26 February 2008
As the lead Government department responsible for the Gambling Act, we commissioned this project to identify possible approaches for assessing the social and economic impacts of gambling, so that a co-ordinated approach between the public, private and academic sectors towards research in this area could be more easily realised. This report suggests what forms of research could be undertaken with different levels of investment, recognising that different sectors will have a lesser or greater interest in some impacts more than others.
This is evident in the comprehensive way the team have gone about their task: drawing together a variety of options and frameworks which pick up not only the need for measurement of the direct socio-economic impacts of the new casinos permitted under the Act but the wider health, crime and social impacts of gambling. We believe that this comprehensive analysis will provide a valuable resource across the industry, and we therefore hope that partners across the industry will want to come together to fund the cost of this work jointly.
The reader should note that the views expressed here are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Government or the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
