Moving Prevention of Gambling Harm Upstream: Opportunities in Social Policy and Research

Abstract

This article analyses the specificities of the policymaking and research communities to explain why policies to prevent gambling disorder and other gambling-related harms have seen little change over the last two decades. Although existing knowledge on these issues suggests the implementation of prevention interventions based on public health perspectives, there are few government-led initiatives that adopt broad approaches beyond those advocated by the Responsible Gambling perspective. This situation would be influenced by two communities of actors with distinct professional cultures: policy makers face general incompatibilities with prevention policies, which are complex and go beyond political timeframes; gambling researchers, in turn, operate in fields dominated by approaches oriented towards measuring gambling disorder and with little interest in structural issues. To address this situation, the text advocates emphasising socio-economic inequalities related to gambling by the research field and improving science communication strategies as a means of influencing action to reduce the overall negative consequences of gambling.