Gambling Disorders in Women

An International Female Perspective on Treatment and Research

Henrietta Bowden-Jones, Fulvia Prever, Henrietta Bowden-Jones, Fulvia Prever

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317238584
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Abnormal Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book brings together an international selection of academics with expertise in problem gambling issues in women, with chapters reflecting ongoing work with female gamblers across the world in both group and individual settings. In choosing such a specific patient group, the authors aim to raise the profile of gambling disorders in women and also provide fellow professionals across the world with a shared understanding of evidence based treatment and recovery in problem gambling literature and research.

Gambling Disorders in Women: An International Female Perspective on Treatment and Research will provide professionals working in addictions and policy-making with much-needed knowledge about a seriously under-represented area, and about which many professionals feel they would like to know more. The book will also highlight different international approaches to the provision of treatment for women in each country as well as the epidemiology of the illness.

Part 1
Africa

1
Gambling Amongst South African Women

An exploration of the impact of gambling over the past twenty years

Linda de Vries

Introduction

This chapter will reflect on the background of gambling since regulation in South Africa, the incidence of informal and social unregulated gambling and the problems associated with gambling, its influence and participation of women in both gambling and the treatment of problems.

The gambling industry in South Africa grew rapidly during the 1997 to 2016 period with various gambling modes and facilities being introduced. Job creation and creating new viable businesses is the measure by which the gambling industry is judged in South Africa. This holds well within the framework of unemployment and job creation amongst the gaming regulators for South Africa, as for Africa. South Africa has made great strides towards an active engagement with the world of gambling, not only as regulators of the policy, but also as stimulators of the free market and global enterprise. However, the maturity of an industry, which was seen before as evil, illegal and largely within previous Bantustans, has made gambling accessible, glamorous, advertised and gender friendly and this opened another set of challenges to society at large.

Furthermore, the chapter will describe the inherent challenges of gambling related risks and other related factors associated with these behaviours amongst South Africans and focusing on South African women. The current treatment and awareness programmes in the country must also be considered for their effectiveness with women as well as youth gambling related problems.

With the legalising of gambling in South Africa in 1996, licence conditions were specific about creating an environment of entertainment, and beauty and safety. The casino venues developed into multipurpose estates functioning as gaming, conferencing centres as well as offering hotel accommodation and added real estate value to the various locations across the country. Twenty-four hour a day security and ample safe parking and good security made gambling casino sites of safe zones for women. In a country where safety and vulnerability for women to go out alone in the evening is challenging, such factors are important for increased participation of women, especially in late evenings, during the night or after work hours. This favourable environment allowed for easy participation and attracted more women to gambling.

The regulators of South Africa are constantly challenged to ensure that addressing the monitoring of problem gambling and responsible gambling are part of their critical mandate of oversight. The other roles are to assist in the creation of work and employment opportunities. There, efforts should contribute towards creating an equitable transformed society by addressing gender, poverty, race discrimination, corporate social responsibility, valuing of people and also building partnerships with all stakeholders of society. The balance between jobs, safety and gambling addiction and gambling problems remain a fine balance for regulators who are measured on contribution to the tax base of the country as performance.

Background

The gambling industry in South Africa evolved as each provincial regulatory board wanted to licence their allocated number of casinos and gambling venues for limited pay-out machines (LPMs) as per the national equitable share. Many older black women (between 30 and 70 years old) have been participating in these modes of informal gambling such as iFafi (a game of pictures and dreams and symbols and numbers also called UmChina) but it was not deemed as illegal at the inception of the regulatory framework of gambling. Provinces soon realised the income generating ability for the provinces. The more prestigious world class gambling infrastructure and its related benefits to a region were seen as attractions to e.g. rural women and gambling women in traditional modes particular would ‘graduate’ towards more formal and venue based gambling. However, the regulators missed that these were community activities, linked to group socialisations as well as social engagement with common issues such as water fetching, sharing resources and then playing iFafi and sharing both the risk and the mystique.

In later years towards 2016 the industry faced a more challenging environment of managing growth, dealing with problem gambling as well as different modes of gambling, and the re-emergence of illegal and informal gambling.

The legislation offered many benefits but linked with that came some of the unintended consequences of gambling that affected women and young people due to the proximity and ease of access to gambling. Within a relative short period, the spending behaviour and patterns towards leisure activities of South African households and in particular women changed towards more frequent and open gambling in the legalised and modern sites.

Households were trading off existing expenditure allocations for new (gambling) expenses. Since the rapid establishment phase of the gambling industry at the turn of the century, the creation of new access points for gambling have declined considerably while household gambling expenditure also reflects a more moderate trajectory. The next period towards 2016 was marked by a maturity in the industry and the more challenging environment of managing of growth, dealing with problem gambling, the increasingly different modes of gambling and the re-emergence of illegal and informal gambling amongst South Africans, but especially the rural poor and also the women and vulnerable groups.

Within this context, the following questions are relevant:

• What is the gender participation to the gambling sector in terms of employment and GDP contribution?
• What is the proportion of women that participate in both the legal and illegal and informal gambling activities?
• What is the level of awareness of women to the responsible gambling programmes?
• What is the incidence of problem gambling if any amongst women in the country?

What concerned regulators and the policy makers alike was the sheer size of the gambling sector, its impact on poverty, the influence on rural women and child grant vulnerable female recipients, the subsequent impact on problem gambling and its unintended consequences. Furthermore, there was a need to understand the impact on vulnerable groups such as woman and children.

Anecdotal evidence is often being shared around by politicians, opinion leaders and community leaders about the negative impact of gambling in society at large and especially on the vulnerable poor.

The following stories were shared often by some of the politicians when they discuss social problems and gambling:

Anecdotal evidence 1

Women and pensioners are dropped in busloads at casinos, during pension pay-out days, as casinos offer cheap meals and special treats for women to spend days at gambling halls with their social grants.

Anecdotal evidence 2

That women often buy disposal adult nappies, to ensure they have no need to leave the casino seats or bingo halls to relieve themselves but can spend hours non-stop gambling at ‘Grannies’, the nickname of the casinos in South Africa.

Anecdotal evidence 3

That the pawn shops outside casino halls have booming trades for jewellery and other valuable items as casino patrons and female gamblers would pawn their valuables for money to continue gambling or to be able to find a lift home after gambling all their money out, within the larger Gauteng area.

These stories have found no base, yet continue to be shared and haunt the regulators and treatment specialists as much of the awareness research only happens with casinos, but not at many of the illegal and informal gambling sites or areas. The real challenge is to find the truth amidst these often embroiled stories and the impact of gambling on retired women, on young mums on child grants and on educated upwardly mobile professional women in a country where safety, abuse and poverty remain serious concerns.

Gender and the gambling industry in South Africa

The propensity to gamble in South Africa can be calculated by using the gross gambling revenue (GGR) of all licensed gambling institutions in South Africa. GGR represents the amount retained by gambling institutions, and therefore the amount forfeited by households for gambling. Gambling expenditure through non-licenced practices such as illegal, informal and internet gambling remain excluded from these national GGR as it does not generate gaming taxes for the country. These modes are frequented by rural and semi urban women and youth and internet gambling would have more affluent and educated female participants.

Table 1.1 shows the estimated GGR of licenced gambling institutions in 2012. This amounted to R21 024 million and excludes scratch cards and The Lotto (lucky draws). Almost three-quarters (70.7%) of gambling expenditure by punters was allocated to casinos, 12.3% to lottery games and 10.3% to horse and sports betting.

The gambling industry in South Africa comprises various segments, namely: casinos, bingos, LPMs, horse racing and betting. In essence the roles of the National Gambling Board (NGB) as per the National Gambling Act entails oversight of matters relating to casinos, gambling, betting and wagering and most importantly to ensure that there are uniform norms and standards within the gambling fraternity.

Table 1.1 Estimated GGR in South Africa, 2012 and female participation

		GGR
Gambling mode	Female participation	(Rm)	%
Casinos	34%	14 862	70.7
Horse/sports betting	1.4%	2 155	10.3
LPMs	1%	1 179	5.6
Bingo	0.3%	239	1.1
Lottery^1	45%	2 589	12.3
Total		21 024	100.0

Source: www.ngb.org.za (2015) and www.nlb.org.za (2015)

¹ Estimated at 45% of estimated ticket sales of lotto, lotto plus, Powerball and Sport stakes. Scratch cards and lucky draws are excluded (representing approximately 3% of expenditure on the National Lottery in 2012).

The gambling data excludes any form of illegal (online or internet gambling) or informal gambling such as iFafi, dice, scratch cards or any other mode. The official data only records those tax contributing modes, yet the underreporting of the incidence of gambling is clear when records of the forfeiture of winnings, through reserve bank regulations or through statistics of loans and credit agencies, are evaluated.

Gambling expenditure through non-licensed practices such as illegal, informal and internet gambling is excluded in the GGR calculation but must be considered when any conclusions are being made by policy makers. Gambling expenditure is financed from displacement from other household expenditure items and/or from increased household income. The impact of such redirection of household budgets is much more critical in the case o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• PART 1 Africa
• PART 2 America
• PART 3 Asia
• PART 4 Europe
• PART 5 Oceania
• Index