Gambling related harm and gambling provisioning

• In Event: WG-PLACE 7: Neighbourhoods and Crime

Abstract

The gambling landscape in the UK has significantly changed since the Gambling Act 2005. One of the major channels of participating in gambling activities is through physical betting shops. From the recent UK White Paper, licensing authorities across the UK highlighted the need for further powers to manage gambling premising especially in deprived communities to reduce gambling related harm. Therefore, critical analysis is required to develop appropriate policies to adequately manage harms linked to presence of betting shops. As such this project seeks to understand gambling related harm by investigating the relationship between betting shops and crime across different local authorities in England.

This study adopts geospatial and multilevel modelling approaches to unravel the relationship between betting shop establishments and crime using the police recorded crime data and UK Census data and point of interest data (POI). The research adopted a longitudinal approach by collecting data on betting shop outlets, neighbourhood characteristics and crime for 3 time points (i.e. 2015, 2019 and 2022) to provide a critical and nuanced relationship between the location of betting shops and crime while controlling for the effect of different neighbourhood characteristics. Preliminary spatial analysis reveals a co-location of betting shops and crime in similar areas across the different local authorities.

Modelling results highlighted a strong relationship between betting shops and different crime categories (e.g., burglary, anti-social behaviour, public disorder and all crimes) across the different cities. Additionally, there are also subtle differences in the effect of neighbourhood characteristics on the relationship between betting shops and crime. These differences clearly provide a strong justification for this research which extends the results of previous studies (regional studies) on betting shop and crime in England by focusing on multiple local authorities (urban areas).

Authors

• Oluwole Adeniyi, Nottingham Trent University

• Ferhat Tura, Bournemouth University

• Andy Newton, Nottingham Trent University

• John McAlaney, Bournemouth University