My study investigates gambling among young office workers and provides evidence about the problem from a theoretical, practical, and policy perspective. With accessible gambling, young office workers view it as a social event, immersing themselves in the activity. Eventually, their gambling leads to a situation where their everyday life suffers. Therefore, it is worth exploring the meaning and nature of the problems arising from gambling.
This study posed the following research question: "What are the gambling problems experienced by young office workers?" To this end, I used a qualitative research method to understand the gambling experience phenomenon in young office workers. Through qualitative research, it is possible to investigate each study participant's intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics that motivate them to gamble, allowing the researcher to analyze related factors that compel gambling.
Participants in the study were between 19 and 34 years of age. They were selected based on their score on the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI) (those who scored eight points or more), used the Korean Gambling Problem Management Regional Center service, and maintained a job for two or more years. During the study, while conducting in-depth individual interviews, I stopped data collection because three out of 13 participants dropped out due to sensitive interview contents. However, information collected from the remaining study participants was sufficient, and no new data was required. As a result, my research included ten participants, all male: Four from Seoul and Gyeonggi, one from Daejeon, one from Daegu, two from Jeonnam and Gwangju, and two from Jeonbuk. Three individuals were married, and seven were single.
This study's preliminary investigation and data collection period spanned from July 1 to September 15, 2020. I interviewed participants in a private consultation room in the Korean Gambling Problem Management Center's regional office and closed space in the local study café. Interviews took from one hour 30 minutes to two hours.
I analyzed the interview data and derived 408 semantic units, 35 central meanings, 21 revealed themes, and seven unique themes expressing the study participants' experiences. The seven unique themes included: 'Gambling culture I encountered through people around me,' 'Achievable hope, gambling technology,' 'Strict strategy and psychological warfare of illegal online gambling,' 'Tug of war between work and gambling,' 'Standing on the cliff.' I categorized the participants' turning points as 'If only I could go back to the day there was no gambling.'
Young office workers, embracing gambling as part of work culture, gamble to fulfill their longing for success and forget about work's fierce competition. However, the stimulus of gambling is devastating, leading to problematic behavior and financial and legal problems in the workplace. Through social support systems such as family, counselors, and workplace friends, they "stop" gambling and try to get off the wrong path. Based on the study's data analysis, I integrated the phenomenological theme of "getting out of the precarious shortcut found by a life tired of fierce competition" as the main problem in young office workers' gambling.
Since there is a perception of young office workers' gambling behavior as social or controllable, it is easy to miss a gambling problem. Therefore, through this study, I explored possible social work interventions as one way to provide timely and specific information to young office workers experiencing gambling problems.