Gambling as a Social Issue
Economic crisis which periodically affects nations often leave a portion of the population jobless as the recession push people out of employment. This occasionally meant different times as people of various age groups strive to meet their daily needs. The situation is worsened in the developing nations whose economies are not yet stable enough to absorb extreme economic recession (Byrne, et al., 2009). The narrowing of job opportunities meant more people are finding themselves idle with no alternative sources of income.
In a wider term gambling is defines as the risking of resources of small value with the intention of gaining another thing though of a bigger value. Usually it involves small amounts of money which is staked to win huge quantities of cash (Denscombe, 2008). Gambling is associated with a wide range of activities from casual games such as playing cards with relatives and friends to betting large amounts especially in sporting events such as football and horse racing.
Even though a few people are able to gamble safely as a source of entertainment the focus of the study is on the large group who often find themselves trapped with gambling problem.
As people continue to stake resources in gambling a big portion end up losing and are eventually left chasing after their lost resources. The consequences of gambling are massive from stress, hopelessness to bankruptcy. With the increasing online gambling websites cropping in various economies the research seeks to analyse how the activity correlate to the social issue of unemployment.
The primary objective of this task is to highlight the correlation between gambling and unemployment.
In pursuance with this objective will analyse other secondary objectives which includes.
- To study the global gambling trend
- To evaluate the global trend in unemployment
- To evaluate different types of gambling activities and their development with time.
- To examine how internet of things have influenced the gambling industry.
- Project Scope
Gambling may seem like a form of entertainment when displayed in casinos and sports like horse racing where mainly the rich takes part in the activity. With the increase in online money transfer system and internet of things gambling have evolved to accommodate even people who were previously not within its reach. Minor gambling activities like cards playing with friends are easily regulated but when the idea is accommodated as a source of income the social evil part of it emerges. This research is designed to investigate the trends in the gambling industry, the global unemployment situation and the correlation between the two social issues.
Gambling is defined as wagering of money on an uncertain event with the hope of winning huge amount of cash. The aim of the gambling is normally to gain economic benefits without participating in any productive activity. Several nations have strived to regulate the gambling activity with age limit being set to try block minors from participating in the vice (Rothman, et al., 2015). The use of casinos has historically been the major gambling activity with horse racing, lottery and online gambling joining in the list in the recent time. A lottery involved purchasing cheap tickets which are aimed at putting the holders at a position of winning large sums of money.
Factors Contributing to Gambling Addiction
The gambling business is attractive and have lured several parties irrespective of sex, age and occupation. The problem with gambling is the negative outcome that is associated with it in the long term. Despite the short-term wins a gambler is set to eventually lose at some point (Barsky & Maier, 2015). Past research has identified poverty as one of the catalysts of gambling activity. The impact of gambling has not reflected positively on the society with gamblers often facing trauma, homelessness and loss of identity as the gambling addiction sets in. There are a number of instances when people have seen the fall off their businesses and life courtesy of the gambling saga.
Gambling just like poverty have an effect of trapping the participants within a circle. The gambling activity began as a form of entertainment but its lure of earning more money have seen people being lured to lose more capital to the vice. Gambling is merely a chance of luck which cheats individuals that they have a chance of changing their lifetime overnight (Brevers, et al., 2015). The game is not reserved for the poor but even the rich often involved in casinos playing gambling for entertainment.
Gambling addiction is one of the biggest social issues that affect a number of individuals in the society. The addiction has a way of creating difficulties to individuals as they lack the capacity to retain lumpsums of money. The addiction leads to neglect of social roles and responsibilities and lack of financial investment in the relevant fields as most of the cash end up being consumed by gambling (Dighton, et al., 2018). Gambling being a game of chance have a potentiality of winning as well as losing with the lure of instantly gaining a lumpsum of capital making people to bet more. Considering that the repeated gambling leads to a loss at the end, it can be claimed that gambling is a source of poverty. Gambling stats with smaller amounts but as an individual keep winning his/her confidence rises which mean they will end up losing huge sums of capital at the end (Nichols & Tosun, 2017). Poverty on the other hand can push individuals to keep gambling as they hope to beat the poverty menace. This effort is though in vain as increased gambling occasionally leads to increased loss of money for the individuals.
Gambling is occasionally experienced among students in colleges and universities as they seek to raise money to finance their lifestyle with no reliable employment activity, this might lead to failure to follow their academic guidance and hence deterioration in studies. All these factors point to one direction; gambling can lead to economic deterioration (Nichols, et al., 2015). When people start expecting to generate revenue without participating in any value addition economic activity, the economic position of a nation will end up struggling. As much as gambling makes the poor people poorer it can also lead to loss of wealth among the rich
Gambling and Poverty
Gambling is legal in many nations globally as it is viewed as a form of entertainment. The emergence of betting for the sake of raising income is though a social vice which this research intends to expound on (Wu & Chen, 2015 ). The focus being to highlight the research gap which exist between the issue of gambling and the unemployment menace.
- Research Questions
- Primary Questions
The main question that the research intends to answer is; How does the unemployment rate impact on the gambling behaviour?
- Secondary Questions
- Have the use of online money transfer and internet propelled gambling activities?
- Research Design and Methodology
Process of qualitative research
The first step in this design will be to settle on the question that the research intends to answer. This question will provide a guideline on what the research intends to achieve as well as assist focus the study.
From here will conduct a literature review so as to examine other studies that have touched on issues related to the research question. This assist gains more insight in to the issue under study. In addition, this way the research is able to focus on the existing gaps regarding the research topic.
The third important step will be to evaluate the relevancy of the qualitative research to the topic. This research design is effectively applicable where the study intends to answer the “what”, “why”, and “how” question
In this research will adopt the action research methodology, which will involve focusing the study towards solving an immediate issue by working in collaboration with others.
To ensure the data collected is valid and reliable, the sample size will be randomly selected across Australia’s major cities, three cities will be selected at random. From here will apply questionnaires and interviews to collect information from at least 200 respondents from each city. The data collected will be supplemented by secondary articles from organizations and government institutions.
The research intends to analyse how unemployment correlate with the gambling issue.
Our independent variable will be the gambling issue while unemployment will be the dependent variable to be fluctuated.
In this design the focus is based on gathering data as well as generalising it across sets of people so as to assist derive a particular explanation.
Our research will focus on the descriptive design which will assist highlight the association between gambling and the unemployment issue.
The data collection technique would include a sample of at least 5 countries 2 which are developed, 1 second class economy and 2 developing economies, the data regarding the unemployment and gambling activity will thereafter derived from the government databases as well as organisations. This data once derived will be analysed to using statistical tools such as Microsoft Excel, SPSS as well as R programming so as to break down the data and derive relevant conclusion.
Gambling and Students
To ensure reliability and validity of the collected data, information will be derived from the secondary resources obtained from large organisations with sufficient information as well as from only approved websites and databases containing government information.
The study revolves around expounding on the issue of gambling and how it has been impacted by the issue of unemployment. This research topic on itself is sensitive to a section of the society. The main target participants are the gamblers. It will thus be a challenge to identify this group from the population especially when carrying out the qualitative research. People who are suffering from gambling problem are often not aware of there situation as majority are just under the assumption that they are sourcing for cash.
Also, the data regarding gambling like those taking place in small-scale such as playing cards and small casinos may not be documented hence making it hard to derive this data.
Furthermore, the research it touching on a wider area which needs a lot of resources and time to examine a good sample size as well as carry out enough qualitative study. This may generate the issue of budget and time constraint
The table below summarises the time schedule for activities that will be taken during the research.
Date |
Activity |
3rd September to 15 September |
Conducting literature review and identifying the research objectives |
16th September to 30 October |
Drafting the proposal budget, writing and reviewing the proposal draft |
1st November to 30th November |
Data collection and documentation. This include designing the questionnaires as well as doing the actual data collection |
1st Dec to 15 Dec |
Data analysis |
16th Dec to 31st Dec |
Writing the research report |
Conclusion
The advancement in technology have seen severe economic trends occur in different nations, one of the areas which have been affected by these new dynamics is the money transfer and online gambling (Xian, et al., 2008). With this it is now possible to gamble up to an international level in addition to availing the gambling platform to a large portion of the population. All this indicates that gambling is in an increasing trend globally with sports betting taking the lead. Even though legislations have been enacted in a number of nations to control the vice, the focus so far have been in the age limit. As much as this assist eliminate the young from engaging in gambling 9ty does little to cure the menace of gambling addiction.
This research therefore intends to analyse the association between the gambling issue with the unemployment menace (Wu, et al., 2014).
Unemployment have been with us for decades, our focus is thus to evaluate if there is any association between the social issue with the global gambling trend.
References
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Brevers, D. et al., 2015. Effect of casino-related sound, red light and pairs on decision-making during the Iowa gambling task. Journal of gambling studies, 31(2), pp. 409-421.
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Denscombe, M., 2008. Communities o f Practice: A Research paradigm for the Mixed Methods. Journal of mixed Mrthods Research, 2(3), pp. 270-283.
Dighton, G., Roberts, E., Hoon, A. & Dymond, S., 2018. Gambling problems and the impact of family in UK armed forces veterans. Journal of behavioral addictions, pp. 1-11.
Nichols, M. & Tosun, M., 2017. The impact of legalized casino gambling on crime. Regional Science and Urban Economics, Volume 66, pp. 1-15.
Nichols, M., Tosun, M. & Yang, J., 2015. The fiscal impact of legalized casino gambling. Public Finance Review, 43(6), pp. 739-761.
Rothman, H. et al., 2015. Evaluating the economic impact of casino liberalization in Macao. In Challenging Corporate Social Responsibility. Lessons for public relations from the casino industry, 391(3), pp. 1-8.
Wu, A. M. S., Lai, M. H. C. & Tong, K. K., 2014. Gambling disorder: Estimated prevalence rates and risk factors in Macao. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 28(4), pp. 1190-1197.
Wu, S. & Chen, Y., 2015 . The social, economic, and environmental impacts of casino gambling on the residents of Macau and Singapore. Tourism Management, Volume 48, pp. 285-298.
Xian, H. et al., 2008. The association of cognitive distortions with problem and pathological gambling in adult male twins. Psychiatry Research, 160(3), pp. 300-307.
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