Seminar: “Gambling Benefits and Harms: Who has the fun and who pays the price?”

2017 Jocelyn Wale Seminar Series

Guest Speaker Professor Matthew Rockloff presenting:
“Gambling Benefits and Harms: Who has the fun and who pays the price?”

Date: Friday 28 July 2017
Timte: 4.00-5.00pm (Townsville & Cairns); 2.00-3.00pm (Singapore)
Venue: Room 134-010 (JCU Townsville); linked to A1-129 (JCU Cairns); C4-14 (JCU Singapore).

Abstract:
Gambling has recreational benefits, but also costs to people’s financial and mental wellbeing. A unique application of the World Health Organization’s (WHOs) Burden of Diseases (BoD) framework allowed for a quantification of the harms of gambling in the state of Victoria. This research provides unique insights into the absolute scale of gambling problems; ranking it as a public health problem of similar magnitude to alcohol abuse disorder. Moreover, it reveals that the overall burden of problems is paradoxically concentrated among the many people suffering from relatively less severe gambling problems, rather than from the ranks of so-called “problem gamblers”. Further data using the BoD framework calculated the recreational benefits of gambling for comparison against the costed harms. The results show that the net benefits of gambling may exceed the costs, mainly due to the large number of people who enjoy gambling with few or no attendant harms. The ethical, methodological and philosophical implications of the research are discussed.