Resilience and autonomy at stake: The public construct of the Paf gambling company in the Åland Islands community

Abstract

The gambling business entails geo-economic opportunities for islands, especially in times of online gambling. However, it also involves risks like ill mental health, debt, and social problems. Furthermore, a heavy reliance on gambling revenues involves great moral dilemmas, especially when the gambling provision is operated within a not-for-profit public regime. This study concerns how these aspects are negotiated in the public discussion in Åland Islands, an autonomous group of islands situated between Finland and Sweden. By ruling of its regional parliament and the Finnish Lotteries Act, the Åland-based gambling monopoly company Ålands penningautomatförening (Paf) has the right to provide onshore gambling on the Islands, on the Internet, and on cruise ships trafficking the Baltic Sea. The study examines Paf’s role as a pillar of the local community, and the ways in which this position is sustained and contested. By analyzing a corpus of 862 online texts from local newspapers and public radio services from 2006–2018, this study demonstrates how Åland depends on an incongruous public construction of Paf as a responsible actor that is simultaneously criticized for not exercising greater transparency and responsibility, highlighting a contradiction between the provision of harmful gambling products and economic benefits for the community.