Gambling as a social problem

In his analysis of the history of the laws on vagrancy in England, Chambliss ¹ showed the sensitivity of the relationship between the definitions accorded vagrancy, and the nature of its differentiation from other ‘social problems’, and changes in the social structure at different times from the early Middle Ages to the present day. In examining the history of gambling as a ‘social problem’ in England, it is helpful to adopt much the same perspective: that is, to attempt to relate changes in the legal definition of, and social response to, gambling to changes in the encompassing social structure, as well as the changes in gambling practices which were only partially independent of the socio-legal context which framed this operation. It should be stressed that any similarity between Chambliss’s endeavour and our own is of approach rather than substance. Vagrancy, as Chambliss demonstrated, was never a unitary phenomenon, but a portmanteau term whose elasticity was very useful to law-makers and social controllers, a label which could be attached to measures against beggary or brigandry as the need arose. Gambling, collectively considered, does not – in contrast – appear on the statute book at all. Measures against gambling (with one exception) were aimed at specific forms of betting and/or gaming practice; and it is the variation in our piecemeal attempts at the control of specific forms of gambling that provides the substance for inferring structural implications.