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The Frantic Seeking of Credit during Poker Machine Problem Gambling: A Public Health Perspective

(1) Background: Financial harms associated with problem gambling are substantial and result in suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety and relationship damage, causing distress for problem gamblers and their families. This paper examines Electronic Gaming Machine gamblers’ frantic use of credit durin...

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Autores principales: Oakes, Jane, Pols, Rene, Lawn, Sharon
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400526/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32707743
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17145216
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author Oakes, Jane
Pols, Rene
Lawn, Sharon
author_facet Oakes, Jane
Pols, Rene
Lawn, Sharon
author_sort Oakes, Jane
collection PubMed
description (1) Background: Financial harms associated with problem gambling are substantial and result in suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety and relationship damage, causing distress for problem gamblers and their families. This paper examines Electronic Gaming Machine gamblers’ frantic use of credit during episodes of gambling as a substantial public health burden. (2) Methods: This qualitative study comprised 29 participants purposefully selected who participated in either focus groups or in-depth interviews, which were analysed using thematic, textual analysis. (3) Results: Ready access to credit in the gambling venues enabled problem gamblers to engage in desperate credit transactions to continue to gamble. Many showed frantic, repeated patterns of e-credit withdrawal, which may be typical of gambling while “in the zone”, when it is highly likely that the gamblers are not able to make informed decisions about the use of credit. This pattern of the electronic withdrawal of cash may well be recognisable electronically by financial institutions in real-time, as part of a duty of care potentially owed by banks to their customers. It would provide an opportunity for the identification of people at financial risk due to gambling and systemic intervention to limit the financial harm at a time when financial decision-making is impaired. (4) Conclusions: Although this finding needs further confirmation, there are significant implications for harm minimisation and early intervention for affected PGs. It also raises the issue of the ‘duty of care’ owed to PG customers by financial institutions.
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spelling pubmed-74005262020-08-07 The Frantic Seeking of Credit during Poker Machine Problem Gambling: A Public Health Perspective Oakes, Jane Pols, Rene Lawn, Sharon Int J Environ Res Public Health Article (1) Background: Financial harms associated with problem gambling are substantial and result in suicidal ideation, depression, anxiety and relationship damage, causing distress for problem gamblers and their families. This paper examines Electronic Gaming Machine gamblers’ frantic use of credit during episodes of gambling as a substantial public health burden. (2) Methods: This qualitative study comprised 29 participants purposefully selected who participated in either focus groups or in-depth interviews, which were analysed using thematic, textual analysis. (3) Results: Ready access to credit in the gambling venues enabled problem gamblers to engage in desperate credit transactions to continue to gamble. Many showed frantic, repeated patterns of e-credit withdrawal, which may be typical of gambling while “in the zone”, when it is highly likely that the gamblers are not able to make informed decisions about the use of credit. This pattern of the electronic withdrawal of cash may well be recognisable electronically by financial institutions in real-time, as part of a duty of care potentially owed by banks to their customers. It would provide an opportunity for the identification of people at financial risk due to gambling and systemic intervention to limit the financial harm at a time when financial decision-making is impaired. (4) Conclusions: Although this finding needs further confirmation, there are significant implications for harm minimisation and early intervention for affected PGs. It also raises the issue of the ‘duty of care’ owed to PG customers by financial institutions. MDPI 2020-07-19 2020-07 /pmc/articles/PMC7400526/ /pubmed/32707743 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17145216 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Oakes, Jane
Pols, Rene
Lawn, Sharon
The Frantic Seeking of Credit during Poker Machine Problem Gambling: A Public Health Perspective
title The Frantic Seeking of Credit during Poker Machine Problem Gambling: A Public Health Perspective
title_full The Frantic Seeking of Credit during Poker Machine Problem Gambling: A Public Health Perspective
title_fullStr The Frantic Seeking of Credit during Poker Machine Problem Gambling: A Public Health Perspective
title_full_unstemmed The Frantic Seeking of Credit during Poker Machine Problem Gambling: A Public Health Perspective
title_short The Frantic Seeking of Credit during Poker Machine Problem Gambling: A Public Health Perspective
title_sort frantic seeking of credit during poker machine problem gambling: a public health perspective
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400526/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32707743
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17145216
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