Learning to gamble in changing sociocultural contexts: experiences of Finnish casual gamblers

Riitta Matilainen and Pauliina Raento

International Gambling Studies, 2014, vol. 14, issue 3, 432-446

Abstract: This study explores how Finnish gamblers have come to learn about gambling and how they have learned to gamble responsibly in an unregulated environment. The study uses elicited written data of 40 narratives by Finnish gamblers who were born between 1922 and 1982 and were on average 57 years old at the time of recalling their experiences. The study adds a new data type to gambling studies, and complements it with historical photographs and the authors' auto-ethnographic observations. The qualitative findings expand knowledge about the role of gender and generation in learning gambling and the relationship between learning gambling, self-determination and identity-related rituals. The results confirm previous findings about learning gambling in the UK, but challenge them with new evidence about the role of the state, the media and national gambling monopoly operators in teaching people how to gamble. The findings demonstrate the value of historical retrospective data; the method of triangulation; and contextualized understanding of learning, socialization and meaning in the study of inherently subjective human behaviour. The approach enhances control over subjectivity in qualitative gambling studies. The conclusions promote a holistic approach to policy evaluation and raise critical questions about harm management.

Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14459795.2014.923484 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:intgms:v:14:y:2014:i:3:p:432-446

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RIGS20

DOI: 10.1080/14459795.2014.923484

Access Statistics for this article

International Gambling Studies is currently edited by Katie Donnelly, David Marshall, Bronwyn Stuart, Alex Blaszczynski and Jan McMillen

More articles in International Gambling Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().