“It’s gambling that led me to prison”: Interview survey with imprisoned gamblers

Can gambling addiction lead to imprisonment? This is the question raised by this article, based on an interview survey with gamblers held in two French prisons. In line with the international literature on the subject, it would appear that a significant proportion of prisoners are affected by problems linked to gambling addiction, and that a sizable proportion of them consider these problems to be directly or indirectly related to the reason for their incarceration. By looking at the life stories of the gamblers we interviewed, whether or not they identified themselves as addicts, we analyzed the way in which establishing this link can enable some of them to retrace their trajectory both inside and outside gambling. The concept of a “deviant career,” with all that it implies in terms of transgression of norms but also of entrapment in conduct deemed harmful or even reprehensible, proves useful in understanding the more or less tragic dimension of the narratives of these imprisoned gamblers who, in addition to their incarceration, perceive themselves as prisoners of their gambling addiction.