Abstract
With his solid and comprehensive study Gambling for Profit, Kerry Chambers has contributed significantly to the sociology of gambling by adding an international comparative dimension to this relatively young field of study. In a way his book both reflects and is enabled by the maturation of this field of study because international comparisons, to a considerable extent, depend on the availability of a substantial body of comparable and reliable information and research in various nations. As with most encompassing cross-national analyses Chambers heavily relies on secondary sources. His study would have been virtually impossible without the presence of a significant (academic) literature on gambling in Canada, the USA, and Australia, his three primary case studies. Although Chambers provides some good reasons for focusing on these three nation-states his study is definitely restricted and biased towards the Anglo-Saxon world. I cannot escape the feeling that pragmatic reasons related to the availability and accessibility of valid sources partly informed his choice. Within, for instance, the European Union we already find more substantial differences between nations and gambling regimes than between Chambers’s three neo-liberal states, which of course in many respects are quite similar. The countries were selected because ‘neo-liberal anglo countries liberalized their gambling policies earlier, or more aggressively’ (p. 41). Thus, Chambers focuses on the vanguard of gambling prone states. This choice is accounted for in Chapter 2 where he roughly compares the emergence of commercial gambling opportunities in 23 welfare states. However, it would be unfair to judge this book on the basis of its restricted global scope of comparison, for the great merit of this book lies in opening up the gambling field for systematic international comparison. In this respect the book provides an excellent starting point for further international comparative gambling studies. It is also strongly advised for scholars interested in the comparative histories, political economies and cultures of Canada, Australia and the USA, which can nowadays hardly be understood without reference to gambling.
Chambers is interested in the differences rather than the similarities regarding the introduction, operation, regulation and participation in lotteries, gaming machines (outside casinos), and casinos across Australia, Canada, and the USA. The focus on differences enables him to highlight, in particular, the social and cultural factors, related to the legitimacy of gambling, involved in the uneven development of legal and commercial gambling regimes. In Chambers’s view, states ‘only adopt gambling for profit when an appropriate combination of political-economic and sociocultural circumstances is present’ (p. 6). Precisely his focus on historical contingencies and on various gambling forms enables a deeper understanding of the processes underlying the legalization and liberalization of commercial gambling since the 1970s. With this Chambers is not interested in gambling as such, but in the emergence and expansion of highly specific gambling ventures in the shape of commercial entertainment products in the context of affluent welfare-states and consumer societies. In researching this development he deploys a complex analytical framework, outlined in Chapter 1, which includes the type of welfare-state, economic circumstances, social movements, elites, and changes in the cultural meaning of gambling. Regarding the changing meaning of gambling Chambers considers as highly relevant the shift from gambling conceived as a necessary evil, only acceptable under specific circumstances and restrictive conditions, towards gambling as a legitimate entertainment product associated with controllable risks, which is more generally acceptable for the purpose of private and/or state profit. The subsequent chapters analyze in great detail the differences between the three comparative case studies regarding respectively casinos (Chapter 3), and lotteries and slot machines which for some unclear reason are combined in one very extensive chapter (Chapter 4). I definitely would have preferred separate chapters on lotteries and slot machines. The concluding Chapter 5 wraps up and relates the findings to the analytical framework.
Although it is clear that economic factors drive casino adoption, there are significant temporal and spatial differences in the patterns of adoption within and between the case studies, in particular the comparably early adoption of urban casinos in Australia. To account for the differences, Chambers points at differences in the federal system of governance, the fiscal autonomy of states and provinces, the ongoing immigration and settlement patterns, and the treatment of indigenous people. Chambers regards as key the variations in successful opposition to casinos, which depend on local social and cultural aspects as well as the capacity to mobilize resources. In the chapter on lotteries and slot machines Chambers extends his analysis of the role of culture in the spread of commercial gambling. Here, Chambers adopts a broad understanding of ‘culture’ in which culture is not conceived outside of the economic realm but rather as constitutive for economies. Like casinos modern states turned to lotteries and slot machines as solutions to economic problems. People also tend to participate in lotteries when they have limited or declining financial abilities. But to account fully for the variations between the case studies, Chambers argues that, we ‘need to account for historical events and cultural processes that would have influenced individual motives to act for or against lotteries’ (p. 139). Culture is mainly related to gambling in its function to legitimate activities. Chambers distinguishes between legitimacy based on ‘tradition’, ‘faith’, ‘emotion’, and ‘social-norms’. ‘In essence’, he argues, ‘culture produces and directs motivations leading to mobilization in support or opposition of a proposed gambling activity’ (p. 108). Also regarding lotteries and slot machines, Australia appears as more conducive to the legalization and liberalization of gambling. Of course, lotteries as well as slot machines were introduced much earlier in the USA, but in that case both were delegitimized because of the connections with corruption and organized crime and remained largely illegal for a long time. In Australia the connection with the clubs and pubs culture strongly enhanced the legitimacy and popularity of slot machines. It is a pity though, that Chambers did not more thoroughly and radically distinguish between lotteries and slot machines in separate chapters. This would not only have been helpful for editorial reasons but would, more significantly, have enabled him to fully appreciate the role of technology, problem gambling, and social responsibility, which turn slot machines into a completely different kind of gambling, especially as far as processes of (de)legitimation are concerned.