There are two distinct strands in the literature on gambling: one that focuses on how to play and win the various games of chance and one that focuses on gambling compulsion and addiction. Gambling and Gender forges a new direction, studying gambling as more communication than compulsion, more recreation than deviance, more sociology than psychology. Within that framework it seeks to explore several aspects of gender: How do the gambling behaviors of men and women differ? How have women adapted to and/or changed the historically male dominance of the gambling arena? What gambling activities have women claimed as their own and used to develop uniquely female relationships? How have recent trends in technology and mass media changed the ways in which men and women claim - or reject - their gender identities? The authors use a variety of research strategies, including content analysis, survey research, interviews, and participative observation, to shed new light on this fascinating subject and to suggest ways to explore it further.

This book brings together an international selection of academics with expertise in problem gambling issues in women, with chapters reflecting ongoing work with female gamblers across the world in both group and individual settings. In choosing such a specific patient group, the authors aim to raise the profile of gambling disorders in women and also provide fellow professionals across the world with a shared understanding of evidence based treatment and recovery in problem gambling literature and research. Gambling Disorders in Women: An International Female Perspective on Treatment and Research will provide professionals working in addictions and policy-making with much-needed knowledge about a seriously under-represented area, and about which many professionals feel they would like to know more. The book will also highlight different international approaches to the provision of treatment for women in each country as well as the epidemiology of the illness.

This book provides an overview of the state of the art in research on and treatment of gambling disorder. As a behavioral addiction, gambling disorder is of increasing relevance to the field of mental health. Research conducted in the last decade has yielded valuable new insights into the characteristics and etiology of gambling disorder, as well as effective treatment strategies. The different chapters of this book present detailed information on the general concept of addiction as applied to gambling, the clinical characteristics, epidemiology and comorbidities of gambling disorder, as well as typical cognitive distortions found in patients with gambling disorder. In addition, the book includes chapters discussing animal models and the genetic and neurobiological underpinnings of the disorder. Further, it is examining treatment options including pharmacological and psychological intervention methods, as well as innovative new treatment approaches. The book also discusses relevant similarities to and differences with substance-related disorders and other behavioral addictions. Lastly, it examines gambling behavior from a cultural perspective, considers possible prevention strategies and outlines future perspectives in the field.

Interviews with female gamers about structural sexism across the gaming landscape When the Nintendo Wii was released in 2006, it ushered forward a new era of casual gaming in which video games appealed to not just the stereotypical hardcore male gamer, but also to a much broader, more diverse audience. However, the GamerGate controversy six years later, and other similar public incidents since, laid bare the internalized misogyny and gender stereotypes in the gaming community. Today, even as women make up nearly half of all gamers, sexist assumptions about the what and how of women’s gaming are more actively enforced. In Gaming Sexism, Amanda C. Cote explores the video game industry and its players to explain this contradiction, how it affects female gamers, and what it means in terms of power and gender equality. Across in-depth interviews with women-identified gamers, Cote delves into the conflict between diversification and resistance to understand their impact on gaming, both casual and “core” alike. From video game magazines to male reactions to female opponents, she explores the shifting expectations about who gamers are, perceived changes in gaming spaces, and the experiences of female gamers amidst this gendered turmoil. While Cote reveals extensive, persistent problems in gaming spaces, she also emphasizes the power of this motivated, marginalized audience, and draws on their experiences to explore how structural inequalities in gaming spaces can be overcome. Gaming Sexism is a well-timed investigation of equality, power, and control over the future of technology.

​This book examines gender attitudes in Reddit’s popular video gaming community subreddit, r/gaming. Video gaming has long been understood as a masculinised social space and, while increasing numbers of girls and women now engage in the pastime, boys and men remain the predominant social actors. Furthermore, the gaming community has been widely identified as a prime case study in broader concerns around ‘toxic’ masculinity and gendered online harassment. However, there is also underexamined evidence of a growing movement in the community coming forward to voice its collective opposition. Utilising an innovative combination of computational and qualitative methods, the research undertaken here exposes this fuller picture, revealing significant contestation and a spectrum of attitudes that mark out this popular gaming community as a battleground for gender (in)equality. Students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including gender studies, media studies, cultural studies, sociology, games studies and computer sciences, will find this book of interest.

The prevalence of problem gambling has increased in the late 20th Century. Prior research has identified a host of factors that increase the likelihood that an individual will become a problem gambler, most of which would be identified by criminologists as "strains" under the framework of General Strain Theory (GST). Yet, GST has not been widely used as a possible explanation for why people become problem gamblers. In addition, there has been no examination of how gender interacts with those variables to affect problem gambling. In this dissertation, I use propositions from General Strain Theory to determine if it provides a framework for understanding why people become problem gamblers and whether gender is a moderating factor in this relationship. Secondary analysis of data collected from the Social and Economic Impacts of Gambling in Massachusetts (SEIGMA) study is analyzed to assess types of non-gambling strains, their relationship to problem gambling, and the role gender plays in this relationship. Findings demonstrate that non-gambling strains play a minor role in why people become problem gamblers. More relevant factors include having a non-substance behavioral problem and experiencing strain from a spouse/partner who is a problem gambler. Gender was found to have a strong direct effect on problem gambling (with men more likely to be problem gamblers than women), but few moderating effects were found, with one exception-men were more likely be problem gamblers than women if they experienced strain from their spouse/partner's gambling behavior.