STEPS TOWARD RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract

In his article, Orford raises many questions about gambling which ought to be of great concern for anybody dealing with addiction, addiction policy, and health issues (Orford 2005). Let me respond to, and elaborate on, some of his points. Yes, the UK government is disabling the public interest by siding with the addiction industry, especially alcohol and gambling industry. I agree with Robin Room (Room 2004) and Jim Orford (2005) in their criticism of the British government. However, this criticism could be applied to most governments around the world where there is a high consumption of addictive products, like alcohol, tobacco, drugs, bad food and computer games. It is a little unfair to attack the UK, because the UK is doing more right now to develop a responsible gambling policy than most European nations. Getting and handling money without strict control is a threat to the morale of all nations: You think it is rightfully yours and you want to have more (Bernstein 2000). Any government caught will be dependent on alcohol taxes and gambling revenues. The growth of gambling around the world has been promoted by two parties. The private gambling industry and state governments (Castellani 2000). The big problem with gambling is that most bad consequences and costs are long-term and hidden, while short-term gains appear to be great. Gambling could be a small profit or a bad business for society, but not something to promote for the economic and welfare reasons (Productivity Commission 1999). In the Swedish national gambling prevalence study (Rönnberg et al. 1999, Volberg et al. 2001) it was also found that a large part of the gambling revenues comes from heavy gamblers. It could be argued from the results of that study as well as from the Australian Productivity commission reports that at least a third of the gambling revenues come from people with gambling problems. For many the remedy for this sad state of affairs is a state monopoly. However, state monopolies have a lot of bad side-effects, like being in conflict with the idea of free trade and stifling of criticism as well as making development of innovative solutions to upcoming problems less common. The government's role ought to be the controller of the gambling, alcohol, and other addiction industries. But the government should not get into the double role of running and themselves owning any addiction industry. That role will undermine the government's role as promoting welfare for its citizen as a first duty. In the Nordic countries, for example in Sweden and Norway, there are good government controlling agencies to be found, but they have no power. The responsibility diffusion is characteristic of governments that run gambling themselves, thereby trying to avoid responsibility for the bad effects on the welfare of its citizens. The government's first duty is to have an independent research foundation for policy guidance. This research has to include gambling problem prevalence studies, the effects of methods to prevent and treat gambling problems as well as free research on subjects that researchers might want to investigate. The prevention and treatment of gambling problems should be readily available. The cost for all this will be at least 1% of the net revenues of gambling. The government's next duty is to have a plan for action and responsibility in the gambling field. Without any clear-cut plan for what to do to promote responsible gambling from individuals and the gambling industries, responsible gambling action will not exist. To control the government and to help the government to implement its plans for action in the gambling field we need a much more aware public and research community than we now have in most countries where gambling is abundant. This is also why I regard contributions by Orford (2005), Room (2004), and others well worthy of our attention. Dr Sten Ronnberg has at times received remuneration from gambling interests