Betting your life on it: Gambling harms both health and equality

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7479.1405-a

BMJ 2004;329:1405 (11 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7479.1405-a

Letter

Betting your life on it

Gambling harms both health and equality

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The editorial by Griffiths provides strong argumentswhy gambling and problem gambling are public health concerns.¹But there are also substantial ethical concerns around liberalisingaccess to gambling, given that it may contribute to povertyand increase inequality.

For example, national survey data from New Zealand found thatexpenditure on gambling was disproportionately higher amongpeople with lower levels of education, people with "lower statusoccupations," Maori, and Pacific peoples.² This study also foundthat poorer socioeconomic status was a significant risk factorfor current problem gambling and probable pathological gambling.Such an association has also been reported in the Netherlands,³in Sweden (when considering social welfare recipients as havinglow socioeconomic status⁴), and in the United States.⁵

Such health and justice problems imply that, from a societalperspective, it may be best for governments to further tightenrestrictions on access to gambling as a whole, and . . . [Full text of this article]

Nick Wilson, senior lecturer (public health)

Wellington School of Medicine, Otago University, Wellington, New Zealand nwilson@actrix.gen.nz