Gambling addiction in the social services act

In January 2018 a new social law took effect in Sweden. The new law included gambling addiction as an area of responsibility for the Swedish social workers. Because the law is relatively new there is not a lot of studies about how the Swedish workers perceive gambling addiction. The aim of this study is therefore to understand how the social workers from different communes in Sweden perceive gambling addiction, and to find out if implementation of the law has succeeded and what the amendment has brought. The methods used in this study was qualitative e-mail interviews and a qualitative interview via Zoom. The results of this study showed that the social workers have a lack of knowledge concerning gambling addiction. Another result was that the communes had implemented the new law by offering treatments and financial support