Risk and Danger in Gambling Disorders: Discourses on Ludopathy

Abstract

To begin with, we confront the idea of risk with that of danger in the field of gambling: within the framework of a theory of action, taking a risk implies taking a bet that can be won or lost, such as in business or in the challenges that legendary heroes take on. That is the main reason of players' attraction for the bets, as the sociologist Erving Goffman studied. Now, pathological gambling is a disorder Ludopathy is a mental-behavioral disorder that involves danger: an addiction to uncontrolled gambling with dire personal consequences. The methodology we apply examines three types of social discourses: regulative (legal, administrative, etc.) by which gambling is regulated in Spain; endogenous (testimony of the protagonists of this disorder); exogenous (social representations in literature, cinema or advertising). We propose the thesis that the seduction of immoderate risk endangers the mental health of compulsive gamblers and is a social trauma that different lobbies stimulate and public administrations try to control within the framework of a power struggle. On the other hand, we note that the data related to Spanish legislation regarding gambling has been modified in recent months and that in some respects its application is still in process at the present time.