Increasing harms for bingo players: digitisation, commercialisation and regulatory inadequacy: a multi-site case study.

BACKGROUND: Bingo is often understood as a low-harm form of gambling. This view has been challenged by a growing body of literature identifying gambling harm to bingo players in a range of countries. In this study, we aimed to identify which conditions enabled, facilitated, intensified or mitigated gambling harm for bingo players in three populations in Victoria in the context of corporate, technological and regulatory changes. METHODS: Our qualitative study investigated experiences of bingo-related gambling harm in three populations in Victoria, Australia where bingo was popular and structural disadvantage common: Indigenous people in the east, Pacific people in the state's north and older people on low or fixed incomes in the capital. Data was generated through interviews with 53 bingo players and 13 stakeholders as well as 12 participant observations of bingo sessions. RESULTS: We found that while bingo is overwhelmingly positive for many players, a minority of bingo players and their families experience notable harm. Harm was generated through traditional paper-based bingo games, new technologies such as tablet-based bingo and by the widespread tactic of placing bingo sessions in close proximity to harmful electronic gambling machines. Overall, the risk of harm to bingo players appears to be escalating due to commercial, technological and regulatory changes. CONCLUSIONS: These changes can be better managed by regulators: reforms are needed to safeguard bingo's distinct character as a lower-risk form of gambling at a time when it, and its players, are under threat. Significantly, we found that harm to bingo players is intensified by factors external to gambling such as racialised poverty and adverse life events. Strategies that recognise these factors and grapple with gambling harm to bingo players are needed.

Gambling in Two Regional Australian Aboriginal Communities: A Social Practice Analysis.

Reflecting international patterns, Aboriginal people in Victoria are more likely to gamble and to experience gambling harm than non-Indigenous Victorians. This paper describes experiences of gambling reported by 50 Aboriginal people interviewed in regional Victoria in 2016 and 2017 as part of studies initiated by two Aboriginal community-controlled organisations. Data were analysed using social practice theory (SPT) and coded to the elements of 'meaning', 'material', 'competence', and 'temporality'. Across each element we identified highly contradictory experiences. Gambling held meaning as an opportunity for community gatherings but was also regarded as a cause of domestic violence, conflict, isolation and shame. Materially, the venues that offered gambling were experienced by many Aboriginal people as safe and welcoming, but at the same time gambling produced a damaging affective sense of addiction for some. Gambling was a competency that some people valued and taught to children, but it was also seen as undermining cultural practices. While Aboriginal people were historically denied access to licensed venues offering commercial gambling, many participants now found opportunities to gamble inescapable. The intermingling of benefits and harms described above supports the need for a multi-faceted response to gambling in Aboriginal communities, which includes harm reduction as well as supply restriction and treatment. Some experiences of gambling related by our participants reflected those reported also by non-Indigenous Australians, while others were differently nuanced. Because SPT is used to understand collectively-shared practices, it facilitates the identification of gambling interventions at the level of the community, as recommended by our research participants.

Pleasures and Risks Associated with Bingo Playing in an Australian Aboriginal Community: Lessons for Policy and Intervention.

Bingo playing in Australian Indigenous communities has received little academic attention. We report here on an exploratory study designed to understand the complex benefits and harms associated with bingo playing for Aboriginal people in Sunraysia, a regional community in Victoria, Australia. The research was strongly participatory, and conducted in collaboration with staff of an Aboriginal community-controlled organisation. Twenty-six members of the Sunraysia Aboriginal community were interviewed, with interviews primarily conducted by workers from the Aboriginal organisation. Echoing research from other countries, but with a unique focus on the experience of bingo for Aboriginal people in Australia, this study demonstrates compelling reasons why Aboriginal people in Sunraysia play bingo, and how bingo playing both exposes players to risk and mitigates against a wide range of harms. We found that, for many people in the study, bingo was variously a site that reinforces social connectedness, a source of fun and excitement and a strategy to find solace or respite in the face of personal pain and structural injustice. In contrast with other forms of gambling, bingo presents risks that can generally be managed, largely because of the smaller financial spend involved. However, people also described harms including exhausting the family budget, family conflict and encouragement to commence other forms of gambling. We argue for enhanced regulation of commercial bingo and suggest that not-for-profit bingo be implemented as a harm reduction strategy to enable people to experience some of the pleasures associated with gambling, with reduced risk of financial and social harms.