Gambling

Bibliographic Data

ID4525656
AuthorsA J Pickles (0000-0001-7524-602X, University of Cambridge, corresponding author), Anthony Pickles (0000-0003-1283-0346)
EditorsFelix Stein, Matei Candea, Hildegard Diemberger (0009-0004-7655-6520), Sian Lazar (0000-0002-0056-6333), Joel Robbins, Andrew Sanchez (0000-0001-8660-7505), Rupert Stasch
Year2016
Publication date2016-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueOpen Encyclopedia of Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2398-516X • E-ISSN: 2398-516X
PublisherCambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.29164/16gambling
OpenAlexW4248767949
LanguageEN
References cited17

Gambling occurs when a person commits one or more valuable items (a ‘stake’) to an event or series of events packaged together, and where the result determines a loss or win at a rate agreed before the final stake is committed. The practice is or was not present everywhere and is often marginal in a given society, and some gambling variations escape the boundaries of this definition. Some include financial speculation within the phenomenon of gambling, but I do not cover that literature here. Anthropology has made valuable but often overlooked contributions to the study of gambling based on both comparative examples drawn from small-scale societies and marginalised peoples and by engaging critically with the gambling industry and concepts drawn from policy-oriented disciplines such as psychology, criminology, sociology, microeconomics, statistics, and the health sciences. In this entry four pioneering anthropological studies of gambling are summarised and compared. I then review current regional and thematic trends in the anthropology of gambling. Thereafter I review the anthropology of the gambling industry itself and the relationship of both to other disciplinary perspectives on gambling. I delineate some causes for the two-decade-long surge in the anthropology of gambling, and lastly suggest that the field has become rich enough to support new and original syntheses that would significantly enhance ‘gambling studies’

Discipline · Economics · Epistemology · Geography · Phenomenon · Positive economics · Social science · Sociology · Speculation · Gambling Behavior and Treatments · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics · Romani and Gypsy Studies

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Open DOIOpen Access