Revision of Social Costs of Gambling in the Czech Republic
Abstract
Calculation of social costs of gambling is a widely used analytical tool to measure (often negative) impact of consumer (gambler) behavior to society. However, this tool is very often burdened with biases, inconsistent methodology and, most of all, incompatibility with well–established and widely used economic concepts. Along with comprehensive review of different approaches to the calculation of these costs we use economic approach to revise the most influential Czech study done by Winkler et al. (2014; 2017). Using this improved approach, we were able to reduce authors’ sum of social costs by 84% (from 541.6–619.6 million EUR to 88.6–99.9 million EUR), although there are still other costs that have to be taken into account for a complete picture of impacts on society. The objective of the paper is not to downplay the impact of gambling but to provide better foundations for comprehensive evaluations of its effects and suggest routes for further improvement of the analysis.
Keywords
Social costs, Gambling, Addiction, Consumer behavior, Public policy
DOI
https://doi.org/0.18267/pr.2022.kre.2454.14
Cite this paper
Žofčák, J. & Šíma, J. (2022). Revision of Social Costs of Gambling in the Czech Republic. In: 22nd International Joint Conference Central and Eastern Europe in the Changing Business Environment. Proceedings. Oeconomica Publishing House, Praha. https://doi.org/0.18267/pr.2022.kre.2454.14