 AN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL REVIEW OF GAMBLING IN GREAT BRITAINDavid Forrest Journal of Gambling Business and Economics, 2013, vol. 7, issue 3, 1-33 Abstract: The paper considers the nature and scale of the benefits and costs of gambling, with special reference to machine gaming. Although the industry is argued to be unlikely to have a significant macroeconomic impact, evidence is consistent with it generating considerable benefits to individual (responsible) consumers, whether measured by consumer surplus or through the pattern of responses to a wellbeing question. At the same time, a minority of users of gaming facilities, problem gamblers, appear to make consistently flawed decisions such that those with gambling disorder experience exceptionally low wellbeing. Public policy and regulatory decisions should consider the effects, on the margin, on both the net benefits to recreational gamblers and the net costs to problem gamblers. Many policy decisions may involve a trade-off between the welfare of recreational gamblers and the welfare of problem gamblers. Contemporary interest in targeted policies appears to represent an attempt to avoid the need to confront such a trade-off by searching for policies which are aimed very explicitly at problem gamblers alone. JEL-codes: L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:buc:jgbeco:v:7:y:2013:i:3:p:1-33 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Journal of Gambling Business and Economics is currently edited by Leighton Vaughan Williams, Nottingham Business School More articles in Journal of Gambling Business and Economics from University of Buckingham Press |
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