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Place, gender and the appeal of video lottery terminal gambling: unpacking a focus group study of Montreal youth

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Abstract

Youth gambling has become an important public health issue in Canada and elsewhere owing to the known associations between gambling and delinquency, family dysfunction and suicide. Modern electronic and virtual gambling activities like video lottery terminals (VLTs) may have particular appeal to youth who have been raised in social environments that are increasingly dependent on information and communication technologies. The main objective of the study was to explore why youth gamble and what makes gambling activities like VLTs popular to youth in the places where youth live, study and play. The research is framed within a population health perspective that recognizes the role of social and physical environments in influencing health-related behaviours. Group discussions were conducted with youth to explore the popularity and appeal of gambling and VLTs, and how gambling fits into the daily routines of youth and the spaces they occupy. Methodologically, this research was conscious of responding to calls in the literature to analyze focus groups as an interactive group process rather a collection of individual responses, and to exercise analytic rigour by explicitly making the research team’s positionality and the data collection process transparent. Group discussions revealed gender differences in the appeal of particular gambling activities with young males being more likely to discuss poker, dice, sports-betting and online gambling as exciting social activities, while females described lottery and scratch (instant win) tickets as fun solitary activities. Substantive results point to the need for interventions to address social aspects of gambling that appeal, in particular, to young males potentially through increased provision of healthier alternatives to social engagement and greater attention to young people’s use of space.

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Notes

  1. In Quebec, the Regie des alcohols, des courses et des jeux is the provincial organization responsible for granting VLT licenses and establishing commission rates. At present the commission rate for VLT retailers from VLT revenues is 22%, reduced from 26% in 2003 (Loto-Quebec 2008).

  2. The Research Ethics Board II provided a Certificate of Ethical Acceptability of Research Involving Humans, File No. 23-0605.

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Acknowledgments

D. H. Wilson was supported by a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The research project was supported by a grant from the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture. The authors are grateful to all members of the broader research team, the International Centre for Youth Gambling Problems and High-Risk Behaviors at McGill University, and for the research assistance provided by Lucio De Martinis.

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  1. Canadian Research Institute of Social Policy, University of New Brunswick, Suite 300, Keirstead Hall, Fredericton, NB, E3B 5A3, Canada

    Dana Helene Wilson

  2. Department of Geography, McGill University, 805 Sherbrooke St., West Montreal, QC, H3A 2K6, Canada

    Nancy A. Ross

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  1. Dana Helene Wilson
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Correspondence to Dana Helene Wilson.

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Wilson, D.H., Ross, N.A. Place, gender and the appeal of video lottery terminal gambling: unpacking a focus group study of Montreal youth. GeoJournal 76, 123–138 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-009-9284-7

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