Gambling motivation and involvement: A review of social

RELEvancE tO pRObLEm GambLinG StudiES
Many historical studies show that excessive gambling is not a recent phenomenon.
Apart from that, they are of no direct relevance for contemporary research into problem
gambling. However, historical studies are of general interest to gambling scholars
since they show how gambling is woven into the social and cultural fabric of societies,
demonstrating a remarkable capacity to become adapted to ideological changes
and cultural trends. By looking at the past, we hopefully become better at predicting
the future. Historical studies also inspire researchers to think about variation and constants.
There are many things that are unique to gambling in specific social and historical
settings, but there are also some things that are fundamentally the same.
Cultural studies
The mode of gambling as a sign of the times is the theme not only in historical studies,
but also in some studies and treatises on contemporary gambling. These works
are quite diverse theoretically. Some could be classified as “cultural studies”, as the
term is used in a restricted sense in contemporary social science [387], while others
are more broadly studies of cultural aspects of contemporary gambling. These
works analyze contemporary gambling as a cultural phenomenon and assume that
contemporary society, “postmodern” society, or “risk society”, has specific qualities
that shape attitudes towards gambling and the social organization of gambling.
A much cited work in this vein is the book The Age of Chance: Gambling in Western
Culture by Gerda Reith [270]. The first half of the book deals with the cultural
history of gambling in Western societies while the second half is a cultural analysis
of contemporary gambling. As the title indicates, Reith claims that we have entered
the “Age of Chance”, which is also the age of post-modernity and risk society [388,
389]. In this age, gambling is argued to gain new and existential significance [270]:
In an Age of Chance, surrounded by a multitude of risks and existing precariously
in a general climate of ontological insecurity, the actions of the gambler have implications
for existence that extend far beyond the individual game being played. (p. 184)
While Reith’s book, as well as a few other texts on gambling [390], draw on the
notion of risk society, there are works that discuss gambling in post-modern consumer
society, characterized by the commerce in illusions, fabrication of identities,
and reliance on symbols rather than on facts [391–393]. Other authors have
explored the different attitudes towards gambling in consumer society as opposed to
industrial society without employing a discourse about post-modernity [66 ch.5 , 92,
394–396]. They note that gambling in industrial society conflicted with the ethos
of thrift, while gambling in the consumer society is assimilated as a consumption of
leisure; hence, the shift in moral attitude from condemning to accepting gambling.
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