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Vicious Games

Capitalism and Gambling

Rebecca Cassidy

$51.95

Paperback

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English
Pluto Press
20 February 2020
Gambling is everywhere, on our TVs and phones, on billboards on our streets, and emblazoned across the chests of idolised sports stars. Why has gambling suddenly expanded? How was it transformed from a criminal activity to a respectable business run by multinational corporations listed on international stock markets? And who are the winners and losers created by this transformation?

Vicious Games is based on field research with the people who produce, shape and consume gambling. Rebecca Cassidy explores the gambling industry's affinity with capitalism and the free market and how the UK has led the way in exporting 'light touch' regulation and 'responsible gambling' around the world. She reveals how the industry extracts wealth from some of our poorest communities, and examines the adverse health effects on those battling gambling addiction.

The gambling industry has become increasingly profitable and influential, emboldened by thirty years of supportive government policies and boosted by unnatural profits. Through an anthropological excavation, Vicious Games opens up this process, with the intention of creating alternative, more equitable futures.
By:  
Imprint:   Pluto Press
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 215mm,  Width: 135mm, 
Weight:   240g
ISBN:   9780745340395
ISBN 10:   0745340393
Series:   Anthropology, Culture and Society
Pages:   240
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Series Preface Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Gambling’s New Deal 2. Raffles: Gambling for Good 3. The Birth of the Betting Shop 4. The Rise of the Machines 5. The Responsible Gambling Myth 6. The Bookmaker’s Lament 7. Online in Gibraltar 8. The Regulation Game Conclusions Notes References Index

Rebecca Cassidy is Professor of Anthropology at Goldsmiths University. She is the co-author of Qualitative Research in Gambling: Exploring the Production and Consumption of Risk (Routledge).

Reviews for Vicious Games: Capitalism and Gambling

'Cassidy takes readers behind the scenes of the commercial gambling industry to reveal how it reinvents itself in the face of shifting technology, economic prospects, and regulative logics. From machine-packed betting shops on London's high streets, to raffles at countryside churches, she offers a first-hand view of the dynamic -and sometimes vicious - interactions between the hunt for profit and punters' lives' -- Natasha D. Schull, author of 'Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas'


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