Résumés
Abstract
We report on a collaborative qualitative study to identify gambling expenditure trajectories associated with COVID-19 restrictions on in-venue gambling for people in a regional First Nations Community in Victoria, Australia. Drawing from interviews with 20 First Nations people and seven workers, we use three people’s stories to illustrate experiences associated with: reduced gambling expenditure; little change in gambling expenditure; and increased gambling expenditure. Across each trajectory, many participants took up or increased online gambling during restrictions. The largest proportion returned to pre-COVID-19 gambling expenditure once restrictions eased. Some took the opportunity of a forced break from in-venue gambling to reassess its role in their lives, and a further small proportion spent more money on gambling after the pandemic than prior to it. We highlight the importance of Community in participants’ capacities to manage gambling during this period. Participants described the presence of Community members at in-venue gambling as limiting their spending, something that became unavailable when gambling online at home during lockdowns. Willpower was identified as most participants’ preferred means of managing gambling. This worked for some, but others noted that the ubiquity of online gambling products and ongoing effects of trauma and disadvantage stymied their efforts. As some participants insisted, the gambling industry and governments that are its beneficiaries perpetuate colonization by extracting money from First Nations peoples, with gambling harm attributed to Indigeneity rather than poverty resulting from colonization and dispossession. Thus, First Nations Communities and individuals are held responsible for problems that are largely not of their making.
Keywords:
- Recovery,
- resilience,
- gambler,
- Aboriginal Australians
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Biographical notes
Sarah MacLean’s ancestors were uninvited settlers in Australia. Her research explores practices that are both legal and dependency forming. She has published extensively on alcohol and inhalant use, and in recent years, also on gambling. Currently, she is employed as Professor in the Discipline of Social Work and Social Policy at La Trobe University, where she is also affiliated with the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research. During 2019–2022, she was joint Editor-in-Chief of Health Sociology Review.
Anastasia Kanjere is a white settler researcher in the fields of critical race studies, critical whiteness studies, and media studies. She was employed as a research officer on this project. She is now completing a degree in Education.
Tiffany Griffin is a proud Yamatji woman, with ancestors from Wajarri and Wattandee tribes of the northwest of Western Australia. Tiffany is the Team Leader of the Intense Social and Emotional Wellbeing Support team. She is also studying Social Work at La Trobe University in Mildura. Tiffany has worked at MDAS for the past 8 years and loves working in the mental health and addiction space. She is very passionate about social change and supporting Indigenous people along their healing journey.
Jai Portelli is a proud Aboriginal man who was employed as the Gamblers’ Awareness Support Worker at MDAS during the period when we conducted this project. He conducted research interviews for this project and advised on cultural matters.
Gabriel Caluzzi is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, La Trobe University and University of New South Wales. His PhD was a qualitative exploration of the social conditions and cultural meanings of light and non-drinking practices in a sample of young Australians. His work aims to understand how drug and alcohol practices among young people are informed by sociocultural context.
Michael Savic is a Senior Research Fellow in Addiction Studies at the Eastern Health Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences, and he is Strategic Lead of Clinical and Social Research at Turning Point, Eastern Health. Michael’s research focuses on the social and cultural contexts of alcohol and other drug use, addiction concepts, treatment, and experiences of intervention implementation and care across several mediums. His research is multi-disciplinary in orientation, policy and practice relevant, and often draws on critical approaches and qualitative methods. Michael is a co-convener of the Victorian Substance Use Research Forum, an Associate Editor at the International Journal of Drug Policy, and a Deputy Editor at Drug and Alcohol Review.
Amy Pennay is a Senior Research Fellow and the Deputy Director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research (CAPR) at La Trobe University. Within CAPR, she is the Strategic Lead of the Intersections of Drinking Cultures, Health, and Policy program. She is Co-Editor in Chief of Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy.
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