‘The notorious gambling class’: patterns of gambling among young people in Denmark

ABSTRACT

In this study, using a three wave qualitative longitudinal data set, we explored patterns of change in gambling behavior among a sample of young Danes. A total of 48 informants participated in all three sweeps of interviews. The overall aim was to explore the complexities and social contexts, as well as the subjective meanings that underlie gambling behavior changes. We identified four different types of gambling pathways, each illustrating different types of movement over time: intensification; reduction; stability, and those that were non-linear. Our overall finding was that transitions or oscillations in behavior are more common than a progressive linear gambling pattern, and that these changes are affected by a number of contextual factors. The implications for further research and policy are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Consumption
• leisure
• lifestyles
• social class
• youth culture

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank three anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments to earlier versions of this article. Also, we would like to thank the 51 young participants who took the time to talk with us throughout the research process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Aalborg is located in Northern Jutland and is the fourth largest city in Denmark.

2 Some participants’ gambling debuts were as much as 10 years in the past, and it is possible that their accounts of these experiences were subject to omissions, and other forms of bias associated with recalling distant events

3 The Danish currency is ‘kroner’ (DKK). To contextualize for foreign readers, 1000 DKK currently equals 105 British pounds, 145 US dollars, or 135 Euros.

4 In Denmark, students over the age of 18 who are attending school receive ‘The Danish students’ Grants’ of approximately DKK 1,400/month for students living with their parents and DKK 4,500/month for those who live independently.

5 ‘NemID’ is the Danish digital identification system used to log on to both public and commercial websites.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Danish Council for Independent Research – Social Science [Forskningsrådet for Samfund og Erhverv] [grant number 2102-07-0001].