The Land of Labor and Luck
Adrian
The Labor of Luck
Gambling is the world’s second oldest industry, but in the past has been viewed in a condemning nature. Many have viewed it as immoral and destructive. The government, taking the middle ground labels it as a vice, but will allow small-scale monopolies to non-profit organizations. These constituents have conditions that state that revenues must be used for good causes and they must not over stimulate demand. (15) Commercial casinos that were first permitted, while heavily regulated to protect citizens, only allowed the wealthy to be patrons. Erving Goffman was a comparitivist, who tried to discover what is general to the human condition and a sociologist that worked behind the tables in casinos. In his early life, Goffman scrubbed dishes at Scottish hotels and observed service station attendants and interned at an asylum for mentally ill patients. Goffman was an ethnographer at the University of Chicago in the 1950’s and is remembered as an innovative social theorist that observed social life. He believed that an institution could remake someone’s identity if that said person was closed off from the world around it. After receiving a professorship at the University of California, Goffman began studying casino. He observed “the pits” and played the game of blackjack. He frequently talked with a Mathematician named Ed Thorp, who developed the technique of card counting, which can favor the client. Goffman was eventually kicked out of many casinos for using this technique; he was winning too consistently. Soon he discovered that the casino was a world of itself and gamblers developed meaning from this world. Goffman said that the casino floor was a social microcosm and that games are played out that represent character and meaning. Personally experiencing subjectively, the meaning and the material reality, Goffman shared his thoughts on casinos. Sallaz, like Goffman would work as a groupier and retraced Goffman’s footsteps.
The Labor of Luck
Gambling is the world’s second oldest industry, but in the past has been viewed in a condemning nature. Many have viewed it as immoral and destructive. The government, taking the middle ground labels it as a vice, but will allow small-scale monopolies to non-profit organizations. These constituents have conditions that state that revenues must be used for good causes and they must not over stimulate demand. (15) Commercial casinos that were first permitted, while heavily regulated to protect citizens, only allowed the wealthy to be patrons. Erving Goffman was a comparitivist, who tried to discover what is general to the human condition and a sociologist that worked behind the tables in casinos. In his early life, Goffman scrubbed dishes at Scottish hotels and observed service station attendants and interned at an asylum for mentally ill patients. Goffman was an ethnographer at the University of Chicago in the 1950’s and is remembered as an innovative social theorist that observed social life. He believed that an institution could remake someone’s identity if that said person was closed off from the world around it. After receiving a professorship at the University of California, Goffman began studying casino. He observed “the pits” and played the game of blackjack. He frequently talked with a Mathematician named Ed Thorp, who developed the technique of card counting, which can favor the client. Goffman was eventually kicked out of many casinos for using this technique; he was winning too consistently. Soon he discovered that the casino was a world of itself and gamblers developed meaning from this world. Goffman said that the casino floor was a social microcosm and that games are played out that represent character and meaning. Personally experiencing subjectively, the meaning and the material reality, Goffman shared his thoughts on casinos. Sallaz, like Goffman would work as a groupier and retraced Goffman’s footsteps.