title: Harm promotion: observations on the symbiosis between government and private industries in Australasia for the development of highly accessible gambling markets.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To illustrate ways in which industry control over the gambling market and its regulatory system have enabled rapid proliferation in gambling consumption and harm.
  
  
  METHODS
  To discuss the relationship between government regulation and the accessibility, marketing and technologies of electronic gambling machines in Australia and New Zealand.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The regulatory framework for gambling in both countries has encouraged highly accessible,regressively distributed and heavily marketed high-impact electronic gambling machines. This framework has developed in large part through the conjunction of government revenue needs and the adaptation of a folk model of gambling appropriated by gambling businesses and engineered to incorporate a discourse that legitimate their gambling businesses.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Governments should be encouraged to invest in 'upstream' public health strategies that contain the economic and social drivers for intensifying gambling consumption. One key aspect involves questioning the most suitable scale, location and marketing of gambling operations, and the reliance of government on gambling revenues (whether directly or as substitution for other government expenditure). Technological solutions to disrupt the development of obsessive gambling habits are also available and are likely to reduce gambling-related harm.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Health and Preventative Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. charles.livingstone@monash.edu
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Livingstone
authors.forename: Peter J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Adams
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D044362:Australasia / Q000453:epidemiology; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology*; D033161:Government Regulation; D040261:Harm Reduction; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry; D008297:Male; D040541:Marketing / Q000191:economics / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration; D011204:Poverty Areas; D017149:Private Sector; D011633:Public Facilities / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D011640:Public Policy; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D018910:Video Games / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000600:supply & distribution*