The “Problem Gambler” and Socio-Spatial Vulnerability

How we frame the issue of problem gambling has implications for how we conceive its origins and understand its expression in certain individuals and in society at large (Korn et al., 2003). As a medicalised discourse, problem gambling is readily identifiable and treatable using a variety of interventions (psychological, psychiatric, pharmacological) upon a category of vulnerable people called “pathological gamblers”. As a moral discourse, problem gambling is located in a weakness of character, raising issues about reform of those with an uncontrollable compulsion to gamble and about the effects of gambling upon the wider community. As a socio-cultural discourse, problem gambling is one component of a spectrum of heterogeneous gambling behaviours distributed through the population influenced by a wide variety of factors ranging from the type of game being played, where it is being played, who is playing it and why they are playing it (Reith, 2007; Strong, 2011).