Matt Wray

Learning from Las Vegas

The social analysts, Barbara G. Brents, Michael Ian Borer, Annelise Orleck, Sharon Zukin, and Matt Wray, offer contrasting views of the plastic fantastic city of Las Vegas.

Beyond social control: Prevalence research and the uses of expert knowledge

Given the predominance of the ‘‘psy’’ sciences in the gambling studies field, more theorizing of the kind that Young (2013) has done is sorely needed. Importantly, Young points to the role of researchers in creating the social construct of ‘‘problem gambler’’ as part of the larger transfer of risk from governments and industries to individual consumers. However, we question what seems to be his view of prevalence research as a tool of legitimation and nothing more. As we have argued elsewhere (Volberg & Wray, 2007), the gambling research arena suffers from at least two fundamental weaknesses; first, the lack of a constructionist perspective, which has led researchers to neglect the symbolic power of the problem gambling construct, and second, the lack of a structural perspective, which has led researchers to neglect the role of historical, economic and political forces in the legalization of gambling. This latter, structural perspective is not fully articulated by Young. To complement his focus on PGPSs, we believe it is essential to ‘‘follow the money’’ (Safire, 1997) and investigate the social origins and destinations of the wealth that flows into and out of the legalized gambling arena. The dominance of the ‘‘psy’’ sciences in the evolution of the ‘‘problem gambler’’ construct has resulted in a vast literature that targets the individual but neglects important macro-level dynamics of gambling. However, as Bernhard, Futrell, and Harper (2009) point out, while homogenization and isomorphic trends are evident in gambling spaces worldwide, there are also divergences in how local gambling industries develop, such that efforts to export Western practices have met with resistance. These investigators point to both homogenization and resistance in the global emergence of the ‘‘problem gambling industry’’ and cite the example of South Korea, where Westernstyle ‘‘best practices’’ in providing help to problem gamblers were spectacularly unsuccessful and had to be replaced with services that fit more appropriately with how gambling problems are managed in that culture (Bernhard et al., 2009). Prevalence studies are not just tools of domination. As forms of expert knowledge, they have a doubleedge that can cut both ways. Medical sociologists and social movement researchers have repeatedly shown how laypersons repurpose expert knowledge to suit their own ends, subverting and contesting the efforts of industries, institutions, and governments to use that knowledge to legitimate or normalize controversial technologies, policies, or diagnoses (Futrell, 2003). By extension, such ‘‘lay experts’’ (Prior, 2003) may use PGPSs to help construct their own forms of ‘‘popular epidemiology’’ (Brown, 1992) that represent the suffering of the categorized and afflicted rather than the economic and political interests of the categorizers. In the present context, a single example will have to suffice. In the ongoing battle over casino development in Philadelphia, community activists in Chinatown successfully opposed plans, backed by both the city and the state, to locate a casino in their neighborhood. Their protest strategy placed great significance on the findings from PGPS research that Asian populations – particularly older, Asian males – have higher rates of PG and are thus more vulnerable to harms associated with casino gambling (M. Yee, Chinatown Preservation Alliance, personal communication to Wray, May 27, 2009). That prevalence studies are more often used to legitimate and normalize gambling than to oppose it does not minimize the significance of this point, one we did not properly emphasize in our earlier work (Volberg & Wray, 2007). We think this repurposing of expert knowledge by laypersons is one way to answer Young’s call for a reflexive ‘‘(re)placement’’ of prevalence studies. We are encouraged by Young’s contribution. But we would plead for a broader perspective that asks whether, and how, non-experts use PGPSs to resist or reduce gambling harms in their communities.