From risk management to (corporate) social responsibility

Commercial gambling activities, as they currently exist on the market, are a product of rationalized decision-making, not only by individual consumers, who have a choice in whether or not to take part in such a risky activity, but also by operators, ocials and politicians, who have choices in whether or not and under which conditions to oer gambling opportunities. Social actors in all of these categories are involved in gambling ventures against the backdrop of their implicit and explicit assessment of the dangers and risks of gambling - such as problem gambling and crime - and for that reason are involved in acts of both risk-taking (Power, 2007) and organizing (Meyer & Bromley, 2013). However, similar to recreational gamblers who should not simply be regarded as reckless risk-takers because they paradoxically seek to control their individual risk-taking (Lyng, 2005), we have to acknowledge that governments and gambling operators seek to control the adverse consequences together with the exploitation of gambling risks. For these reasons, gambling also has been portrayed as a “safe risk” (Gephart, 2001).