Borrell, Jennifer (2008) Developing a framework for the study of gaming machine & associated problematic gambling phenomena. PhD thesis, Victoria University.

Abstract

The primary aim of this thesis is to develop a theoretical framework to guide understanding and analysis of problematic gambling phenomena associated with Electronic Gaming Machines (EGMs), with a focus on Victoria, Australia. It is also intended that this framework be applicable to other social phenomena, difficulties and what are generally understood as addictions. Thus, drawing on a range of theorists from physics, biology and social theory and following a critique of positivist trends that have been dominant in the gambling research literature to date, a holistic, process-based, multilayered approach is proposed. The secondary aim of this thesis is to increase our understanding of problematic EGM gambling, through an exploratory and creative application of the proposed framework while, at the same time, testing its plausibility and coherence. This framework is thus deployed at the analytical levels of political-economic acting/structuration, everyday life acting/structuration and mediational acting/structuration. It is concluded that the framework is useful, plausible, applicable and creatively fruitful. Through application of the framework, it is also concluded that the shape, size and directions of the EGM industry in Victoria, Australia and elsewhere, have been primarily determined by corporate principles and imperatives and that these are deeply implicated in problematic gambling phenomena.

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