Nightmare neighbours: The economic geography of gambling shops and gambling harms

We focus on the dark side of consumer city and examine the economic geography of gambling as a consumption disamenity with localised wellbeing impacts. Our framework combines proximity and density, and we use data on gambling shops matched with surveys to measure how ’gamblogenic’ environments lead to negative, localised, wellbeing effects using probit models and coarsened exact matching. Living closer to and in high densities of gambling shops, increases the likelihood of gambling and being a problematic gambler. The spatial distribution of gambling venues matters, and calls for targeted interventions to mitigate harms.