This article is the joint effort of a number of high-profile academics in gambling studies. It elaborates on a public health approach to gambling that accommodates an understanding of the political and economic context of a commercial, tax-paying gambling industry.

This is the background paper by Stephen Ziguras, Mark Considine, Linda Hancock and Brian Howe for this week's conference, From Risk to Opportunity: Labour Markets in Transition, which is part of a project exploring new institutional arrangements in the area of social policy to cope with structural change in both labour markets and household formation...