13.5.2008
Interventions for problem gambling send a message of a responsible gambling policy
Problems linked with gambling have rapidly become a social concern that is addressed by increasing resource allocation. Two thirds of Finns perceive problem gambling as a serious problem. The prevention of gambling problems and the maintenance of the monopoly system have also been recorded in the Government Programme.
Tuukka Tammi, a Senior Researcher at STAKES, has analysed the emergence of gambling problems and gambling addiction internationally in the areas of research and psychiatry and also examined why gambling has become a social problem in Finland in the 2000s. He concludes in his article that the attention paid to gambling problems and the Government target of maintaining the monopoly of gambling games are closely interconnected and support each other.
The problem-focus in Finnish gambling policy has to do with the simultaneous influence of a number of mutually reinforcing factors: the growth of research on gambling addiction internationally, a rapid increase in gambling in the 1990s, the internationalisation of gambling activities and the active role of individual researchers and officials in bringing up the problem.
The most important single reason is linked with Finland's EU membership. With the European integration and the expansion of the private gambling industry, it has become increasingly clear that national monopolies and other similar market restrictions are acceptable in the EU only if they are able to prevent gambling problems and harms more efficiently than the market.
Market liberalisation and its counter force – the strong national interests advocating national regulation – have caused an on-going predicament over gambling policy for countries with a gambling monopoly. In order to cope, public authorities and their expert systems have put the focus on gambling problems. The need to regulate gambling is justified by maintaining that gambling games, in the same way as alcohol and drugs, are atypical consumption products that require self-regulation by the global or EU markets in order that the involved risks to the individual and society at large can be controlled. Accordingly, attempts are made to maintain both the market and market regulation under public control.
"Putting prevention and treatment of gambling addiction and related research at the centre stage of gambling policy can be seen as an attempt to prove that the monopoly system fulfils its responsibility, that is, it is willing and able to prevent gambling problems. With some simplification, it could be said that all national government and gambling community activities in the 2000s and their focus on gambling problems have been targeted at EU institutions critical towards monopoly rights. The key message is that the Finnish monopoly system operates appropriately", says Tammi.
Source: article by Tuukka Tammi in the STAKES welfare research journal Yhteiskuntapolitiikka 2/2008, pp. 176–184.
Additional information: Tuukka Tammi, Senior Researcher, STAKES, tel. +358 50 433 0309; tuukka.tammi(at)helsinki.fi (as of 14 May 2008 Research Director at the A-Clinic Foundation).
Yhteiskuntapolitiikka: Matti Virtanen, Editor-in-Chief, tel. +358 9 3967 2196. Media copies and subscriptions: Bengt Jansson, tel. +358 9 3967 2200; e-mail: firstname.lastname(at)stakes.fi