Young People and Gambling in Britain: A Critique of the DCMS Technical Paper No. 8.

This report is a brief critique of the report commissioned by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS; May-Chahal, Measham, Brannock, Amos, & Dagnall, 2004) to examine adolescent gambling in Britain. This brief critique is split into three main sections that cover general comments followed by more specific comments in relation to the executive summary and the rest of the report. The report also includes our own executive summary and an appendix of comments from other people in the field of youth gambling relating to the DCMS report. The reason for writing this critique is that the conclusions made in the DCMS report are the ones most likely to be heard at Ministerial level. Given that the report is selective in the use of the literature and the executive summary is written in such a way as to seriously minimize the problem and issue of adolescent gambling, we present a similar picture but with a different emphasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]