The zemiotics of gambling

Zemiotics, or zemiology, deriving from the classical Greek word zemia, is a new body of research which focuses on social harm and loss. As Boukli and Kotze (2018) characterise it, the concept of zemia 'denotes not only damage but also financial loss or deficit due to a ‘wearing down’ or ‘decline’ of some kind'. This approach has been utilised recently in criminology, and studies of the relationship between crime and illicit drug use, for example, but has not been utilised in studies of gambling and its social, personal, and familial effects and consequences. Raymen (2023) further discusses the ambiguity of 'harm' in contemporary societies, noting the extent to which degrees of harm or indeed the existence of harm arising from consumption is disputed. This project will explore the applicability of the concept of zemia to considerations of gambling harm, in order to extend the principles, practices, and understandings of 'public health' that have been increasingly applied to regulation of commercial gambling. It will provide an enhanced perspective on gambling harm, in order to focus the consideration of harm at the centre of regulatory approaches to harm prevention.