Addictive leisure: an evaluation of the morality-economic politics of balancing casino development with local gambling policy

ABSTRACT

Legalised gambling is a regulated leisure activity and a public health problem. Permissive regulation attempts to balance the morality-economic politics of these opposing aspects through a combination of national policy oversight and regulatory devolution from national to local level. Local contexts of gambling harm and support have been important foci within public health research but have been overlooked by hospitality and tourism researchers despite the significant economic and social implications for leisure management. The development of the Victoria Gate casino in Leeds, UK, provides a unique context for examining the morality-economic politics associated with facilitating gambling development whilst simultaneously managing gambling harm. This largely qualitative study draws on interviews with eight gambling businesses, 15 gamblers and 17 support service providers with the purpose of examining the intersecting relationships between local government policy, industry social responsibility, and local support service provision. A comparative dimension was also added by drawing on extensive national datasets on gambling prevalence and problem gambling severity. Our findings bring new empirical focus to the scale of policy development and investment required to mitigate gambling development and reinforce the evidence base on the locality-support flaws of permissive regulation observed elsewhere, notably, Canada and Australia. Consequently, we contend that reliance on existing local support services to manage gambling harm whilst facilitating responsible gambling development is ineffective without a deep understanding of the local context, significant additional mitigation investment, and more effective alignment of information, referral, counselling, and advisory services to support problem and at-risk gamblers across multiple stakeholders.

KEYWORDS:

• Corporate social responsibility
• gambling development
• permissive regulation
• local governance
• morality-economic politics
• problem gambling

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr Heather Wardle for her expertise and contributions to the Leeds City Council problem gambling study. We would also like to thank Professor Emma Wood who kindly reviewed earlier versions of the manuscript. Our thanks also extend to Leeds City Council for commissioning the research, and the study participants who gave their time generously to support the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The primary research contained within this article was commissioned and funded by Leeds City Council (LCC). LCC were consulted throughout the research process and helped facilitate the study but were not involved in the design, data collection, analysis, and reporting of the study findings. These elements were developed and delivered independently by the research team. Dr Neil Ormerod’s contribution to this article is also partially financed by National Funds provided by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology through project UIDB/04020/2020.