Gambling motivation and involvement: A review of social

[366], female gamesters in 1790s Britain [367], black Americans in Chicago from
1900 to 1940 [368], and among Venetian noblemen in the 16th and 17th centuries
[369]. Some literary studies have much the same aim: to give a picture of gambling
practices and attitudes towards gambling in a certain historical setting, by the reading
of works of fiction of that time [265, 370–376].
As is evident from the above list of historical works and their topics, to describe
even their main findings and discussions would require too much space. In general,
however, by providing historical, social and cultural context, good historical
works offer an understanding of why gambling was practiced in a certain way, and
why it had its distinctive mood and organization. The viewing in retrospect, over
the passage of time, of events and ways of life often reveals essential features and
significances that people of the time themselves could not clearly see because of the
myopia of contemporaneity.
Furthermore, there are studies that describe and analyze gambling and changing
attitudes to gambling over long periods of time, i.e. decades and centuries [63,
209, 377–381]. A few works suggest that gambling in the USA follows cycles of
acceptance and disapproval [67, 382–384]. A period of liberalization and increased
gambling among the population reaches a climax of excess, causing a backlash of
disapproval and restrictions of gambling opportunities. People gamble less, but then
the passion for gambling intensifies again, the cycle is completed, and the process
repeats itself. Such a cyclical pattern is discernible also in Europe [352]. These gambling
cycles call to mind stock market bubbles, which occur with certain regularity
and are followed by periods when a sober and relatively risk-conscious attitude to
stock investments predominates.
A general observation in many historical works, as well as in ethnographic and
other texts on gambling in particular societies, is that the extent and mode of gambling
reflects the character of that society and the cultural climate of the time [87,
91, 385]. As Roger Caillois states [68]: “It is not absurd to try diagnosing a civilization
in terms of the games that are especially popular there” (p. 83). Thus, for
instance, gambling in the USA has been found to reflect the frontier mentality of the
19th century American West [386], the mode of male casino playing in Latin America
to reflect the cultural value of machismo [91], and gambling among Venetian
noblemen in the 16th and 17th centuries to mirror a duality of commercial heritage
and feudal military culture [369].
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