1st Edition
Gambling in Everyday Life Spaces, Moments and Products of Enjoyment
The book adopts a critical cultural studies lens to explore the entanglement of government and gambling in everyday life. Its qualitative approach to gambling creates a new theoretical framework for understanding the most urgent questions raised by research and policy on gambling.
In the past two decades, gambling industries have experienced exponential growth with annual global expenditure worth approximately 300 billion dollars. Yet most academic research on gambling is concentrated on problem gambling and conducted within the psychological sciences. Nicoll considers gambling at a moment when its integration within everyday cultural spaces, moments, and products is unprecedented. This is the first interdisciplinary cultural study of gambling in everyday life and develops critical and empirical methods that capture the ubiquitous presence of gambling in work, investment and play. This book also contributes to the growing cultural studies literature on video and mobile gaming. In addition to original case studies of gambling moments and spaces, in-depth interviews and participant observations provide readers with an insider’s view of gambling.
Advanced students of sociology, cultural theory, and political science, academic researchers in the field of gambling studies will find this an original and useful text for understanding the cultural and political work of gambling industries in liberal societies.
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
Gambling in Everyday Life: Signposts in the Literature ………….
Gambling is Ordinary ………………………………………………
Governmentality, Gambling and Everyday Life …………...............
Finopower: Transforming Intersections between Gambling, Finance, Work and Play ………………………………………………………………….
Methodologies……………………………………………………….
Structure…………………………………………………………….
Chapter Overview …………………………………………………
Conclusion ………………………………………………………….
CHAPTER ONE: THIS IS (NOT) A BOOK ABOUT PROBLEM GAMBLING
Introduction …………………………………………
What’s the Problem with Problem Gambling Research? …
Fixing Pathologies: Gambling and the Cultural Politics of Taste…
Gambling beyond the Zone: Enjoyment in Everyday Life ….
Where is the Joy? ……………………………………………
Conclusion …………………………………………
CHAPTER TWO: CULTURAL SPACES OF GAMBLING
Introduction ……………………………………………………
Transforming Gambling Spaces ………………………………….
Statey Spaces of Gambling …………………………………….
Accommodating Casino Resorts ……………………………….
Crown Sovereignty ……………………………………………..
The ‘Pokie Lounge as an everyday cultural space of gambling .
Strategies and tactics in the Pokie Lounge …………………….
Conclusion ……………………………………………………..
CHAPTER THREE: CULTURAL MOMENTS OF GAMBLING
Introduction ………………………………………………………….
Transforming Gambling moments ……………
Gender, Time and Gambling in Everyday Life …….
A Sporting Chance: Gambling at Work……………………………….
On Winning the Lottery ………………………………………………
National Gambling Moments: Melbourne Cup Day Celebrations…….
Conclusion ………………………………………………………….
CHAPTER FOUR: CULTURAL PRODUCTS OF GAMBLING
Introduction …………………………………………………………..
Gambling Systems ………………………………………………….
Transforming Gambling Products: the Rise of the Electronic Gambling Machine
Online Wagering Platforms ………………
Gaming or Gambling? Capitalising on Play ……………………
Gambling on Financial Products ……………
Conclusion…………………………………………………………
CHAPTER FIVE: GOVERNING GAMBLING IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Introduction …………………………………………………………
Transforming Architectures of Regulation………………………….
Are EGMs Gambling Products? …………………………………..
Consumer Advocacy: Reading Gamblers’ Stories as Testimony ……………
Problem Gambling Beyond the Individual: Defending Communities from EGMs
Sacrifice and Scapegoating: Problem Gambling and Finopower ………….
Extractive Industries and the Constitutional Grounds of Liberal Democracy ….
Conclusion …………………………………………………………………
Biography
Dr Fiona Nicoll is an Associate Professor at the University of Alberta where she holds a research chair in gambling policy in the Department of Political Science. The author of Diggers to Drag Queens: Configurations of Twentieth Century National Identity (Pluto Press, 2001) and founding member of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association, she is co-editor of Transnational Whiteness Matters (Lexington Press, 2008) and Courting Blakness: Recalibrating Knowledge in the Sandstone University (University of Queensland Press, 2015).
"From the poker machines that have colonised our spaces of recreation and solitude to the casinos that are monopolising the prime real estate and waterfronts of our cities and multiplying in remote desert locations, and from the spruikers on television pushing sports betting to the scratch lottery tickets bought at the check-out in the supermarket — gambling is now a thoroughly normalised feature of daily life. The lure to take a punt, have a flutter and make a bet is never far away, whether it’s the sweepstakes in the workplace or a game of online poker. This book explores this new landscape, focusing on the all pervasive moments, spaces and products of gambling today. It provides an important cultural study of gambling as a form of play, a technology of power, and as a cultural practice that brings the stakes of winning and losing into more and more aspects of everyday life."—Fiona Allon, Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney. Australia
