as anegative thing and even a sinister thing in termsof the impact it has on a variety of communitiesand the way the industry operates so I do thinkin disciplines outside gambling studies it’s notparticularly well thought of. FRaUK(7)67There is also suspicion among some senior colleaguesand university management that workingon gambling creates reputational risk for academicinstitutions. As a result, proposals for centres, seminarseries and research projects may not be fullysupported.Our vice chancellor is borderline terrified of thework I do because he didn’t want our studentsand staff to be labelled as having gamblingrelatedproblems. FRaUK(8)64Despite these obstacles, some researchers weredrawn to gambling by their intellectual curiosity.I was struck at the time by the amount of gamblingthat I saw around me and this was partlyinstigated by the fact that I was an occasionalgambler at the time. I had some connection withthe life-world of gambling. I thought ‘Wow, thisis really interesting. I’ve got to look into this.’XXXXXMore commonly, researchers were ‘following themoney’, benefiting from grants made available todevelop gambling studies at politically strategictimes.I wish I could tell you ‘Oh yes, I have alwaysbeen interested in gambling.’ I went for it becausebasically there was an opportunity therefor me. I was following the money.FRaOE(5)105I wasn’t planning to keep doing gambling butthat’s where the money was. It just took off andI guess I was drawn into it. MRaAU(12)98What is research for?Isn’t the aim of research to solve problem gambling?Wouldn’t the aim be that the prevalencestudy comes out and the rate of problem gamblingis 0%? I’m all for study for study’s sake butif it’s going to be applied to a very commercialindustry like gambling I think the industry wouldsay ‘Well, we’ve got all this body of research,how has it helped us reduce problem gamblers,or what does it tell us we should be doing tosolve the problem?’ MIoUK(10)55The demand for evidence-based policy shapesideas about the purpose of research in general.Gambling studies scholars think that researchshould produce tangible results and be applicableto the ‘real world’, a view often supported by theindustry.The key has to be to learn something that’s useful,not just put something well written in a top54

journal. It needs to be accessible and meaningfulfor taking action in the real world. 99.9% ofus are focusing on understanding where the leisurecomponents stop and the more destructiveelements begin. MRaUK(14)18Research should be about identifying issueswhich will potentially have some kind of policyor impact broadly defined. XXXXXIf it stays within academia, it loses its impact. Theresults should be written in language that everydaypeople can understand. The moreaudiences are reached the better. This mighthave a positive effect with problem gamblersthemselves, or raise awareness of socially responsiblegambling. It may even influencepeople who lobby against gambling altogether(like the Catholic Church). MIoSEE(20)3Work which does not fall within this remit is difficultto place in gambling journals and can provoke reactionsincluding, ‘So what?’ Researchers whoattempt to work outside this paradigm are criticisedas selfish and esoteric.I hate pure academic research. I think that gamblingresearch must be useful, either for industryor government. Scholars have to focus on publicationsso sometimes they are not concerned bythe impact on society, they don’t care about it,but I don’t think that’s good research. Researchoutputs should have a kind of impact, not just tobe published in a journal, where not many peopleread it but the authors still get a high score.MRaHK/M(2)13Research has been driven by the whims andideas of the researchers instead of what’sneeded. XXXXXThere was also resistance to this position, particularlyfrom social scientists.People will say that the main purpose of researchis building an evidence base to supportpolicy change. That’s an idealised purpose. Thereal purpose is to maintain the status quo.XXXXXOur goal is to get published in high level academicjournals. XXXXXEarly career researchers often provided the mostinsightful descriptions of this conservative system,showing that its reproduction relied upon the flowof money and prestige along entrenched pathsthat were difficult to disrupt.I know that people prefer to see numbers andtalk about problem gambling but we have tokeep pushing. I really believe that, even thoughI am ‘early career’. Plenty of times I have beenpushed to take up more of a conventional perspectiveon problem gambling, or measuring orusing existing work to rehash ideas that are alreadyout there. There is support in that there ismoney, even. There is career progression. This isthe amazing thing for a new scholar in yourfield. And discouraging too. It is very hard to dosomething new. You are discouraged, becauseto work with people you have to choose someonewho has a record of getting money. But ifyou do that the likelihood is that they are a personwho sticks just to problem gambling. Theymay be completely genuine and their researchmay be excellent, in those terms, but those termsare not the ones on which I want to work. I wantto go beyond that and there is absolutely nochance to do that in gambling studies.MRaOE(6)72This exclusive understanding of the purpose of researchadmits certain kinds of evidence andexcludes others. It also limits the interdisciplinarydevelopment of gambling studies.Opening the fieldGambling studies reproduces the industry positionon gambling, and at the same time presentsitself as a commentary on the industry or at leastthe products. The stuff on problem gambling,measuring them, separating them from everyoneelse, writing ‘loser’ on their forehead. All thatstuff. Gambling studies like that are as much apart of the machines as the algorithms, the buttons,the bells and whistles! MInUK(2)51Throughout this report we suggest that the productionof gambling research revolves around the55

struggle to control what counts as evidence.Whereas other research cultures are enriched bya variety of disciplinary approaches which helpthem to address this complex problem, in gamblingstudies there is a lack of collaboration betweendisciplines and a reluctance to use different methodologies.Interdisciplinary approaches couldproduce more nuanced and layered data aboutgambling behaviour – a phenomenon that is highlycomplex and multifaceted. It could also prevent thecreation of disciplinary ‘silos’ within gambling studies.Productive interdisciplinarity would alsochallenge ingrained epistemological and methodologicalmodels. For interdisciplinarity to flourishcertain replicable elements of collaboration wouldneed to be in place, including tolerance of epistemicambiguity, trust and willingness to take risks.People working in drugs and alcohol would easilybe able to bring expertise and developgambling studies and the fact that they don’t butthey interact with each other and more widelywith leisure studies is a reflection of the insularityand policing of the gambling field. It is a veryincestuous field and quite a closed field. I wasquite surprised how little gambling papers drewon other literature from related fields. Otherkinds of addictive behaviour, young people’sbehaviour in sociology or other literatures that Ithink might offer useful insights to gamblingstudies. FRaUK(7)67My colleagues were not interested in gambling.It wasn’t thought important or part of our discipline.They didn’t like my ideas, they rejectedmy approach. Actually a group steeped inquantitative research embraced my expertiseand were keen for me to bring this different approachand learn about qualitative methods.MRaOE(4)73Data practices would also need to be brought together,so that a physicist, for example, and asocial scientist might make use of a single datasetin a way that is mutually enlightening.Treatment providers have got this wealth ofdata and it’s just sitting there. Some of themhave got data going back 40 years. And it’s justa travesty that somebody isn’t thinking: ‘Howcan we use this body of information to look atthe behaviours of this very specific subgroup?’ Ithink there’s a real power in saying, well we’vegot the broad picture form the prevalence studyand that tells us something, but then you’ve gotthese case study insights of people who areseeking treatment and of course they are veryspecific sample, etc., etc., so there’s all sorts ofcaution you need to have, but it’s about buildingpieces of the picture from the information youhave available. I think that there’s a real opportunityto put these things together. We could sortof sit that in the broader context of the prevalencestudy but we can’t find anyone to providethe funding. FRcUK(6)62Funders would also need to recognise and adaptto disciplinary rhythms and diverse ways of usingresources. Our participants were unsure that fundersunderstood university finances.My experience is that people don’t really understandfull economic costing, so when you’rediscussing what would count as a fundable projectit’s a small amount of money in the universitycontext, it means you can’t really do a lot. It’s aparticular problem here I think. XXXXXThey also criticised the lack of availability of fundsfor small, cutting-edge projects.In gambling research there are little things thatcould actually make a difference but they arequite small projects maybe £40,000–50,000.But there’s just no way to get that kind of moneyany more, the ESRC doesn’t do small grants.FRcUK(6)62At the other end of the spectrum, longitudinal, multisourced,multidisciplinary projects areincreasingly highly valued as sources of robustdata that can account for long-term differences inhealth and wellbeing and provide a critical windowon many different kinds of social inequality.Examples include Whitehall 2, which is based atUniversity College London and supported by theMRC, the British Heart Foundation, the NationalHeart, Lung and Blood Institute (USA) and the NationalInstitute on Aging (USA), and the SustainableBehaviours Research Group, supported by DEFRA(Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs),the ESRC and the Scottish government.A more creative understanding of research and itspossibilities was also encouraged by several new56

entrants to the gambling industry. They called forapproaches that were responsive to the new kindsof interactions taking place within gambling andgaming.Gambling is a really interesting field, but not inthe way that it’s been studied so far. I mean theproblem gambling stuff is important, I get that,but the rest of it – gambling as a disruptive technology,changes in gambling behaviour towardsplayful games rather than isolated engagement,all these things are really interesting.MInUK(2)44Research should tell us about how people play,how that changes in conversation with technology,how that is monetised as gambling, orthrough subscriptions or micropayments. Peopleare very closed-minded about gambling andthe work we do here, but I think that we are seeingthe development of a new kind of artistic orcreative process, one that is between users ofsocial media and providers of games. If you cansomehow get at that then I think you will be doingsomething very valuable. If you just framethese questions around problem gambling youmiss something essential about what is happening.You rule out certain questions, andforeground others. You forget about the creativeprocess and you look for pathologies. Youwrite change out of the analysis. You fix technologywhen the definitional feature of the workwe do is that it is a responsive process. I think allof these things show that using the problem gamblerparadigm to understand social gaming risksproducing the same failures as you can find inthe gambling research literature. It freezes whatis fluid. It simplifies the interaction between individualand collective behaviour. It writes outtechnology and embodied practices. It missesritual, religion, culture, kinship and gender andreplaces it with genes, brains and neurons. That’sone picture, but what I think is that you need tohave lots of different pictures that capturesomething more interesting, more nuanced andmore complex, not just rely on cramming actions,or people into the existing categories that wehave made for them. My idea of research is thatit should emerge from the data in a kind ofdance. There is no dance in gambling research.It is robotic. Idiotic. It is unresponsive. It is rigid.You should be doing research that is agile,something of beauty, something true.MInUK(3)48A lawyer representing gambling operators echoedthis sentiment.This is not only about games, it is about changesin the ways that people consume new media. Tolimit it to gambling is short sighted. Look at howpeople use the Home Shopping Network, howthey use social media and these kinds of things.This is more relevant, to understand changes inconsumer behaviour, than studies of casinos orprevalence studies. We all know that these areblunt tools. I have three questions I would like tosee in research: ‘What is gambling?’ ‘What is thedefinition of value?’ ‘What is regulation?’ But Inever do see these questions. MUrOE(7)9157

Money“Most of the senior researchers in the world have for quitesome time been funded by the industry directly or indirectly,so the whole academy is very distorted. We’ve got a cleanupjob to do. XXXXX58

Headlines• Lack of funding is one of the most importantobstacles to high quality research. (section 35)• Uncertainty about funding makes it difficult forresearchers to join and commit to gambling research.(section 36)• Researchers are under pressure from their institutionsto attract funding from industry andto present the ‘impact’ of their work in economicterms. (section 36)• The lack of funding available makes researchersdependent on industry support. (section 37)• There are no neutral sources of funding. Allfunding bodies are invested in gambling invarious ways. All sources of funding are motivatedby particular priorities, shaped bydistinctive administrative and bureaucratic cultures,and sustain particular methodologicalparadigms. (section 38)• The interests of funders are reproduced in diverseways including in the questions that areprioritised in calls, the ways in which applicationsare assessed and the ways in whichresearch is disseminated. (section 38)• Calls for research generally focus on problemgambling. (section 38)• Research councils expect specialised gamblingcharities to support gambling research. (section39)• Funding that originates from voluntary contributionsis conceptualised as a gift fromindustry to researchers, even when it is administeredby an intermediary. (section 40)• The purpose of intermediary bodies is to launderindustry money of influence. In practice,the industry maintains a sense of ownershipover research. (section 41)• There was no consensus among our participantsabout the implications of acceptingfunding from industry sources, directly or indirectly.(section 42)• Gambling studies has a weak tradition of recognisingand acknowledging conflicts ofinterest. There is a lack of transparency aboutthe conditions under which research is produced.(section 43)• Research councils are more independent thanspecialist intermediaries. (section 44)59

No money, no researchThere is insufficient funding to support a researchprogramme capable of producing evidence as understoodby policy makers.The biggest obstacle to improving research ismoney. Gambling research isn’t anything likeproperly funded and it’s not perceived to be asalient public health issue. XXXXXI think actually the biggest challenge is just increasingthe money available for research.MRaUK(14)18In the UK, where there is a voluntary levy of approximately£5 million per year or 0.033% ofgross gambling win, 46 10% of which is spent on research,23 out of 24 researchers described a lackof funding as one of the most important obstaclesto conducting research.I haven’t done anything on gambling for fouryears. There’s no funding to do anything. […] Iwas really glad to return to my original intereststo be honest! FRaUK(5)77I was very lucky to get funded. It’s gone downhillmore recently. […]I think it’s really hard to getfunding like that now. XXXXXThe grants aren’t very big to be honest, youcan’t do a lot with that kind of money.FRaUK(11)61As well as there being a perception of very limitedfunding, at present there is also uncertainty, makingit very difficult to plan or commit to a future ingambling research.The current state of funding is totally unknown.With the funding cuts that have happened withDCMS withdrawing their grant in aid to theGambling Commission, the Commission hashardly any capacity to do any research of theirown and the recent changes to the RGT as afunding body, they are still finding their feetand they haven’t made it exactly very clearabout how they are going to fund research,what are their priorities, how they are going toset those, what the input of the industry is goingto be in that process. And so that leaves you withthe corporate sector and that, for me, is reallylinking up with the social responsibility side, or itleaves you with the large grant-funding bodieswhich is just incredibly competitive. FRcUK(6)62Without a dependable funding stream gamblingresearch is unsustainable. Some felt that the solutionwas in a better organised, more proactive RGTsupported by a compulsory levy.Research should be funded by a statutory levyon profits. Sorry I don’t believe in the RGTbudget of £300,000 a year [sic] on research.XXXXXIf the RGT was bigger and better organised wecould apply to them like they do in Canada.They have a levy and that is why Canada is theleading country in the world in gambling research.[…] Here I feel that the ESRC / RiGTjoint initiative in 2005 did get some sparks goingand I don’t feel there’s been enough moneyin the field to retain or keep all those researchersin the field. A levy here would have anenormous impact. XXXXXThe impact of a levy would be determined by theway in which distribution is organised, and wouldnot resolve all of the problems that we describe inthis report. It is possible that additional fundingwould simply produce more conservative research.In Macau, for example, where there’s a 1.6% levy,research is limited by problems with access that wedescribe in the next part of the report (see section47).46 H2 Gambling Capital, 2012. ‘Leading global gambling nations – Asia and egaming continue to out perform’60

Figure 8 – Gross Annual Win vs RGT Research Spend, UK, 2012. The amount spent on research was one46,628th of the UK gross win in 2012. To proportionally represent this ratio using the diagram abovewould require over 15 pages of black dots to one blue dot. Based on figures from H2 GamblingCapital, ‘Leading global gambling nations – Asia and egaming continue to out perform’, 2012.61

Following the moneyThe stuff we work on is dictated by funding.XXXXXThe withdrawal of public support from higher educationhas accelerated since the financial crisis.Universities are now expected to be ‘self-financing’and academics are required to attract supportfrom industry partners. Gambling research is nodifferent in this regard. On an individual level, externalfunding provides time out from the pressuresof teaching and administration, so that researcherscan build up their publications, the basis of promotions.With the exception of economists who workon secondary data, most researchers are limited inwhat they can achieve without funding.There is pressure from the university to bringmoney in. As an academic you are definitely penalisedfor not engaging. More and moreuniversities judge you by the funding you bringin in terms of research, and gambling and alcoholfunding is very easy to get, especially if youdon’t care where it comes from. XXXXXoutput. You should be judged by your outputsand if you have outputs without any input you’vedone even better. But universities don’t see it thisway. They want research grants. XXXXXCompleting funding applications is time-intensivewith no guarantee of an end product. In order toincrease the odds of success, researchers are inclinedto produce proposals that fit unambiguouslywith the priorities of funders. This reduces dynamismand creativity within the field, encouragingconservative and derivative approaches that willfind broad support among gambling’s power brokers.I’ve made a decision not to play that game ofunashamed metrics. It’s a personal choice. […] Ithink that working long hours and sending offloads of papers to gambling journals to becomeknown by funders is a game. I don’t want to turninto that person. To use a draconian expression,I don’t want those to be the conditions of possibilityin my own life. MRaAU(12)98I’ve hardly ever applied for anything. Grantsare now something that universities are prioritising.To an economist the grant is an input not anTaking the moneyThe primary effect of the shrinking researchbudget in higher education has been for researchersto become increasingly dependent on theindustry. The majority of researchers we spoke tohad received funding from the industry, indirectlyor directly.Gambling industry funding is particularly usefulwhen there is not much funding available elsewhere.MRaUK(14)18I can’t think of a single leading researcher whohasn’t taken money from the industry. XXXXXMost of the senior researchers in the world havebeen for quite some time funded by the industrydirectly or indirectly. XXXXXTerms and conditionsAll research comes from somewhere. I don’t thinkany research can be entirely independent of itsfunding, whether that funding is research councilor anyone else. FRaUS(11)66There’s no such thing as disinterested research,don’t be so naïve. MInUK(11)47The priorities of funding bodies are realisedthrough their commissioning activities. Particularquestions are either explicitly or implicitly foregrounded.In the case of gambling, calls forapplications often focus on ‘problem gambling’ or‘harm minimisation’, rather than inviting researchersto be creative or imaginative in envisaging how62

they might answer a particular question, or solve aproblem. Examples include the ESRC/RiGT fundingstreams ‘Interventions in Problem Gambling’ andthe three-year Gambling and Aboriginal PeopleAwareness Program, designed to ‘lower the impactof problem gambling on Aboriginal communities inNew South Wales’.Most research is managed by never askingquestions which are likely to produce embarrassingresults. XXXXXPart of the problem is not so much that they getin there and interfere in your research results butthey set the questions. If you know social scientists,half the battle is getting a good researchquestion and then working out what I’m going todo. So by actually setting fairly banal questions,questions that allow a focus on harm minimisationor how you may help a particular set ofproblem gamblers allows us to avoid more consideredin-depth analysis, certainly looking atsystemic structural issues and the like.MRaAU(12)98Who’s responsible?Based on their experiences of applying for funding,UK academics felt that research councils werereluctant to support gambling projects for two reasons.First, because it should be funded by RGT, aspecialist fund. Second, because it was not regardedas a serious public health issue.Gambling isn’t really thought as a major issue,so there is not very much ESRC funding for instance.There is not much from the largeracademic funders available for gambling research.FRaUK(7)101There seems to be limited understanding by academicfunding bodies of the importance ofgambling research. […] In economics, researchbodies have said it should be funded by commercialorganisations, not by us. XXXXXThe main challenge is simply that it is not a priorityarea for research nationally or for anyinfluential group of people in society. Gamblingis relatively hidden, all addictions tend to behidden but gambling addiction particularly so.It’s not politically very high on the agenda, unlikesay smoking or alcohol, because of theeffect of smoking and drinking on physicalhealth. There aren’t measurable effects of gamblingon cancer or on liver disease, for example,and unlike drug problems there isn’t the obviousconnection with HIV and AIDS or other conditions,or with public disorder. XXXXXThe apparent lack of support from research councilsplaces greater emphasis on the RGT as asource of funding. In practice, support may bemore limited than expected.There is a perception within the funding bodiesthat gambling research is funded by the RGT.It’s not. FRcUK(6)62I haven’t received any RGT money. They don’tseem to have any money. What proportion ofgambling research in the UK is funded by theRGT? I don’t know the answer to that but I wouldexpect not a very high proportion because theydon’t have any money. XXXXXThis problem is compounded in younger jurisdictions,like south-east Europe and Hong Kong. Theprofile of gambling as a public health issue is evenlower and, as a result, there is not yet a dedicatedfund for research.In Hong Kong the main challenge is to have morefunding. I think everyone you spoke to probablyhad the same answer. I think it could be reallyhelpful to have a gambling research specificfund because I understand that in many othercountries funding is allocated to gambling research,it’s separate from clinical services. So itwould be helpful for the development of gamblingresearch in Hong Kong to have a separatefund specifically assigned to research. FUtHK/M(15)102Croatia doesn’t prescribe a certain percentagefor the gambling research, prevention andtreatment that would be taken out of theirmoney. The Croatian Lottery does give moneyto different social causes but this money goes tothe Ministry of Finance and then is distributed bythem. MRaSEE(10)763

In Macau, there are funds available, but opinionsdiffered as to whether or not they were adequate,and accessible.It’s not difficult to get funding: I have neverfailed. The Macau Foundation has a lot ofmoney, 1.6% of gambling gross revenue goesto the Foundation. They have a different focuseach year. In the last two years it has been responsiblegambling. We also have the socialwork bureau. FRaHK/M(5)23It’s not difficult to get funding, mainly becausethe Macau government has enough money now.Gaming revenue is so high. I have to write aproposal to say why I’ve chosen this topic andhow important this topic is. If they are interestedI think it is not difficult to get funding.MRaHK/M(2)13Macau doesn’t have a dedicated fund like in theUK. The UK has the Responsible Gambling Trustbut in Macau we don’t have that yet. And alsothere are some other funds that in many situationsthey don’t like psychology. They don’tbelieve psychology is a science.MRaHK/M(3)22I would not say that there is a lot of fundingavailable in Macao. It depends. If you take theeasier approach, say for example, I wanted todistribute questionnaires to maybe 3000 visitorsto Macao asking them their opinion of the facilitiesin casinos. For this kind of research, it wouldbe relatively easy to get funding. But when itcomes to qualitative research it’s really difficult.Unfortunately not many people know about thedifficulties involved. It has to be approved byvarious panels, and unfortunately some of thesepanel members do not know how research ingambling is conducted. They might be experts inother areas, for example, in arts or in Chineseliterature, maybe in law, but when it comes togambling it’s another issue. MRaHK/M(6)12The burden of the giftDespite the fact that their pot of money is small theinfluence of the RGT is great. They set the terms onwhich gambling research is defined, its functionand how it should be funded.The RGT describes itself as, ‘the leading charity inthe UK committed to minimising gambling-relatedharm. […] The aim is to stop people getting intoproblems with their gambling, and ensure thatthose that do develop problems receive fast andeffective treatment and support.’ 47 In the US theNCRG (National Council for Responsible Gambling)describes itself as, ‘the only nationalorganization exclusively devoted to funding researchthat helps increase understanding ofpathological and youth gambling and find effectivemethods of treatment for the disorder.’ 48These descriptions emphasise problem gamblingand treatment as an exclusive priority. We havedescribed how this narrowing effect functions inpractice in previous sections. Both organisationsalso conceptualise voluntary contributions as giftsor donations on their websites:Gambling is a legitimate and popular leisureactivity and the industry’s record of supportfor those who do suffer with problems is agood one and perhaps ought to be more celebrated.49Today, with the assistance of so many generouscompanies, organizations and individuals,more than $22 million has been committed tothe NCRG, an unprecedented level of fundingfor gambling research from the privatesector. 50Gifts create particular kinds of relationships thatcall for constant attention and management. They47 Responsible Gambling Trust Web Pages, 2013. ‘About us’. URL: http://www.responsiblegamblingtrust.org.uk/About.Accessed 18 November 2013.48 National Council for Responsible Gambling Web Pages, 2013. ‘About NCRG’. URL: http://www.ncrg.org/about-ncrg.Accessed 18 November 2013.49 Liddle, S. 2013. ‘RGT stresses independence in Cat B research’.50 National Council for Responsible Gambling Web Pages, 2013. ‘About NCRG – Funding’, URL:http://www.ncrg.org/about-ncrg/funding. Accessed 18 November 2013.64

are framed by mutual interests and the preservationof harmony. This dynamic shapes relationshipsbetween industry, intermediary bodies and researchers,and is partly responsible for the cosymentality described in section 27.What are the implications of this approach to fundingresearch? By presenting voluntary contributionsas gifts to be celebrated rather than one of thecosts of doing business, intermediaries place particularpressures on themselves and researchers.One of the ways in which this idea of gifting manifestsitself is in the tendency of the industry tomaintain a sense of ownership over research. Thisbelief was expressed by members of the industryand also some researchers, particularly in the ideaof value for money.The research we do has to be of some use to theindustry, after all they are paying for it. Youcan’t just choose something completely esoteric– you have to demonstrate that what you produceis going to be of some benefit to themotherwise you won’t get funding. They are payingfor it after all. I think that’s reasonable!FRaUK(4)68Research must provide value for money for industry.They are paying for it after all. Someresearchers have been irresponsible, and this iswhy the industry does not trust them to sharedata. We have to work on that relationship andreassure industry that they have nothing to fearfrom research. Then we can start to work together.The relationship between research andindustry should be mutually beneficial. Academicsshould produce value for money, researchthat meets the needs of industry. Industry has aresponsibility to support that kind of research.MIoUK(12)41Gifts are never entirely alienated from their donors– they retain traces of their interests. Receiversexperience gifts as relationship maintenance. Wediscuss this sense of industry ownership of data andresearch in sections 45 to 54.Ethical sanitation 51Adams has described five methods used to distanceindustry funding from its source: structuraldecoupling, as practised by the NCRG; the tripartitepartnership committee, as it existed in the UKbefore 2012; independent panels of experts, suchas the Victoria Panel, now disbanded; peer review;and the blending of sources. 52Policy makers have created intermediaries with theintention of cleansing money of industry influence.In practice our participants reported a range ofexperiences. It was not always predictable whoseinterests were promoted by particular structures.The outcomes were equally dependent on individualpersonalities and how they fitted together.Some of our participants contributed to researchpanels that they described as genuinely independent.How the research is reproduced is contextual. Inour case we had a free hand, genuine independence.There may have been industrypeople on the board but the actual operation ofthe charity was independent and the board didnot dictate, or I wouldn’t have worked for them.XXXXXOthers pointed out that the majority of fundingbodies either include industry representatives ormaintain close relationships with the industry. Relationshipsmay be formally embedded withinconsultations and strategic discussions, or informaland enacted in diverse social spaces includinggambling conferences, annual general meetingsand social events.The people on the board are very articulate,they are very good at making their viewpointknown and they are very assertive people. Andthen if you look at the academics who are on thesame board, you think actually they are fairly…they are nice people, and very good academics,but they are not as assertive as the gamblingindustry representatives. And what they are51 Adams, P. 2011. ‘Ways in which gambling researchers receive funding from gambling industry sources’, InternationalGambling Studies 11 (2): 145–152.52 Adams, ‘Ways in which gambling researchers receive funding from gambling industry sources’, 147.65

good at expressing is that we don’t rock theboat. ‘We’, say the industry, ‘are funding thisresearch’. […] They are very good at saying,‘Well we don’t want …’, ‘It’s not a good idea todo that…’, ‘If we do that piece of research wemight not get the contributions in.’ Of course itwould take a couple of years to get a levy setup, so that’s also a worry because you need ongoingfunding for treatment. FRaUK(11)61Now, industry are on the GamCare board.What does that tell you? That to me creates, andbearing in mind how good the industry are atcreating paths that smooth the way for them andthey’ve done that. They’ve got these linkagesnow with GamCare and GamCare will be lesscritical, I will predict, less critical in the future, ofareas of the industry that could do with scrutiny.XXXXXThe situation in the UK provoked the strongest commentsfrom researchers, who expressed varyingdegrees of scepticism about the influence of industryover research since the collapse in 2012 of thetripartite arrangement which separated fund raisingfrom the commissioning of research.I’m very critical of the funding arrangements inthe UK now because the specialist research forgambling research comes from the gambling industryvia a voluntary levy. They raise a certainamount of money each year and that goes tothe RGT, which is an industry-led organisationwhich then decides where the money would go,which seems to me quite the wrong thing to dobecause it represents a conflict of interest, really.The gambling industry shouldn’t be soclosely involved in the national system of fundingresearch. XXXXXIt shouldn’t be industry people deciding whereto put the money. I think it should just be researchers,using the experiences of the policymakers and clinicians to find out. So I’m not infavour of having anyone from industry dictatingwhat happens in the research field. It has madeit rather complicated actually. […] Of courseRGT money counts as industry money. Of courseit does. FUtUK(15)78If you look at what happened to independentresearch in the UK, with the power of industryand the takeover of the RiGT then RGF (ResponsibleGambling Fund) into what is now basicallya totally industry-dominated charity which givesacross a paltry amount as a voluntary levy. Theyfought very hard to not have a mandatory onethat the Secretary of State had the power toinvoke but chose not to. You see a completeabout-turn, in terms of the UK research and regulatoryagenda where now it’s just totallydominated by the industry and where even thebenign end of the continuum around treatment isdominated by one provider who has actuallycaptured the powers that be in its own interests.XXXXXI think the RGT is a complete and utter disasterzone. I won’t hold back. At least before therewas some ESRC money coming in and in thatsense a bit more legitimacy to the whole endeavour,but now that doesn’t seem to be of anyinterest to anyone and I can’t understand why.Why wouldn’t you want to attract more fundingin the first place and, second, why wouldn’t youwant to achieve a greater degree of legitimacyto your research endeavours by involving thosesorts of third party organisations? MInUK(8)35Some researchers argued that the purpose of intermediarybodies is to present the appearance ofindependence even as they reproduced the interestsof the industry and the state. In this sense, theirfunction was rhetorical.The RGT only funds research that fits theiragenda. The new structure of it is really worryingbecause it’s still too heavily industry. If youlook at the independent people they’ve got,they are independent people who know nothingabout gambling whatsoever. And not a lotabout research. FRaUK(11)61The main aim is to launder the money, to makesure that the money from industry is managedby what looks like an independent body. Australiareally developed this model. You have apanel with government representation, representativesof the industry and representatives ofthe community. The community could be researchor public health people, or could be anybodythey like who is compliant. The actual part within66

that committee is basically the relationship betweengovernment and industry with thepretence that there is some sort of scientific independence.XXXXXNegotiating independenceSome of those who are funded by the industry,whether directly or indirectly, argued that this hasno impact on their independence. They rely on theirpersonal integrity to manage these relationships.I’ve never started something thinking, ‘Oh it’sfunded by industry.’ My independence is somethingI value. I will say it how I see it. That’s thereason some people will hire me. XXXXXIn 2007, Peter Collins, specialist adviser to the jointparliamentary committee which contributed to thefinal Gambling Act, as well as the more recent selectcommittee in 2012, was running the Centre forthe Study of Gambling at the University of Salford.It received £100,000 a year from casino corporationssuch as MGM Mirage, Isle of Capri andKerzner International. At the time, Collins maintainedthat, ‘the reason [the firms] fund this [centre]is because they are sympathetic to the views that Ihold anyway, independently’. 53Experiences of working for industry or their fundingintermediaries varied. Some were entirely handsoff:I have to say, from my experience of havingdone research for 13 years, I probably had theleast interference as far as commissioning goesby the gambling industry, by a substantial margin.MRaUK(14)18I must say I haven’t experienced any pressurewhatsoever from the RGT. FRaUK(4)70The state operator didn’t give us any leads ordirection – do whatever you like, we were freeto do whatever, every year we organised aconference, they attended, we published proceedings.We’d say, let’s have lunch to let themknow we are alive and producing. We chosetopics based on our own interests. It might havebeen difficult if we had chosen something reallyobscure. In a broad sense it had to be relevant.No direction though, no ‘You should look at thisand not that.’ MRaOE(10)86Others who had accepted industry funding expressedmore ambivalence about the effect thatthis had on their work.I have felt pressures as we’ve touched on, andsome of the pressures have been very strongpressures, but if the alternative is there’s goingto be no research I don’t know if we are goingto cut off the nose to spoil the face. Every moralvirtue needs to be employed and I do think thatit can possibly contribute to the gambling debatesand our knowledge, but if we are talkingabout where the organisation supporting youwanting to white-wash or dilute findings thenthat’s not really acceptable. FRaUK(8)64One research user was critical of academics who,he argued, confused independence with a lack ofaccountability.Academics are appalling. They expect to becompletely unaccountable. I think that if you acceptfunding then the least you should expect toprovide is a regular report. This is not saying,‘Do this, change this’, but just ‘Tell us what youare doing, are you making progress?’ and so on.But academics are far too arrogant. You wouldbe amazed. MUtUK(7)84Many researchers rejected industry funding, andwere critical of those who had accepted it.I would be suspicious about industry-funded research,and I would wonder whether the funderhad stepped in and influenced the researchquestion. They are bound to differ and that’swhy I’d be wary. XXXXXWhat I would like to see is obviously independenceof research as much as possible. One of theproblems we have had in Australia is that researchhasn’t been independent from53 Barnett, A. 2007. ‘Revealed: march of the new casinos’, The Guardian, 21 January.67

governments and the industry. I think researchersare complicit in that. MRaAU(12)98If researchers want to be independent, theymustn’t kiss up to the industry and do researchfor their needs. They shouldn’t take a single eurofrom them, because if they do it, this is the endof independent research. MRaSEE(4)2One member of the industry agreed.Whenever a casino operator commissions research,the chances are they will control theresults. The state should be the one commissioningand paying for the research. Universitiesshould do the research, but there shouldn’t beany connection between them and the gamblingoperators. MIoSEE(20)3Researchers suggested that the industry was awarethat the source of funding affected perceptions ofindependence.It was a gambling industry report and nobodyfrom the gambling industry had paid a pennytowards it. In fact at the end, the gambling peoplewere like, ‘Somebody ought to do morethings like this’, and I said ‘You’re making shitloads of money, you should fund them.’ ‘Oh wewouldn’t want to fund them. It wouldn’t be seento be independent,’ they said. So don’t expectany money to pop out of the woodwork.MRcUK(9)20Some felt that the potential for bias could be overcomeby practical measures to protect theirindependence, including negotiating terms withfunders before research begins.When you are working with industry, the bestthat you can do is to set up a contract and abasis for collaboration where academic integrityis maintained to the greatest possibleextent. In every contract we write we have alanguage that basically says the funder doesnot get a say in what we publish and when. Weare allowed to publish our findings as we writethem, wherever, and we won’t enter into a contractthat doesn’t have that stipulation.FRaUS(11)66Conflicts of interestResearchers and research users called for moretransparency in gambling research, notably foracknowledgements of funding sources and descriptionsof research design including reference to anyconditions placed on access, non-disclosure agreementsor other special arrangements betweenoperators and researchers. Without these acknowledgements,articles and journals suffer from a lackof credibility.Addiction studies has a much stronger tradition ofacknowledging conflicts of interest. Since 1997 ithas used ‘The Farmington Consensus’, which was intendedas a framework within which journals could‘conduct their professional activities and […] safeguardmoral and ethical principles.’ 54 This has beenthe catalyst for work which interrogates the productionof research in a number of fields.In the field of alcohol research, Babor has identifiedseven areas of industry involvement, all ofwhich also apply to the field of gambling research:(i) sponsorship of research funding organizations;(ii) direct financing of university-basedscientists and centers; (iii) studies conductedthrough contract research organizations; (iv)research conducted by trade organizationsand social aspects/public relations organizations;(v) efforts to influence publicperceptions of research, research findingsand alcohol policies; (vi) publication of scientificdocuments and support of scientificjournals; and (vii) sponsorship of scientificconferences and presentations at conferences.5554 Various, 1998. ‘The Farmington Consensus’, Alcohol & Alcoholism 33 (1): 6–8.55 Babor, T.F. 2009. ‘Alcohol research and the alcoholic beverage industry: issues, concerns and conflicts of interest’, Addiction104 (Suppl. 1): 34–47.68

He concluded that the industry's activities could,‘confuse public discussion of health issues and policyoptions, raise questions about the objectivityof industry-supported alcohol scientists and provideindustry with a convenient way todemonstrate “corporate responsibility” in its attemptsto avoid taxation and regulation.’ Similarconclusions were reached by researchers.No decent journal will take an article which isfunded by tobacco or alcohol, few will takethem from pharmaceutical-funded research andI think we need to be working towards the samesituation in gambling research. XXXXXWhen I get research which is for an editorialprocess I’m actually careful to look back ‘What’smotivated this piece of research?’ ‘How was itpaid for?’ XXXXXThe journal Addiction is developing a muchstronger process for ensuring that people whoare funded by industry don’t … at least it’sopen that they are but ideally they shouldn’tpublish any more because their independence isquestionable. But it hasn’t been normative in thegambling field so much of the research so far ishighly questionable. XXXXXIn the field of food studies, the International LifeSciences Institute (ILSI) North America WorkingGroup on Guiding Principles has set out conflict-ofinterestguidelines regarding industry funding.Their intention is to protect ‘the integrity and credibilityof the scientific record, particularly withrespect to health, nutrition, and food-safety science’.56Valuing independenceA number of participants suggested that researchcouncils provided a more suitable funding modelas they were independent, as well as being perceivedas such, by a wider variety of stakeholders.A research council funding model would create amore robust structure focused on academic merit. Itwould attract more and more high-quality applications,although it would still face the challenge ofselecting reviewers from outside the establishedfield of gambling studies.Gambling research should be funded throughresearch councils and through traditional mechanisms,i.e. it should come from public moneysome of it, but I also think that there is no reasonwhy some of the industry shouldn’t make a contributionthat is then made available for peopleto compete for to see if they can get projectsstarted as happens in other jurisdictions.XXXXXThe way I’m funded works quite well. I can doindependent research because it goes throughthe national research council and I’m assessedby people at the same level. That it is integratedin the regular funding administration works well.Because I think it’s important that research is notserving the interests of the industry.FRaOE(5)105There really needs to be significant funding thatis outside gambling studies. The ESRC programmestarted that, it disrupted it, it funded afew people, but because there were so few, relativelysmall grants and one-off grants thenthey were all pushed back out again. If you hada major funding body that deliberately set outto fund research but not in gambling studies thenyou could get a critical mass of people.FRaUK(7)67The RGT should hand it over to the MRC and sayit’s for gambling. FUtUK(15)78A research council model, in which funding is morethoroughly decoupled from the industry, would mitigatesome of the worst excesses of the existingarrangements. Whichever structure is adopted,however, funding will always be subject to theforces we have described. Gambling is lucrative,research has financial consequences. It is thereforein the interests of stakeholders to find ways to influencethis process.56 Rowe, S.R., Alexander, N., Clydesdale, F. et al. 2009. ‘Funding food science and nutrition research: financial conflictsand scientific integrity’, Nutrition Reviews 67: 264–272.69

Access“As long as you don’t write anything they don’t agree with Idon’t see why there should be a problem. MIoUK(35)2770

Headlines• The industry controls the terms on which researchis produced as well as how it isreceived. (section 45)• The industry has the most accurate and informativedata but it rarely shares it withresearchers. (section 45)• Access to industry people, places and informationdetermines the type of research whichcan be carried out. (section 46)• Responses to access requests vary betweensectors. (section 46)• The majority of requests for access to data orenvironments are unsuccessful and most areignored. (sections 46, 48)• In less mature jurisdictions access to gamblingenvironments is tightly controlled by the industry.(section 47)• Academics are asked to provide tangiblebenefits to the operator in return for access.(section 49)• Granting access to researchers can enhancean operator’s reputation for social responsibility.(section 50)• Successful access is often the result of a serendipitousencounter, or the cultivation of longterm relationships with members of the industry.It is therefore entirely unsystematic andoften unrepeatable. (section 51)• Some academics produce commercial researchas well as academic research. Theirwork for industry is often subject to non-disclosureagreements. (section 52)• The industry reserves the exclusive right to determinewhat is and is not ‘commerciallysensitive’ data. (section 52)• Ad hoc data sharing arrangements leave therelationship between commercial sensitivityand public accountability in the gambling industriesuntouched. In doing so, they detractfrom the discussion of systematic access whichurgently needs to take place. (section 54)71

The industry has the best dataWhen responding to criticism, the gambling industrycontinually asserts that existing researchcaptures correlations rather than evidence ofcausal relationships between particular products,for example, and problem gambling. At the sametime, researchers are denied access to meaningfuldata and forced to spend time and money devisingingenious ways to reproduce and capture gamblingbehaviour using experiments and surveys,knowing that their findings will be dismissed. It iseven more galling to have to go through the torturedprocess of producing data about gamblingin labs or natural environments in the knowledgethat the gambling industry routinely records datarelating to individual players, A and B tests, andnew products, and therefore has a far better understandingof how gamblers behave.Working with industry is really important. Theadded benefit is the data. They are workingwith gamblers day in day out, in some cases hundredsof thousands if not millions of them. If youlook at all the stakeholders in this research field,the industry know more than anybody becausethey see the real-world environment. They’re notacademics in artificial settings looking at selfreporteddata that may or may not be true.Getting their research and advice on research isreally helpful. MRaUK(14)18They have a very good database but it’s really,really confidential. Yes. We can’t get it.MRaHK/M(3)22It’s very difficult to get data from the gamblingindustry, it would be easier to get data directlyfrom casinos if I could but the gambling industryis very concerned about sharing its data.FRaHK/M(5)23Access deniedA lack of access to relevant people, places and informationlimits the quality and scope of research.More profoundly, the understanding that access islikely to be denied informs research design. Researchersare unlikely to form questions whichdepend upon access to anything but the most innocuousdata or public space.Social scientists are particularly vulnerable to refusalsof access as they collect data in naturalsettings. Access to information in and about naturalenvironments is closely guarded by the industry.I can’t help you with access. I don’t know anyonein the gambling industry who will speak to you.Sometimes a particular person might say thatthey will help, but usually when I go and askthem again they have either changed personnelor they ask me to call back in a few months becausethey are really busy. We never really getto a discussion about the ins and outs because itnever gets that far. I’ve given up, and now I justsay the same as everyone else – that I work independentlyof the industry. I never say it’sbecause they won’t speak to me I say it’s becauseof ethics! MUpUK(1)36I prepared two questionnaires: one for the casinoemployees and the other for ordinarypeople living in the proximity of casinos. Iwanted to outline the differences in opinions andexperiences between these two groups of people.The problem was that [the operator]wouldn’t allow me to circulate the questionnaireto the employees. I had to give it to them to doit. They wouldn’t allow me to have direct contactwith casino workers. I had the impression that theanswers I got were not honest or that they weredone in haste. I got only multiple-choice questionsanswered, not the descriptive ones. Out of50 casino workers, only 10 returned the answers.I didn’t think the questionnaire helped meto collect any kind of ‘objective’ data. It is in thisway that [the operator] prevented me from doingthe research I wanted to do. MRaSEE(4)2Psychologists who work in laboratory settings alsoface difficulty when they need industry data orgambling products to reproduce behaviour in theirexperiments.My experience of it is that it’s very hard to doit, it’s not easy to get access to these people andI don’t think there’s been any particular reason72

or incentive for the industry partners to help researchers.That’s my strong impression. In myexperience they haven’t had an incentive. It’s notthat they are necessarily strongly anti. Someare, but I just don’t see that they have many incentivesfor doing it and I also think that say, forexample, in the online environment commercialimperatives are such that they really can’t. Theyare so busy trying to keep going that they arenot going to spend a lot of time with researchers.XXXXXAnother psychologist described his efforts to ‘borrow’an electronic gambling machine to use in hislab.People were nodding a lot for a few months andthen, you know, it looked like it was going tohappen and then a couple of months later itwent cold. […] We got a sense that this was goingto be a sort of ‘this slot machine fell off theback of a lorry outside the psychology department’.And we’d have to carry it inside. Itseemed to be done in that way. XXXXXEconomists told us that they had fewer problemssecuring access to data partly because they workwith secondary data, and partly because their interestsare more closely aligned with those of theindustry.In economics the emphasis is more on the typicalgambler rather than the problem gambler andthat’s much less frightening for the industry thanthe relationship with the psychologist. […] Economiststend to believe that consumers shouldhave as much choice as possible so it’s not oftenthat they are writing about wanting to restrictwhat the industry can do. Whereas almost everythingthat comes from psychology leads tosome prescription and that there should be somelimitations on the industry. […] I don’t think thateconomists particularly have a fraught relationshipwith the industry. XXXXXResponses to access requests also vary betweensectors. Traditional bookmakers were among theleast accessible.Possibly the people that we found hardest to gethold of were the traditional bookies, Ladbrokes,Coral, William Hill. They were not very interestedin talking. They were dismissive to thepoint of, I would say, some kind of cognitive dissonance.MRcUK(9)20The men who run this company and I mean men,old men, still make decisions as though they arepart of a club. They are suspicious of all researchers.Of course they are! Why would theywant outsiders coming and digging about intheir business? They told me not to talk to you.They aren’t nervous, they know they don’t needto be. There is nothing that you can write aboutmachines that will have any impact on them. Butthey don’t need you. You are an annoyance, nota threat or anything like that but a bit irritating.MIoUK(11)29Are you really a spy? I always think that youare really a spy for the competition.MInUK(2)52Casinos and lotteries were relatively more open torequests.As far as the company was concerned it wasvery good access. […] As far as getting to talkto staff was concerned they were quite, sometimesthey sort of forgot us but quiteaccommodating. They usually managed to findsome people for us to talk to. FRaUK(2)58These differences reflect perceptions in the mediaof different gambling products. Betting operatorsin the UK are nervous about FOBTs. Casinos areeager to show that they are the most highly regulatedsector. Lotteries are interested in maintainingtheir reputation as a soft form of mass participationgambling that is accountable to the public, itscustomers.Some members of the new gambling industries, includingsocial gaming, exchange betting, andmobile, were interested in distancing themselvesfrom older sectors, which they presented as lessopen to outsiders including researchers.When I go home I don’t hang out with gamblingpeople. They are a strange lot. It’s all very cloakand dagger, close friendships, people movingbetween firms, commercial secrecy seems to lubricatethe job market and all that stuff. Theirbusiness model is very different to ours. We seeour role is to use our imagination to bring newprocesses to life, to move them from one context73

to another, to do things that people haven’tdone before. I think that the gambling industryhas more pressure to repeat the existing modelsand make money that way. They are paranoidabout research! They really don’t like it. But Ithink that is because they are fearful in general,not really about researchers as individuals. Butabout everyone! I think this is what you get whenan industry becomes very insular, self-referentialand fearful of either regulation or missingcommercial opportunities. They are inward looking,they circle the wagons at the slightestexcuse. Not all of them, but wagon circler wouldbe a good name for gambling executives as abreed. MInUK(2)46The gambling guys are totally paranoid. It’stighter than the Masons. MInUK(11)47In one case the narrowness of the approach takenby most researchers was the basis for denyingthem access to a workplace in the new gamblingindustries.We see gambling researchers as focused onproblem gambling, as crusaders, rather than interestedin the complexity of particular productsor markets. They are looking for ways to supporttheir existing ideas about gambling. Theymake judgements and make very loose argumentsbased on very limited information. Itmakes us very frustrated actually, and so eventhough I think it would be great to have researcherscome and see us, I can’t persuadeother people because I don’t want them to beuncomfortable in their work place. I can’t havesomeone making them feel like the job they dois actually morally bad or something. The peoplewho work here like making games thatpeople enjoy, and we have very smart and verythoughtful people here. They are hurt by whatthey read about our industry in the newspapersand they feel like they can’t win. MInUK(2)50Even within sectors there is a great deal of variation.Some operators are known to be morereceptive than others. For example, MIoUK(7)115was a small independent bookmaker eager to welcomea researcher in order to differentiate itselffrom the more established competition that it wasattempting to disrupt. The presence of the researcherwas a central feature of their compliancedocumentation used for licensing purposes.Sure you can come in. Ask anything you like, lookat anything you like. We’ve got nothing to hide.You can do whatever you like, just let me knowif you need to speak to someone or whateveryou want to do. […] Write whatever you like,tell us about it or don’t tell us about it, up to you.We’ve got nothing to hide. MIoUK(7)115Attitudes to research also vary for entirely personalreasons. One industry executive was aboutto retire and keen to express his misgivings aboutthe direction the betting industry was taking.You know I will always talk to you lot [researchers]as long as you change my name. I used tohold my head up in this job. Betting was honourable.But machines have changed everything.We all thought we were a cut above the arcadesbut not any more. You can’t justify whatwe do with these machines. It’s one thing to givesomeone a chance to win a few quid on a horse,it’s another thing to get them hooked on a machinethat is no better than a roulette wheel. I’vebeen in this business twenty years and I’vestarted being a lot more cagey when I tell peoplewhat I do. Imagine that at my age! And aproud bookie for twenty years. But the machinesare a different ballgame. MIoUK(20)74One member of the policy making community in theUK suggested that the industry should allow researchersto look into inconsequential issues, andby doing so enhance their reputation for cooperation.I understand the industry’s position – it doesn’twant people looking at its laundry, but it isn’tdoing itself any favours. Perceptions would softenif they would allow people to carry outresearch. Areas where it could tidy its act up,others where they do a particular thing andthere’s little or no impact. They throw the babyout with the bathwater by bringing down theshutters completely. MUpUK(10)85This approach was already endorsed by some industryrepresentatives.If you are doing research with the company forthe company, then it might find out some useful74

stuff. And by useful I mean that it means biggerprofits. If you are an independent researcherthen they hope that you are going to find outsomething that is uninteresting. So what kind ofdeal is that for researchers? Not a great one.MInUK(1)49No entryIn younger jurisdictions including Macau and Croatia,the industry has a less fully developed policyof social responsibility and refusals of access wereexpected.I did a survey on problem gambling among casinopatrons, I tried to seek the casino operators’support but generally they said, very politely,‘Well we cannot proceed.’ Finally, I gave upand I said ‘Okay, I’ll do the survey outside in thepublic area’, they said they are really happy,they are relieved. MRaHK/M(3)22I had real problems with accessibility to casinooperators and managers. […] Current employeesare not allowed to talk about theirexperiences. FRaSEE(10)4It’s not easy at all to approach casino employeesand I needed to spend so much time andeffort to have the opportunity to interview them.And it was a painful and long and expensiveprocess. In Macau they didn’t want to disclosetoo much of their operation because they considerit strategically sensitive, which wouldaffect their operation and profitability. So that’swhy they tended to keep secret or to completelysay no to your requests. MRaHK/M(6)12Gambling operators expressed a general distrustof researchers, and did not recognise research asa valid activity.We cannot allow a researcher, no matter howcompetent they might be, to use our database.We have sport scores from the last 10 yearsstored there, what would happen if an academicwere to meddle with the information andinadvertently erase something? It’s the same asif I tried to rummage through the British Museumarchives and ruined something there. MIoSEE(20)8In Macau, researchers, like all civil servants, are notallowed to enter casinos except during ChineseNew Year. Requesting permission for access atother times of the year is a lengthy bureaucraticprocedure without any guarantee of success. Thisseriously limits the kind of questions researchers canask.As a research scholar in Macau we are not allowedto go in the casino so we don’t have somuch information available. For me it seems okbecause I just focus on regulation, but for somepeople, if they focus on management, it’s reallyhard for them to do that. MRaHK/M(2)13You know that, as researchers, especially frompublic institutes, we’re not allowed to go to casinos.If we want to go to casinos we have to gothrough a really long procedure. I have to applyto my boss and my boss needs to apply to hisboss who will pass my application to the Secretaryadviser. MRaHK/M(6)12Researchers also received varying levels of cooperationfrom the government.I rarely need details from the gambling industrybut sometimes I need statistics from the government.Some of them are in the public domain. Ican easily access that information. It is not easyto work with the government, it’s not as transparentas in western countries. They don’t like tosay too much to the public. One time the governmentbody called me and asked me to go theoffice and talk a little bit. I criticised them andthey didn’t feel happy about it.MRaHK/M(2)13Although there is a levy in Macau, and funding istherefore less of an issue, the difficulty of gainingaccess to gambling data and environments totallydetermines the type of research that can takeplace. Solutions to funding problems do not guaranteehigh-quality, critical research.75

‘Polite, but with no intention of ever, ever coming through’Rather than denying access, a common tactic is todiscourage researchers by ignoring their requestsfor interviews, or simply being unavailable, continuallypostponing any possibility of accesswithout ruling it out entirely. This approach protectsthe industry from accusations that it is beinguncooperative.You just sit tight and hope that the researchlooks somewhere else. I would ignore youremails, then be really apologetic and upfront ifI saw you again. Polite, but with no intention ofever, ever coming through for you. I’ve seenpeople talk to you like that at conferences andthe best bit is that you don’t realise that’s whatthey’re doing! I deal with them every day andI see what they’re doing. They are saying undertheir breath ‘Oh no, it’s that Professor again!’ Isee the fear in their eyes! And they say to you,‘Yes Professor Cassidy, of course. You are verywelcome to visit our company, let’s set somethingup over the summer’ and I see your facegetting all excited and then they walk off going,like ‘Score! That’s her put off for anothersix months. How long did she say her projectwas going on for?’ And you have no clue! Youliterally start to look excited! MInUK(1)49I tell researchers how much I enjoyed our conversationand to keep in touch and maybe wecan sort something out next year. Works everytime. FInUK(11)39We negotiated for months with the industry toget access to gaming floors to interview patrons.And that just stalled and stalled andstalled, and in the end we did an interview overthe phone instead to get a sample. XXXXXIf I can manage to find an email address, whichI usually can, I find that my emails are completelyignored. FRaUK(8)64They didn’t tell me anything, they just ignoredmy efforts to communicate with them. Eventually,after many months when they replied, myfieldwork was over. So this was their way ofavoiding the cooperation: just silence. I sentemails, letters and phoned many people withinthe company, but I received no reply. FRa-SEE(6)1They were not interested in my presence. Theydidn’t say I couldn’t do it but they also neversaid I could. I had an informal allowance to bethere but I was never given a formal approval.Until the last day I was asking for statistics ofthe Tote, they never gave it to me. I didn’t feelthey were interested in any way in this research.FRaOE(5)105A lack of strong evidence in published researchcan appear to reflect either the non-existence ofdata or the lack of imagination or determinationof the researcher. In practice, it is a reflection ofthe conditions under which the majority of researchtakes place.What can you do for us?There is no point in having someone from universityjust for the sake of it. If they came along andsaid I want to do some qualitative research onthis and that, you’re like ‘Oh’. It would be thebig ‘So, what?’ You produce a paper. Whatdoes it mean to me? Do I care? We know a lotof information about our players. It would haveto be quite compelling upfront. Someone wouldhave to do an amazing pitch. Everyone must go‘Wah! That’s good! I really like that, I haven’tthought about that’. A good example is, if somebodycame along and said, ‘I spent two yearsstudying the Chinese gambling market and Ithink there is a good way to take your productsinto it profitably.’ That’s more interesting. Researchto me is more like a pure businessopportunity. MInUK(16)19Gambling companies have their own researchersso do not need our help. FRaHK/M(5)23Researchers described access negotiations withgambling operators as torturous, time-consumingand generally unsuccessful. For requests to be considered,academics must demonstrate that some76

tangible benefit is likely to accrue to the companyas a result of their research. The most sympatheticrecipients of requests for access were generallyfound in compliance departments, to whom the potentialbenefits of collaboration, howevermarginal, are most immediately obvious. The successof access frequently depended upon theinfluence of the compliance department, which variedbetween operators. In order to ‘sell’ researchto the rest of the company (particularly those inmore commercially focused departments), complianceofficers coached researchers to produceproposals that would help them to prove to colleaguesthat the research would be beneficial tothe company.As a researcher, you need to produce a documentthat very clearly sets out the tangiblebenefits to the company, to sell it to the organisation.MInUK(8)35The most important thing is that you’ll need tofind a way to persuade them that the researchcan be useful to them in some way, can bringgood publicity or show that they are interestedin social responsibility. If it’s in their interests todo it they will be more inclined to speak to you.MIoUK(12)30Research is a bit hit and miss. Depending on whothe people are and what their interest is. No onewill talk to you about machines in betting shops.But something like cross-border gambling, thiswill be supported. It is the sort of thing that hasa chance of talking to a good cross-section ofpeople. MIoUK(7)28Impression management is not restricted to accessnegotiations. Even in quite superficial interactions,researchers are conscious that they must not ‘scareoff’ the industry.I think when you tell people you’re a sociologist,I think people think you’re there to pry and askquestions, cause trouble and be quite critical. Iused to introduce myself at conferences as afeminist sociologist but it looked as though people’sheads were about to explode so I stoppeddoing that. XXXXXMake us look goodAs well as the hypothetical benefits that researchersare urged to generate by compliancedepartments, actual benefits may accrue to operatorswho consent to working with researchers.These include the enhancement of reputationthrough the appearance or reality of investment insocially responsible gambling.Lottery companies get kudos for bringing in anacademic. XXXXXI’ve had a couple of people approach me andit becomes clear that they are looking for favourablepublicity and just being seen to bedoing research. And I think you just have to walkaway from that. The chances are that nothingcomes of it anyway. I think there is a responsibilityon parts of the industry now to actuallystart to grow up a little bit and know that peopleare going to want to do research in the fieldanyway and their best tactic is to engage withit rather than sort of set it aside or seek to exploitit solely for public relations. XXXXXI spoke to a director, who helped me to a point.But I had the impression that they wanted mywork to emphasise only the positive effects ofthe casino industry in the area. Their expectationwas for me not to criticise or relativise gamblingbut to write positively about what has been happeningin the town so that the overall picture inthe general public would solidify as a positiveone. MRaSEE(4)2I think research is really interesting and as acompany we really need to think outside the boxand draw on academics to learn about the businessand our customers. I have to take it upstairsthough, so they need to make a good case forthemselves – something that clearly shows theadvantages for us, in terms of social responsibility,reputation, Brownie points from theGambling Commission, that kind of thing. Wethen sell it upstairs as a kind of exercise in responsibility.Academics might get some papers77

out of it and we get to say that we have a researcherworking with our company.MInUK(1)40I would ask researchers to write a letter withsome nice comments in, you know, how gratefulthey are to us for helping them with their research,how open we were, and how good oursocial responsibility training was. We can usethat for licensing. MIoUK(35)33Researchers may also produce cheap, useful researchfor operators.I suspect that is one of the reasons that we wereable to do our research at the time, because thecompanies saw that there was a way that theycould help research at very little cost to themselves,and actually I think there was virtually nocost or even any risk to them really, but I thinkthat seems to have passed and although thereare companies who will talk to you, it’s not particularlymarked out as a priority for them.XXXXXThe industry is more likely to provide access to researcherswhose work is commercially valuable,sympathetic or agnostic to their interests. Beyondthese cases there is very little to be gained fromcollaborating with researchers.I think in general industry just puts up with researchersbecause they know they need to. Idon’t think industry is that interested in researchif it’s about pathological gamblers, I think theyare very interested in research in terms of maximisingthe potential of the machines forexample. So there’s a slight difference of interest,so to speak, between researchers, anddifferent types of researchers who are paid bythe industry. FUtUK(15)78Industry representatives are bound to say theyare interested in research but I think they’re interestedin some kind of research more thanothers, and unsurprisingly not very keen on researchwhich might have negative results forthem as an industry. XXXXXThe operator didn’t like me presenting the pluralityof opinions. They showed off with havinga treatment programme for problem gamblers,that they have mechanisms for prevention. Onthe other hand, many casino workers told me thisnever really worked in practice. That casinomanagement knew exactly which people wereproblem gamblers and how they were approachingbankruptcy, but they didn’t doanything to stop that. MRaSEE(4)2Ad hoc agreementsWhen access is granted it is often the result of aunique agreement and negotiation process betweena researcher and individual staff of agambling company. The opportunity to meet witha company’s employees and discuss the possibilityof access is often serendipitous, and dependentupon the individual researcher’s efforts to developthose contacts and the industry’s interests in usingthem. It is dependent on goodwill and thereforeentirely unsystematic, non-transparent and oftenunrepeatable or unsustainable.So I’m the only person in the world with the dataset.It’s all about developing and constructingrelationships with industry and they will supplyyou with data out of goodwill. Well, sometimesthey supply you data at a discounted price.XXXXXA senior casino manager had read papers byme and he approached me. I think I raised withthem that they had a lot of data that could answerquestions in gambling studies and that theregulators were very keen on firmer collaborationwith researchers. And he accepted the idea.XXXXXSome of our research involved industry data.[…] Often when they’ve been interested in whatwe’re doing we’ve been able to get them onside and convince them that what we’re doing isinteresting and potentially useful to them. And insome cases there was an element of goodwill,where we had just a good relationship for sometime with some of the companies. They werehappy to supply data because they know us. Itdoesn’t always work, we didn’t always get whatwe wanted. Quite often it does. […] That’s the78

key, when there is personal contact with somebodyhigh up in the organisation. XXXXXBecause it is based on personal relationships withspecific individuals, negotiations to access are vulnerableto changes in personnel in an industrywhich has a high staff turnover.Last year was okay, but talking about gettingaccess wouldn’t get anywhere right now becausethey are going through such massivechanges. People are twitchy about share prices.You should definitely hold off until a better time.Maybe next year will be easier. There are somereally good people there but they are going.MInUK(11)37I’m very happy to have people come in andwork with us but unless I can convince the peoplein the upper corridor to get on board then Iwon’t be able to do anything. And people areleaving at such a rate it gets so that I waste alot of your time and mine getting someone onboard and then they leave. MInUK(1)38Access, but with limitsThe experience of collaborating with industry onparticular projects was highly variable. Some researchersexpressed surprise at the independencethey were afforded.I have worked for these people for eight monthsand I have been shocked by the openness andthe responsibility to help by the majority of theindustry, professionals that I have spoken to,they’re really keen to increase our knowledgeabout what is a problem gambler, how do weidentify them, how can we stop it being a problemfor these people. It’s much more responsiblethat I imagined it to be. So I had a really goodexperience of working with industry, it’s beenquite open and collaborative and seeking thebest for the people they provide the services to.Because none of them want to have problemgamblers within their services, it’s not helpful forthem. So it surprised me really. FRaUK(7)101Across jurisdictions, state-run lotteries were notablyless controlling than other sectors.They accepted our research design withoutquery and we weren’t expected to do anythingin return, only to inform them of our final results.As academics, we had open hands. They neverinfluenced our research topics or methodology,they only asked us to include three more questionsin our questionnaire. These were thequestions which were specifically related tothem. They received the results as an incentiveto improve their socially responsible gamblingmeasures. MRaSEE(10)7They were really good actually, really nice, reallysupportive of my work, I know lottery is notstrictly industry but they […] were really good,really supportive. I was worried that they wouldtry to manipulate the data or steer the researchin certain ways, but they really didn’t try to dothat at all. They just let me get on with it. XXXXXIn other cases access was closely controlled and researcherswere directed and ‘managed’.I have been warned by different casino executives,that I wasn’t allowed to contact the casinostaff right after the interview, or get their phonenumber, and they were not allowed to contactme again. I mean all that kind of stuff. And othercompanies wanted me to sign some kind ofagreement stating that I will keep everything secretor otherwise I would be charged.MRaHK/M(6)12Researchers are routinely required to sign non-disclosureagreements which restrict publication.As for influencing the way I would use the data,I had smaller issues. When I was still in the processof writing, I had to let one of the directorsread my work. He would cross out many partsand say: ‘This is not the case.’ I had to removesome parts because he said he would not allowthe work to be published. MRaSEE(4)2If the industry doesn’t like what the researchsays they may decide not to publish it. […] I hadsituations where upfront they wanted to withholddata because it was commercially sensitive, youknow, before they knew the results. It was clear79

from the start that it probably wouldn’t be published.And then you get something in the middlewhere they stipulated that they owned the dataand then they have control of the data and thenthey may or may not let you publish it. […] It’sup to the researcher to haggle upfront aboutwhat the terms are. MRaUK(14)18We would at the very least need to know whatresearchers want to achieve and how we fit inwith that. There will always need to be a contractin place establishing our role and how thedata can be used. We can’t just give peoplecarte blanche; what if there is a paper lyingopen on the table and you glance at it and gooff and act on it and make a lot of money?FInUK(3)34In some cases where the interests of the industryand the researcher were in alignment, no restrictionwas necessary.I never had industry intervention on what weshould publish. […] But generally speaking theway we [economists] tend to do research tendto be positive rather normative so we’re lookingat how well can you use this data to predictthings or what might happen if you do this whichperhaps isn’t so sensitive to the companies.XXXXXSome new industry executives didn’t feel the needto restrict access.If a researcher was here I might have to be abit careful when we have clients come by becausethe business boys are very sensitive, youknow commercial secrecy and all of that, but wedon’t worry about that NDA [non-disclosureagreement] stuff. I’m from advertising andbroadcasting. I think of gambling as a technologyor entertainment. There’s no difference nowin the skills you need to bring this stuff to themarket. It is just a delivery mechanism that thetraditional industry is very naive about. Theydon’t have a clue really. MInUK(2)46In some cases the limitations placed on access todata were self-imposed by researchers who internalisedthe expectation that operators would notwish to make public ‘commercially sensitive data’and therefore did not ask to see anything that theywere not already being shown.We talked about seeing data, but I mean Ididn’t push it too hard because I wouldn’t expectthem to give us anything that was commerciallysensitive really. They gave us enough generalinformation, more than we might have expected,talking in general terms about where the moneycomes from given that it’s a multi-purpose facility.Quite free. I don’t remember anyone sayingto us you can’t see that, but at the same time wedidn’t push to see documents that might be commerciallysensitive, so it was anecdotal.FRaUK(2)58This researcher did not explore the limits of access.Nor did she investigate what constitutes commerciallysensitive data and how it differs from otherkinds of data, or who gets to make this distinction.Concordia discorsSeveral participants suggested that increased collaborationbetween industry and research, basedon greater trust on both sides, would improve thequality of gambling research.I would love to see greater collaboration betweenindependent researchers and thegambling industry, but you’ve got to win thegambling industry’s trust, and that is very difficultto do. XXXXXCooperation between academics and the gamblingindustry is necessary. In countries where thegambling market is more developed, awarenessof this need is also stronger. MIoSEE(20)8Both researchers and members of the industry describeda clash between academic and businesscultures.They are business, we are academics. And soworking back and forth to get the data in theshape we need it and working with the datawarehouse has been difficult sometimes. And I’msure they are often annoyed with the speed atwhich academic science progresses compared80

with just about anything else in the world(laughs). Certainly, we proceed much slowerand with much more caution than they wouldlike, but they’ve stuck with us despite that.FRaUS(11)66Every time I asked researchers about how theywould execute the proposed project, I would justget silence. It is inconceivable for a private companyto fund something without a clear purposeand a clear plan of delivery. This is the first andforemost rule of project management. This isalso one of the obstacles to the academic–industrycollaboration. Another might be theresearchers’ inertia and inability to present theirprojects to us in an intelligible way. Academicsare just focused on science, but when it comes tobudgeting and planning, they are lost. MIoSEE(20)8Our aim is not to judge whether gambling isgood or bad, necessary or not. Our aim is toobserve gambling processes from a perspectiveas objective as possible and to reach some conclusions.Maybe these conclusions won’t be theones the industry is hoping to get. They are abusiness whose goal is to portray gambling inthe most positive light: that casino industry opensup jobs, that they pay taxes from which othersocially useful things are funded. If the industryunderstood better what anthropology wanted,maybe cooperation would be easier.MRaSEE(4)2At the moment researchers have very little socialcapital to use to negotiate access and industry hasvery little incentive to cooperate. We asked ourparticipants to reflect on the terms of potential collaborationsand who would set them.I’ll be happy to work with the gambling industryif they give us their data, but I don’t think weshould be working on any project where theyhave control or are funding it. XXXXXThe only real way is to have what might be constitutedas evidence, housed and conducted andpromulgated by an independent body. And it’svery hard to find that independence, and assoon as you have the industry saying on whatconditions and for which projects it will cooperate,and usually its cooperation is just very veryperipheral, ummm, then what’s going to comeout of it? XXXXXSetting the terms of collaboration often turned intoa discussion of what the industry could tolerate.Can the industry accept harmful research? Yes,they may. I think that if you sat down with oneor two sensible people in the industry they’d say,‘Oh interesting’, share with them. That’s aboutownership, getting them behind what you aretrying to do, even though some of it might beuncomfortable for them. We are back to the humancondition, we’ve all got to get somethingout of our relationship, that’s the way human beingsare. So I’d like to see more balance, theindustry to have more ownership of it. I’d like tosee less focus on problem gambling and moreon social gambling and let’s have somethingabout the positives about gambling as well asthe negatives, what does it give. XXXXXThis approach, described by a veteran treatmentprovider and policy user, shows how access is alsoconceptualised as a gift from the operator to theresearcher, producing the same problems as voluntarycontributions to funding.Access and licensingThere have been a couple of recent high profileexamples of collaboration between commercialoperators and the research community: BWin /Harvard in the US and the RGT’s machine researchin the UK. However, ad hoc cooperation cannotprovide the basis for a systematic, sustainable relationshipbetween industry and researchers basedon transparent principles. It is not repeatable orpredictable and is dependent on particular individualsand the relationships between them. Theidea that access is a gift conferred by the industryis left untouched. Any broader discussion of a newset of principles on which access should be basedis deferred. Instead of being negotiated in theback rooms of gambling conferences rights to accessshould be enshrined within the formal codes of81

licensing agreements, as was the case for the 2005casino licenses in the UK.Research should be built into licensing, without ashadow of a doubt. It’s the easy option to haveno obligation, and sure, we might have beenable to negotiate with some companies, but anothercould be more adversarial. The legalrequirement has given us some teeth. Don’t getme wrong I don’t think we’ve been abusing that.We are not asking for the world from operators.One sentence in Hansard! It was almost an offthe-cuffstatement by the minister in the House,but we would have pushed for it anyway. It hashelped us out. MUpUK(10)85Even when access is a licensing condition, regulatorsmust have both the technical knowledge toknow what to ask for, and also the courage to askfor it.In the first case we requested data from the industryand they refused to participate and weeventually got the data from the regulator. Itwas very unsatisfactory because the regulatorsdidn’t request all the data that the industry couldtechnically have provided. So we were left withdata which was inadequate. XXXXX82

Appendices83

1. Methodology and scope of reportHow could we begin to capture the sharedconcerns and important differences thatexisted within the gambling research community?We chose to adopt an ecologicalapproach – while our primary focus has been theUK-based community in which we ourselves are immersed,this milieu exists within a broader contextof competing and complementary models in othermature gambling jurisdictions, including the rest ofEurope, the United States, Canada, Australia andNew Zealand. In addition, we recognised that newtraditions were emerging in less mature jurisdictionsincluding south-east Europe and Macau. Thesemarkets recently opened to greater competition,and research traditions are relatively new. Wehad a unique opportunity to witness this growthand to speak to those involved.The primary focus of this report is the qualitativedata that we gathered between 2011 and 2013using semi-structured interviews with 109 gamblingresearch stakeholders, including research users(policy makers, treatment providers, regulators),research producers (in academia, the gambling industryand in research institutes) and members ofthe gambling industries, both traditional (includingsports betting and casinos) and new (including socialgaming and mobile gambling). Althoughliterature reviews are a common method used toscope and assess research areas in gambling (seefor example, the Auckland Review, 57 and Map theGap), 58 we felt that there was a need for an approachthat provided a ‘thick description’ 59 andemphasised how research is experienced and perceivedby a variety of stakeholders.This data can be used alongside literature reviewsto help explain why particular research projectsare undertaken, how they are formed within theparticular constraints of the research industry andits relationship with the gambling industry, and howthey take shape within a changing mesh of relationshipsand networks that are sometimes closelymanaged and at other times serendipitous andbased on individual, perhaps unrepeatable, encounters.We wanted to dispel the idea that thereis a singular research industry or gambling industry(an idea that has long been viewed as problematic),a single way in which to conduct, manage orfund research, or a single, predictable outcome togambling inquiries.Our primary research method was semistructuredinterviews with active participantsin gambling research, whether asuser, commissioner or producer. We selected an initialgroup of participants based upon theirparticipation in senior positions in the gamblingand / or gambling research industries in their jurisdiction.This included sitting on boards, contributingimportant pieces of authoritative work, or beingsupported by prestigious funding bodies, includingnational research councils. Further selection wasbased on the snowball technique; each participantwas invited to recommend others they felt mightmake a valuable contribution to the study. This wascomplemented by a random element, used to ensurethat we consulted members of differentnetworks at different stages of their careers, andgathered what might be called ‘outlier’ experiences.We used a random number generator toselect participants from, for example, a list of participantsat a conference. We triangulated ourfindings with other sources and kinds of data, includingindustry and research publications,communications from research centres, researchcouncils, regulators, government departments andfunding bodies, and participant observation atconferences and meetings.57 Abbott, M., Volberg, R., Bellringer, M. and Reith, G. 2004. A Review of Research on Aspects of Problem Gambling. AucklandUniversity of Technology.58 Disley, E., Pollitt, A., Culley, D.M. & Rubin, J. 2011. Map the Gap: A Critical Review of the Literature on Gambling-relatedHarm. RAND Europe. Sponsored by the RGF.59 Geertz, C. 1973. ‘Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture’, in The Interpretation of Cultures. New York:Basic Books.84

At the start of our project we conducted a focus group consisting of four research users (a treatment provider,a policy maker and two members of the gambling industry) and four research producers (ananthropologist, two psychologists and a historian). The focus group generated a pool of 40 questions ofinterest to all parties. They included:Figure 9 – Sample of focus group questions85

Altogether, 143 individuals were invited to contribute to the report. Of these, 109 agreed, 34 (24%)refused (21 from industry, 7 researchers and 6 research users.) The 109 interviews entered into Nvivo(software designed to identify common themes in qualitative data) break down as follows:GenderYears of ExperienceFemale27%3530312734252017Male73%1510500 to 5 6 to 10 11 to 19 20+Years ExperienceJurisdictionCanada (CA)United States (US)New Zealand (NZ)111Australia (AU)5Other European (OE)13Hong Kong / Macau (HK/M)9South East Europe (SEE)12United Kingdom (UK)670 20 40 60 8086

Gender by StakeholderMale FemaleOld Industry (Io)New Industry (In)Researcher Academic (Ra)Researcher Commercial (Rc)Researcher Industry (Ri)Research User - Policy Maker (Up)Research User - Regulator (Ur)Research User - Treatment Provider(Ut)0 5 10 15 20 25Type of StakeholderResearch User - Treatment Provider (Ut)11Research User - Regulator (Ur)6Research User - Policy Maker (Up)8Researcher Industry (Ri)1Researcher Commercial (Rc)6Researcher Academic (Ra)42Old Industry (Io)New Industry (In)18170 10 20 30 40 50Figure 10 – Interviewee data.87

Significantly more male industry stakeholders wereinterviewed. This reflects the gender balance in theindustry. Women were more strongly representedin the categories of researcher and treatment provider.The majority of respondents were from the UK(67 out of 109). This enabled us to drill downinto a particular case study and to understandthe distinctive history and nuances of a fairlysmall community of research producers and users.In addition, we chose to conduct interviews in southeasternEurope (primarily Slovenia and Croatia)and Hong Kong and Macau. These jurisdictionswere selected due to their relative immaturity, contrastingsocio-political contexts and differentmodels of gambling regulation. At all times, however,it should be stressed that just as thesegambling markets are not isolated from the rest ofthe world, nor are their relatively youthful researchtraditions. We used ethnography, discourse analysisand mapping of data transfer to understandhow knowledge about the conduct of researchflows across boundaries. Two of the team attendedthe inaugural meeting of the Asia and Pacific GamblingStudies Network in Macau in 2012, whereideas about research were in the process of beingformed in conversation with guests from HongKong, China, Australia, North America and Europe.Including data from Macau / Hong Kong andsouth-eastern Europe enabled us to consider relationshipsbetween emerging and matureresearch cultures, different models for funding andcommissioning research, how gambling fits into contrastingacademic traditions, and to increase ourknowledge of the affordances and constraints operatingin less well-known research communities.We also considered whether the progress of researchcultures in these jurisdictions differed fromor reproduced experiences in mature jurisdictions.These differences support the idea, central to thisreport, that gambling research is a political activitythat emerges from local concerns in conversationwith wider traditions.88

ParticipationOur aim throughout this report has been to represent a wide range of views from a variety of positionsand jurisdictions. The participation graph illustrates the percentage of interviewees who have been quotedin the report. It shows that the percentage of participants quoted from each category is between 80% and100%.Percentage of participants quoted20+11 to 196 to 100 to 5Research User - Treatment Provider (Ut)Research User - Regulator (Ur)Research User - Policy Maker (Up)Researcher Industry (Ri)Researcher Commercial (Rc)Researcher Academic (Ra)Old Industry (Io)New Industry (In)Canada (CA)United States (US)New Zealand (NZ)Australia (AU)Other European (OE)Hong Kong / Macau (HK/M)South East Europe (SEE)United Kingdom (UK)FemaleMale0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%Figure 11 – Percentage of participants quoted, by category89

The second graph illustrates the number of quotes used in the report relative to the number of quotedparticipants, from each category. The skew towards higher frequencies occurs where there are relativelyfew participants in a category. For example, there is only one participant from New Zealand.Quote frequency20+11 to 196 to 100 to 5Research User - Treatment Provider (Ut)Research User - Regulator (Ur)Research User - Policy Maker (Up)Researcher Industry (Ri)Researcher Commercial (Rc)Researcher Academic (Ra)Old Industry (Io)New Industry (In)Canada (CA)United States (US)New Zealand (NZ)Australia (AU)Other European (OE)Hong Kong / Macau (HK/M)South East Europe (SEE)United Kingdom (UK)FemaleMale0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0Figure 12 – Quote frequency. Number of quotes in a category, divided by the number of quotedparticipants in that category.90

IllustrationsData on the editorial boards of the Journal ofGambling Studies and International Gambling Studieshas been drawn from their respective onlinepublishers’ pages. Data on the primary academicdisciplines of the editorial board members hasbeen drawn from individual staff pages on host institutewebpages where available, and from widerweb searches where necessary.Data on journal articles – titles, keywords –has been drawn from three recent issues ofthe Journal of Gambling Studies and InternationalGambling Studies. 60 Details on the papersgiven at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s15th International Conference on Gambling andRisk Taking, and the European Association for theStudy of Gambling’s 9th European Conference onGambling Studies and Policy Issues were drawnfrom the conference websites. 61Data on the global gambling gross win in 2012was taken from an article by H2 Gambling Capital.62Data on annual gambling research funding for theUK was taken from the Responsible Gambling Trustwebsite. 63 Data on the annual research funding forAustralia was taken from the Australian government’sBudget Paper 2. 64Where Wordle has been used to express the frequencyof keywords, the count of these keywordshas been weighted to ensure that less frequentwords are legible. That weighting is (n x 0.5)+1.60 International Gambling Studies 12 (3) (2012) to 13 (2) (2013). Journal of Gambling Studies 29 (1) to 29 (3) (2013).61 UNLV Web Pages, 2013. ‘Schedule’, URL: http://tinyurl.com/p6rm29h. Accessed 15 October 2013. EASG Web Pages,2013. ‘Agenda’ URL: http://tinyurl.com/odasu5u. Accessed 15 October 2013.62 H2 Gambling Capital, 2012. ‘Leading global gambling nations – Asia and egaming continue to out perform’.63 Responsible Gambling Trust Web Pages, ‘Commissioning plan’.64 Australian Government, 2013. Budget Paper No.2, Part 2, Expenses Measures, URL: http://tinyurl.com/mv7rqb8. Accessed30 October 2013.91

2. EthicsThe project focused on sensitive information thatcould affect career progression, reputation andcommercial practices. Our responsibilities to ourparticipants were therefore extensive and includedguaranteeing that we would not discusstheir participation or the content of their interviewwith any other members of the target group andthat they would not be identifiable in the report.We used an on-going procedure of verbalinformed consent. The consentprocess began with an invitation toparticipate. If participants were willing in principlethen they were briefed about the purpose of thestudy, and how their data would be used. After aperiod of no less than 24 hours, we answered anyquestions about the study. Throughout the processparticipants were assured that they were free todecline the invitation to interview at any point.They were given an opportunity to reflect on ourdiscussion before we conducted the interview.At the start of the interview we repeated the information,asked for permission to begin recording,and reminded them that data was to be recordedand stored as a voice file until after transcription,at which point the voice file was to be destroyed.We asked permission to categorise them by gender,role, location and years of experience. Theywere also given the option not to be quoted, tospeak entirely off the record, and to stop the recordingat any time. They were of course also freeto end the interview at any time. Following the interview,participants were asked to inform theteam if they changed their mind about participation,in which case their data was removed from thestudy.The project involved gathering and storinghighly sensitive information. All data wasmanaged and stored according to Goldsmithspolicy on data protection which requires thatit is secure, password protected, not communicatedelectronically or by any other means and inaccessibleto everyone other than the researchers. Wehave endeavoured to make our participants unidentifiable.This raised many challenges, as thefield is small. It is not our intention for quotes to beattributed to individuals, and we will not deny orconfirm any inquiries about who said what.92

3. Further readingAdams, P.J. (2009) ‘Redefining the gambling problem:the production and consumption of gamblingprofits’, Gambling Research 21(1): 51–54.Adams, P.J. (2011) ‘Ways gambling researchersreceive funding from gambling industry sources’(invited editorial), International Gambling Studies11(2): 145–152.Adams, P.J. (2012) ‘Should addiction researchersaccept funding derived from the profits of addictiveconsumptions?’ In A. Chapman (ed.) GeneticResearch on Addiction: Ethics, the Law and PublicHealth. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 122–138.Adams, P.J. (2013) ‘Addiction industry studies: Understandinghow proconsumption influences blockeffective interventions’, American Journal of PublicHealth 103(4): e35–e38.Blaszczynski, A., Ladouceur, R. & Shaffer, H.(2004) ‘A science-based framework for responsiblegambling: the Reno model’, Journal ofGambling Studies 20(3): 301–317Borrell, J. (2005) ‘The place of values in gamblingresearch and policy’, paper presented at the 4thAnnual Alberta Conference on Gaming Research,University of Alberta, Edmonton, 31 March–1April.Bunkle, P. & Lepper, J. (2004). ‘What do we knowabout gambling in New Zealand?’ Social PolicyJournal of New Zealand 21: 178–201.Cosgrave, J. (2010) ‘Embedded addiction: the socialproduction of gambling knowledge and thedevelopment of gambling markets’, CanadianJournal of Sociology 35(1): 113–134.Delfabbro, P. (2009) ‘Gloom or pessimism? On thestatus of gambling research in Australia’, GamblingResearch 21(1): 43–46.Fabiansson, C. (2009) ‘Why would anyone want todo gambling research?’ Gambling Research 21(1):25–27.Ferrar, R. (2009) ‘Gambling research at the crossroadsin 2009’, Gambling Research 21(1): 40–42.Griffiths, M. (2009) ‘Gambling research and thesearch for a sustainable funding infrastructure’,Gambling Research 21(1): 28–32.Marshall, D. (2009) ‘Building capacity for gamblingresearch: a case for funding students’,Gambling Research 21(1): 55–59.McDonald, J. (2009) ‘The biggest challenge?Recognition of gambling as a public issue’, GamblingResearch 21(1): 47–50.Miller, R. & Michelson, G. (2012) ‘Fixing the game?Legitimacy, morality policy and research in gambling’,Journal of Business Ethics, online, September.Miller, P., Moore, D. & Strang, J. (2006) ‘The regulationof research by funding bodies: an emergingethical issue for the alcohol and other drug sector?’International Journal of Drug Policy 17: 12–16.Morrison, P. (2009) ‘A new national framework forAustralian gambling research: a discussion paperon the potential challenges and the processes involved’,Gambling Research 21(1): 8–25.Orford, J. (2011) An Unsafe Bet? The DangerousRise of Gambling and the Debate We Should BeHaving. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Reith, G. (2007) ‘Gambling and the contradictionsof consumption: a genealogy of the pathologicalsubject’, American Behavioral Scientist 51(1): 33–55.Shaffer, H. (2012) Commentary, ‘Considering acritique of pathological prevalence research’, AddictionResearch and Theory, online: 1–3.Stenius, K. & Babor, T. (2009) ‘The alcohol industryand public interest’, Addiction 105: 191–198.Toneguzo, S. (2009) ‘Arguments in support of a nationalframework’, Gambling Research 21(1): 33–36.Volberg, R. (2012) ‘Beyond social control: prevalenceresearch and the uses of expert knowledge’(Commentary), Addiction Research and Theory,online: 1–2.Young, M. (2009) ‘Editorial: key challenges facinggambling research in Australia’, Gambling Research21(1): 3–7.93

Young, M. (2012) ‘Statistics, scapegoats and socialcontrol: a critique of pathological gambling prevalenceresearch’, Addiction Research and Theory,online: 1–11.Young, M. (2012) ‘“Following the money”: the politicaleconomy of gambling research’ (Response tocommentaries), Addiction Research and Theory,online: 1–2.Windross, A. (2009) ‘Ice meltdown’, Gambling Research21(1): 37–39.94