Following-up the proposal for a personal gambling licence by my colleague Janne Nikkinen, I discuss in the following the introduction of a probationary period for novice gamblers inspired by the regulation of driving licences.
In March this year the European Parliament agreed on updating the rules for driving licences to increase road safety. Novice car drivers should have a probationary period, after having been granted their driving licence. During this time, they need to adhere to stricter limits, such as lower blood alcohol levels than the more experienced licence holders. They are also subject to particular sanctions, when violating traffic rules. In the past, a driving licence for motorbikes even limited the power of the motorbike to be legally driven for the first two years or a particular number of kilometres driven. The more potent machines were identified as riskier and the novice motorbike driver should be protected from this risk. Before changing onto the racing motorbikes, they first need to learn handling a less powerful one. The probationary period acknowledges the need to practice one’s driving abilities in the real world, while decreasing risks during this initial time of one’s driving career.
Gambling needs to be learned like any other human activity.
Gambling is widely accepted as an activity with risks to create harm. Gambling, in fact, is a blanket concept for many different forms of behaviours and is thus characterised by less and more risky forms of gambling. Money is an inherent part of gambling, and the amounts spent and lost constitute an important part in creating gambling harm. Quite similar to the majority of driving licences, also gambling has been thus limited to adults only, at least in most countries. Age limits have been proven to be effective in reducing gambling harm. In Finland, after raising the age limit from 15 to 18 years in 2011, there was a clear drop in reported gambling harm by minors. Yet, gambling is not only riskier to minors due their cognitive development stage. Gambling needs to be learned like any other human activity and during the initial learning period, also adults are prone to mistakes.
The sociologist Howard Becker addressed the matter of learning for the use of marihuana already more than half a century ago. The novice user needs to learn how to properly consume marihuana, how to properly act while under its influence, but also how to experience and make sense of the state of intoxication itself. Substance use, while toxicologically working directly on the body, is in its entirety still culturally mediated. Substance use is learned from the available cultural blue-prints of use. What applies in the case of substances, does so even more for behaviours like gambling. Gambling is not only culturally mediated, but could not even exist outside human culture.
These initial phases of driving and gambling alike are crucial in forming habits and routines.
Learning indeed happens overly during adolescence but continues throughout human life. While maybe cognitively more mature, also the older adult novice gambler remains a novice towards gambling. Coming back to the driving licence analogy, a 40-year-old person acquiring a driving licence also has a probationary period to allow them learning to drive inside safer limits. These initial phases of driving and gambling alike are crucial in forming habits and routines. Routines formed within the confines of the enhanced limits of the probationary period might protect the driver and gambler not only during the probationary period but radiate beyond this period.
If I have learned not to drink alcohol at all during my probationary period, and created routines how to avoid drinking when driving, I will less likely do so later. As the pragmatist thinkers tell us, routines, or practices are cognitive shortcuts by which we can act without thinking. Most of our lives happens by routines. Thus, drinking and driving becomes a conscious choice – in comparison to routines and practices, choices are resource intensive operations for us human beings. Similarly, a probationary period for gambling could not only protect the novice gamblers during their learning period, but lie foundations for less risky gambling routines, still persistent when being let out of the safe refines of your novice status.
A probationary period for gambling could not only protect the novice gamblers during their learning period, but lie foundations for less risky gambling routines.
I argue thus for the introduction of a probationary period for new gambling customers. With a central register the probationary period could apply for all licenced (online) providers alike, otherwise the period would need to pertain for each provider separately. Additional limits for the novice gambler could follow already available guidelines for lower risk gambling and for instance address the spending limits (i.e. lowering the usual limits), exclude the riskiest types of games, as well as limiting the duration and/or frequency of gambling occasions.
There are convincing arguments from analogy and a theoretical standpoint for a probationary period for novice gamblers. It’s effectiveness on preventing gambling harm should be obviously now empirically investigated and most effective limits and measures applied. The new gambling regulation in Finland constitutes a good place to test the probationary period for gambling in practice.