Pacific peoples in New Zealand are identified as having the highest risk and prevalence of problem and pathological gambling behaviours. Despite increasing awareness of gambling related harms in New Zealand there is a dearth of research on Pacific gambling, the reasons for problem gambling and the risks gambling poses for these populations. This thesis examines contemporary Samoan gambling and problem gambling through the perceptions and in-depth understandings of thirty-two Samoan participants. Pacific research methodologies premised on Pacific epistemologies, practices and protocols provide the cultural framework that supports the qualitative methods used in this research. These cultural methodologies also provide the context within which data gathered is analysed, interpreted and discussed. The method used within this thesis is an amalgam of Pacific and grounded theory approaches. The research identifies Samoan cultural factors that play a major role in understanding contemporary Samoan gambling. It links the deep-rooted cultural understandings of va/teu le va that are associated with early Samoan games and sports with contemporary Samoan gambling behaviours and practices. The research provides cultural understandings of the complex conditions and processes within which contemporary Samoan gambling and problem gambling are embedded, constituted and differentiated for Samoan people in New Zealand. These understandings are used to explore the extent to which gambling impacts harm Samoan individuals, families and communities. The research also describes cultural factors that are associated with motivations for contemporary Samoan gambling. It demonstrates that concepts such as ‘winning’, ‘fundraising’ and ‘socialising’ act as primary motivations for engagement and explores ways in which these drivers challenge the va and teu le va that are inherent within fa’aSamoa. The potency of these new motivations is illustrated through consideration of cultural practices such as fa’alavelave, status acquisition, religion and hospitality. These factors are not only complex but they also play an important role in the initiation, development and maintenance of Samoan gambling. This thesis articulates a broad knowledge base of cultural factors, practices, influences and understandings that are associated with contemporary Samoan gambling in New Zealand. It highlights how Samoan (problem) gambling while often rationalised in terms of aiga enhancing precepts is in reality most often undermining and eroding of aiga values and practices. In light of these findings, contextually effective Samoan solutions incorporated into Public Health interventions are recommended as a means of addressing the alarming gambling-related issues facing Samoan people in New Zealand. A greater emphasis on aiga/familial interventions rather than focusing on individuals is crucial since aiga and close social networks are identified as playing an important role in the development and maintenance of gambling behaviour and can also be effective catalysts and supports for behavioural change. Further research is indicated to better understand and develop the knowledge-base on contemporary Samoan gambling with specific relevance to Samoan youth and adult populations in New Zealand. / Whole document restricted, but available by request to UoA members, use the feedback form to request access.

Pacific peoples in New Zealand are identified as having the highest risk and prevalence of problem and pathological gambling behaviours. Despite increasing awareness of gambling related harms in New Zealand there is a dearth of research on Pacific gambling, the reasons for problem gambling and the risks gambling poses for these populations. This thesis examines contemporary Samoan gambling and problem gambling through the perceptions and in-depth understandings of thirty-two Samoan participants. Pacific research methodologies premised on Pacific epistemologies, practices and protocols provide the cultural framework that supports the qualitative methods used in this research. These cultural methodologies also provide the context within which data gathered is analysed, interpreted and discussed. The method used within this thesis is an amalgam of Pacific and grounded theory approaches. The research identifies Samoan cultural factors that play a major role in understanding contemporary Samoan gambling. It links the deep-rooted cultural understandings of va/teu le va that are associated with early Samoan games and sports with contemporary Samoan gambling behaviours and practices. The research provides cultural understandings of the complex conditions and processes within which contemporary Samoan gambling and problem gambling are embedded, constituted and differentiated for Samoan people in New Zealand. These understandings are used to explore the extent to which gambling impacts harm Samoan individuals, families and communities. The research also describes cultural factors that are associated with motivations for contemporary Samoan gambling. It demonstrates that concepts such as ‘winning’, ‘fundraising’ and ‘socialising’ act as primary motivations for engagement and explores ways in which these drivers challenge the va and teu le va that are inherent within fa’aSamoa. The potency of these new motivations is illustrated through consideration of cultural practices such as fa’alavelave, status acquisition, religion and hospitality. These factors are not only complex but they also play an important role in the initiation, development and maintenance of Samoan gambling. This thesis articulates a broad knowledge base of cultural factors, practices, influences and understandings that are associated with contemporary Samoan gambling in New Zealand. It highlights how Samoan (problem) gambling while often rationalised in terms of aiga enhancing precepts is in reality most often undermining and eroding of aiga values and practices. In light of these findings, contextually effective Samoan solutions incorporated into Public Health interventions are recommended as a means of addressing the alarming gambling-related issues facing Samoan people in New Zealand. A greater emphasis on aiga/familial interventions rather than focusing on individuals is crucial since aiga and close social networks are identified as playing an important role in the development and maintenance of gambling behaviour and can also be effective catalysts and supports for behavioural change. Further research is indicated to better understand and develop the knowledge-base on contemporary Samoan gambling with specific relevance to Samoan youth and adult populations in New Zealand. / Whole document restricted, but available by request to UoA members, use the feedback form to request access.

As online casino and betting increases in popularity across the globe, the importance of green gambling has become an important subject of discussion. The Swedish betting company, ATG, realises the benefits of this and would like to prevent their gamblers from falling into problem gambling. To predict problem gambling, Bayesian networks were trained on previously identified problem gamblers, separated into seven risk groups. The network was then able to predict the risk group of previously unseen gamblers with an ac- curacy of 94%. It also achieved an average precision of 89%, an average recall of 96% and an average f1-score of 93%. The features in the data set were also ranked, to find which were most important in predicting problem gambling. It was found that municipality, which day of the week the transaction was made and during which hour of the day were the most important features. Also, the Bayesian network was also made as simple as possible, by removing irrelevant features and features which carry very low importance.

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Post-reinforcement pause was examined to determine the reinforcing value of a win, loss, and a loss disguised as a win (LDW) for gamblers at multi-line video slot machines. The study was conducted in naturalistic settings across a variety of participants, age 21 years and older. The length of the post-reinforcement pause was recorded using a stopwatch for one win, one loss, and one LDW for each participant and was measured by recording the time between the outcome delivery and the initiation of the next spin. The different times were evaluated to determine which of the three resulted in the longest post-reinforcement pause for the gamblers following the slot machine outcome. The present study replicates and extends previous research on post-reinforcement pause in slot machine gambling, and provides discussion around the clinical utility of such findings on the prevention of problem gambling. Problem gambling is an epidemic, and there are numerous variables that contribute to its development. Post-reinforcement pause is one for those factors, and the present study can help us gain a better understanding of the events that maintain problem gambling and ways to prevent it. The results of the present study found that wins are the most reinforcing to gamblers compared to LDWs and losses, and that LDWs are significantly more reinforcing to gamblers than losses, as indicated by the patterns of the post-reinforcement pause.

Spel om pengar och dess konsekvenser för individ och samhälle har kommit att bli ett mycket omdiskuterat samtalsämne under 2019. Den svenska spelmarknaden omreglerades 2019 med motivet att motverka spelets skadeverkningar och att skydda konsumenterna. Folkhälsoperspektivet genomsyrar utvärderingar av spelproblematik och spelmarknaden och omfattande samhällsekonomiska konsekvensanalyser saknas, delvis på grund av internationell oenighet om hur spelproblemens samhällsekonomiska kostnader ska estimeras. Den här uppsatsen syftar till att estimera de svenska samhällsekonomiska kostnaderna som uppstår till följd av spelproblem. Metoden som använts i uppsatsen består dels av en samhällsekonomisk kalkyl där kostnaderna för spelproblem i Sverige 2018 beräknats men den består också av en översikt samt diskussion av tidigare studier som genomförts på området. Metoderna är starkt kopplade till varandra där översikten och diskussionen av de tidigare studierna lagt grunden för den metod som använts vid estimeringen. I översikten av tidigare studier identifierades och diskuterades metodproblematiken främst kring intangibla kostnader och teoretisk tolkning vilket underbyggde uppsatsens metodval vid estimeringen. Den samhällsekonomiska kostnaden för spelproblem i Sverige år 2018 estimerades till att vara ca 9,5 - 20,2 miljarder kronor. För att förbättra estimeringens precision och relevans behövs ytterligare metodutveckling vilket uppsatsen ger ett antal förslag på. Förslagen baseras på den identifierade metodproblematiken och tillhörande diskussion. / Gambling and gambling related problems for individuals and society have come to be a highly debated topic in Sweden during 2019. A new regulation of the Swedish gambling market has been implemented during 2019 with the motive to counteract gambling problems and protect consumers. A public health approach has been dominating evaluations of the gambling sector and there is a lack of evaluations with a welfare economical approach. This is partly due to an international disagreement on how the welfare economical costs of problems with gambling should be estimated. This paper aims to estimate the social costs of gambling problems. The method used in this paper consists partly of the method used for estimating the social costs that arise as a result of gambling problems. However it also consists of an overview and discussion of previous studies conducted within this area. The methods are strongly connected to each other where the overview and discussion of previous studies laid the foundation for the method used in the estimation. The overview of previous studies identified and discussed methodological issues mainly regarding intangible costs and theoretical interpretation which supported the paper’s methodological considerations when performing the estimation. The social costs of gambling in Sweden 2018 was estimated to be between 9.5-20.2 billion SEK. In order to improve the accuracy and relevance of the estimation, further methodological development is needed. This paper provides a number of suggestions based on the methodological issues that have been identified.

In modern casinos, personnel exist to advise, or in some cases, order individuals to stop gambling if they are found to be gambling in a destructive way, but what about online gamblers? This thesis evaluated the possibility of using machine learning as a supplement for personnel in real casinos when gambling online. This was done through supervised learning or more specifically, a decision tree algorithm called CART. Studies showed that the majority of problem gamblers would find it helpful to have their behavioral patterns collected to be able to identify their risk of becoming a problem gambler before their problem started. The collected behavioral features were time spent gambling, the rate of won and lost money and the number of deposits made, all these during a specific period of time. An API was implemented for casino platforms to connect to and give collected data about their users, and to receive responses to notify users about their situation. Unfortunately, there were no platforms available to test this on players gambling live. Therefore a web based survey was implemented to test if the API would work as expected. More studies could be conducted in this area, finding more features to convert for computers to understand and implement into the learning algorithm.

This study investigated various aspects of the gambling engaged in by Ontario casino employees. Five casinos participated in the study, which involved a survey sample of 934 employees and an interview sample of 21 employees. The study found that the casino employees exhibited rates of problem gambling that were over three times greater than rates that past studies have found in Ontario’s general population. The employees’ problem gambling was primarily explained by employees who increased their gambling after beginning their jobs and employees who were attracted to their jobs because of prior gambling involvement, although neither of these characteristics was especially common overall. The increases and decreases in gambling that some employees experienced after beginning their jobs were precipitated by a variety of workplace influences associated with the employees’ exposure to gambling; their exposure to patrons; their exposure to the casino work environment; and the existence of training, regulations, and resources. The prevalence of problem gambling and other behavioural gambling patterns also were found to relate to numerous employment variables, such as department and shift. Based on all of these results, various policy recommendations and suggestions for future research are provided.

Research has demonstrated that problem gambling is associated with substance and alcohol abuse (Petry, Stinson, & Grant, 2005), participation in criminal activities (McCorkle, 2002; Meyer & Stadler, 1999), and involvement in the criminal justice system (NORC, 1999). This study assessed problem gambling and its relation to crime and substance use within a population in which these risk factors are compounded: Adults mandated to participate in drug and DUI courts. Results indicate that the prevalence and severity of problem gambling may be higher within this population than any other. Furthermore, the results of qualitative and quantitative analyses converged to highlight that gambling, crime and substance use are interrelated behaviors, as each may lead to and/or reinforce the other. These findings suggest that problem gambling is a salient issue among substance-abusing offenders and that resources should be dedicated to screening those involved with the criminal justice system for problem gambling, establishing evidence based best practices in the prevention and treatment of problem gambling within this population, and that such practices may incorporate components addressing gambling, crime, and substance use.

Research has demonstrated that problem gambling is associated with substance and alcohol abuse (Petry, Stinson, & Grant, 2005), participation in criminal activities (McCorkle, 2002; Meyer & Stadler, 1999), and involvement in the criminal justice system (NORC, 1999). This study assessed problem gambling and its relation to crime and substance use within a population in which these risk factors are compounded: Adults mandated to participate in drug and DUI courts. Results indicate that the prevalence and severity of problem gambling may be higher within this population than any other. Furthermore, the results of qualitative and quantitative analyses converged to highlight that gambling, crime and substance use are interrelated behaviors, as each may lead to and/or reinforce the other. These findings suggest that problem gambling is a salient issue among substance-abusing offenders and that resources should be dedicated to screening those involved with the criminal justice system for problem gambling, establishing evidence based best practices in the prevention and treatment of problem gambling within this population, and that such practices may incorporate components addressing gambling, crime, and substance use.