Global “Seat Belts” for Problem Gamblers?: Intersections of Culture, Technology, and Responsible Gambling

Abstract

This research note represents a modest and necessarily focused attempt to incorporate insights on culture and technology from the business research literature with insights on gambling behavior from the social scientific literature. Although both the gaming business research literature and the gambling social science literature have grown at an impressive rate, they have done so largely independently—without significant overlaps or collaborative efforts. We aim to help bridge this gap via a focus on a particularly promising (and potentially multi‐disciplinary) field of study: responsible gaming. One of the important potential nexus points for these two academic fields pertains to the ways in which responsible gaming programs are designed and deployed in gaming industry settings. Specifically, insights from the business literature on gaming, hospitality, and marketing might well inform the research‐based discussions that social scientists have on problem gambling—and vice versa.

Keywords:

• Problem gambling
• responsible gambling
• culture
• technology
• and servicescape

Notes

1. Medicalization refers to the process whereby certain behavior becomes defined as a disease—a condition that warrants therapeutic intervention.