Qualitative Research In Gambling

This book discusses the need for innovative and flexible research methods in the study of gambling, which is a multi-billion dollar industry and a widespread social and cultural phenomenon. It argues that researchers should go beyond the traditional focus on problem gambling and explore the changes in the industry, including new products and technologies, regulatory models, and public attitudes. The book draws on qualitative research from various disciplines to examine risk, risky places, risk technology, the gambling industry, and connections between gambling and other forms of speculation. It also addresses important issues in social science, such as studying global and local phenomena, regulation, and the impact of technology on gambling.

Gambling is both a multi-billion dollar international industry and a ubiquitous social and cultural phenomenon. It is also undergoing significant change, with new products and technologies, regulatory models, changing public attitudes and the sheer scale of the gambling enterprise necessitating innovative and mixed methodologies that are flexible, responsive and 'agile'. This book seeks to demonstrate that researchers should look beyond the existing disciplinary territory and the dominant paradigm of 'problem gambling' in order to follow those changes across territorial, political, technical, regulatory and conceptual boundaries. The book draws on cutting-edge qualitative work in disciplines including anthropology, history and media studies to explore the production and consumption of risk, risky places, risk technology, the gambling industry, and connections between gambling and other kinds of speculation such as financial derivatives. In doing so it addresses some of the most important issues in contemporary social science, including the challenges of studying deterritorialised social phenomena; globalizing technologies and local markets; regulation as it operates across local, regional and international scales; globalization, and the rise of games, virtual worlds, and social media.