Spelberoende i Västra Götaland, kommunernas inställning till ansvar, hjälp och egen kunskap.

The aim of this essey was to find out what kind of help problem gamblers can get at social service offices in the region Västra Götaland in Sweden. We also examined the knowledge regarding gambling problems at social sevice offices and who the head of the social service offices regarded having the responsibility for the question of helping problem gamblers. As a last question we wanted to know if the size of the population in the community had an impact on these questions. Central questions in our essey asked are: How much help does the social service offices in the region Väsra Götaland offer problem gamblers? Who has the responsabilety to help problem gamblers according to social service offices? What knowledge does the social service offices have concerning problem gambling? Does the population of the community have an impact on theese questions? This is a quantitative study made as a webbservey to the head of the social service offices in the region Västra Götaland. The result shows that it´s easier to get the right help in bigger communities than in the smaller communities. It also shows that the most of the social service offices offers more help than they have to according to them selves, but some social service offers no help at all. The knowledge about problem gambling and the knowledge about responsability in the problem gambling question is at a fair level in some communities but in some other communities it's much lower