Gambling and Gender

Book excerpt: There are two distinct strands in the literature on gambling: one that focuses on how to play and win the various games of chance and one that focuses on gambling compulsion and addiction. Gambling and Gender forges a new direction, studying gambling as more communication than compulsion, more recreation than deviance, more sociology than psychology. Within that framework it seeks to explore several aspects of gender: How do the gambling behaviors of men and women differ? How have women adapted to and/or changed the historically male dominance of the gambling arena? What gambling activities have women claimed as their own and used to develop uniquely female relationships? How have recent trends in technology and mass media changed the ways in which men and women claim - or reject - their gender identities? The authors use a variety of research strategies, including content analysis, survey research, interviews, and participative observation, to shed new light on this fascinating subject and to suggest ways to explore it further.