Chasing Losses

This article examines why individuals in Kazakhstan continue gambling despite mounting financial losses and growing personal crises. Drawing on qualitative interviews with gamblers and gambling hall staff, it argues that gambling persistence is embedded in a moral economy of debt, in which financial obligations become intertwined with family responsibility, social expectations, and concerns about dignity and shame. Rather than challenging psychological explanations of gambling addiction, the study complements them by demonstrating how debt transforms gambling into a socially meaningful practice tied to obligations of provision and moral accountability. As losses accumulate, gamblers frequently perceive continued gambling as the only possible means of recovering lost money, restoring damaged identities, and avoiding shame before family members and creditors. The findings show that gambling-related debt reshapes household relationships, intensifies secrecy and conflict, and generates competing narratives of responsibility, blame, and justification. By conceptualising debt as a moral and relational force rather than merely a financial condition, the article contributes to sociological understandings of gambling addiction and demonstrates how financial risk, social obligations, and identity interact to sustain the practice of “chasing losses” in post-socialist Kazakhstan.

Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Gambling Behavior and Treatments · Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition