Seasonal Spaces: How does gambling shape British seaside towns?

• In Event: Critical Criminology 1: Social Harm and Zemiology

Abstract

Seaside towns have long been recognised as occupying an important liminal space in terms of explorations of pleasure, leisure, and notably, gambling. This occupies a particularly important role in the current financial context; as the ‘regular’ lives of increasing numbers of households are defined by priority-debt repayments. The endurance of the seaside gambling sector testifies to the increasingly important role as a space of speculation and ‘release’ from the regular rhythms of work and repayment. Arguably, the era of ‘big gambling’, and financial ‘crisis’, amongst other broader social, cultural and economic factors, has transformed urban seaside areas perhaps more than any space; the rhythms of high tourist season/ low season, the dependence of employment upon the major gambling operators, the framing of experience around financial release – being free of the financial strictures, of debt, despair, that characterise working life for many.

Within this context, this paper presents the research findings from a one year project that explores gambling in urban seaside areas in the UK, critically examining from a social harm perspective, the role of gambling, and gambling spaces. We address the tensions between visiting seaside towns and their gambling spaces as a key leisure attraction and those who have lived experience of serious gambling related harms who describe visiting, or living in, seaside towns as key to understanding their gambling trajectory. Through ethnographic fieldwork across two case study sites during the winter 'off season', supplemented with qualitative interviews with a range of stakeholders, this paper maps the everyday impact of gambling within these towns and contributes to the broader critical criminological understanding of gambling related harms.

Authors

• Jo Large, University of Bristol, UK

• Samuel Kirwan, University of Bristol, UK