ABSTRACT
Gambling is a common leisure activity in most countries and cultures throughout the world. However, it also attracts criticism and censure in most societies. Much of this criticism is directed at the fact that some gamblers continue with the activity to such an extent that it disrupts their lives, their families and their employment. Within western cultures, useful employment, family life and the acquisition of material wealth are central goals of the socialisation process. The heavy gambler is seen as a failure by these standards. One explanation for this failure is that the socialisation of the individual has been inadequate: the society has failed in its task. However, increasingly, a different kind of explanation is given: that the heavy gambler is ill. Heavy gambling is not only socially deviant but it is caused by a disease process in the individual. In particular, western societies are moving quickly to a recognition of heavy gambling as an addiction. At the same time there is a concerted attempt to change the concept of addiction itself. These two forces, one to classify heavy gambling as an addiction and the second to broaden ‘addiction’ to include heavy gambling, are converging on a view of heavy gambling as a pathological state of the individual.
