‘Mobile mindsets’: EGM venue usage, gambling participation, and problem gambling among three itinerant groups on the Sunshine Coast of Australia

Abstract

Mobile populations form an increasingly important part of many communities, yet tend to be neglected by problem gambling prevalence research. We explore relationships between problem gambling and the ways in which mobile subgroups use gambling venues. Adopting a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques, we conduct an exploratory examination of three subgroups – construction workers, ‘grey nomads’, and ‘southerner’ tourists on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, Australia. The groups displayed substantial differences in venue visitation, gambling behaviour and problem gambling risk. The group with the least discretionary mobility, the construction workers, were most heavily dependent on gambling venues for economic and social relationships. This translated into higher levels of problem gambling risk, which was further mediated by the inter-personal connectedness of individuals. These results suggest that mobility per se does not directly result in higher risk of problem gambling but combines with social isolation to place individuals at risk.

Keywords:

• gambling venues
• mobility
• problem gambling
• construction workers
• EGMs
• Sunshine Coast

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Queensland Government's Responsible Gambling Research Grants Program – Office of Regulatory Policy – Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation. The authors would also like to thank Community Solutions and Mr Howard Hollow for conducting the majority of the quantitative interviews. We would also like to thank Sunil Sharma for a preliminary literature review that served as background to the project.

Notes

1. Population density surface created using Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) and the latest release of the ABS Mesh Blocks (ABS, 2008).

2. The popularity ratio was calculated by summing the scores for each facility, then dividing by the total number of respondents in each.