Gambling as a social problem: on the social conditions of gambling in Canada

Since the 1980s, Canadian legalized gambling has undergone a massive growth, resulting in numerous social problems such as crime, political corruption, and, most importantly, pathological gambling. When it comes to theorizing gambling in Canada, pathological gambling has been the centre of the attention for two related reasons: (1) the increasing concern with individual and social harms resulting from it; and (2) priority given by grant-giving institutions to 'useful' scholarly efforts related to it. A major drawback, however, has been that these explanations often overlook the impact of broader social conditions on gambling behaviour and, instead, provide politically and ideologically conservative, microlevel analyses that point to the individual gamblers as the source of the problem. These theories, therefore, present partial accounts of an enduring and growing, socially produced problem. The argument of this paper is that Canadians' gambling behaviour, and its consequences, must be understood primarily as a social problem and within the nexus of (a) the Canadian state's pro-gambling policies (prompted by the need to generate revenues); (b) the gap between commonly shared Canadian cultural values - monetary success - and legitimate means of achieving them; and (c) capitalist processes of profit-making and commodification. Only then can we have a better understanding of a persistent and growing problem.