Gambling and corporate social responsibility (CSR): Re-defining industry and state roles on duty of care, host responsibility and risk management
Section snippets
Is gambling harmful?
The harms associated with EGM gambling put it along side tobacco and alcohol in terms of the need for special laws and regulations, a focus on potentially harmful effects of product consumption, licensing, and specific host training aimed at preventing harms; which under certain conditions of provision and use, result in detrimental economic, social and other impacts on users, their families and communities (Harrison, 2007, SACES, 2005). Some of the externalities of gambling (those often
The Ontario host responsibility duty of care debate and corporate social responsibility of gambling industry
In 2006 the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre released a report “Do Ontario and Its Gaming Venues Owe a Duty of Care to Problem Gamblers?” authored by William Sasso and Jasminka Kalajdzic, attorneys at Sutts, Strosberg LLP in Windsor Ontario (Sasso & Kalajdzic, 2006). Their revised version is mainly drawn on below (Sasso & Kalajdzic, 2007). This report (referred to as the Sasso and Kalajdzic report) examined a number of questions related to government/industry duty of care:
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Whether the
Research on identifying problem gamblers on-site in venues
A controversial but important area for the gaming industry has been the issue of venue staff interventions when players manifest signs of distress or patterns of play associated with problem gambling. Doubts about staff interventions have been expressed regarding player privacy, the evidence base for associating certain behaviours with problem gambling and the accuracy/subjectivity of staff judgements. In the Ontario debate, Cameron argued that such interventions were problematic as industry
Using loyalty player tracking CMS data systems to provide management with high confidence identification of problem gamblers using new software to track and analyse player behaviour
Cameron makes a number of assertions regarding venue's capacity to identify problem gamblers and take steps to stop them gambling. She argues:
it would be difficult to establish proximity between problem gamblers and their hosts under the Childs criteria: the gaming industry does not and cannot control the risk of problem gambling; it cannot monitor the activities of problem gamblers because it cannot identify who they are; and it cannot prevent them from seeking and gaining access to other
Research on harm/protection dimensions of EGM machines
In some jurisdictions such as Australia, New Zealand and some provinces in Canada, gaming has reached the plateau characteristic of mature markets that are bounded by combinations of market saturation, regulatory limits to growth and government recognition of public concerns about harms. Where there are limits to the number of machines in a venue, or in a region, state or province; machine innovations target better return-on-investment (ROI) through quicker or more efficient throughput. From a
Globalisation and gambling harms –the international evidence
The research evidence cited above has implications internationally. It is not as if different jurisdictions have developed ideosyncratic products. Global suppliers of common-platform gaming products (VLTs, EGMs and slots) sell to multiple sites across the world. Transnational gaming corporations are expanding their casino networks and a diverse range of gambling products are percolating into different countries, drawing on a global gaming supply chain. State, regional or national jurisdictions
Conclusion
It is acknowledged that the harms associated with gambling impact wider than the individual and are manifested in impacts on families, workplaces, communities and in terms of broader issues related to wide-ranging economic, social and cultural impact; not all positive. Ten to 15 years after EGMs, VLTs Pokies, or Slots products were introduced for the first time into clubs, hotels and pubs in communities and into casinos, in a range of sites globally, researchers are now coming up with
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the feedback provided by anonymous referees. Linda Hancock would like to thank the Dalhousie University Faculty of Management for its hospitality during a recent sabbatical visit.
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