Making and using knowledge about gambling

The gathering of a range of opinions on gambling research and its future in a special issue of Gambling Research (May 2009) is a good idea. What is under discussion is how we construct and disseminate knowledge about a particular research object, in this case gambling. How that object looks depends a great deal on where you stand. All the contributions to the special issue provide insights and informed critique of the relationships between research funding, research topics, and the political economy of gambling. Yet they are relatively silent on the question of the production of knowledge itself. In the spirit of this undertaking I intend to address my comments to the theme of knowledge, offering some general observations, but also trying where possible to link these with contributorsââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢ comments.