Young adults' stories of gambling in a research situation: a narrative inquiry

Narrative research is rarely undertaken in the field of gambling research. For this reason, the present study used narrative methods to explore young adults’ personal accounts of gambling in a research situation. It had three interrelated aims: namely (i) to delineate the gambling-related identities of young adults; (ii) to examine how these gambling-related identities were constructed; and (iii) to identify the use of narrative techniques that contributed to narrative credibility. Study participants were young adults aged 18–24 and living in Tasmania. Data were collected through telephone interviews and written stories. A reduced data set comprising one interview transcript and two written stories was selected for the purposes of intensive analysis and publication. The analysis shows how participants who supplied this data set explained and justified their involvement in gambling, managed their identities and endeavoured to construct a shared reality. Some methodological issues arising from the study are discussed.