Chapter 40: The Sociology of Gambling

BO JASON BERNHARD & JAMES H. FREY

The sociology of gambling The size and scope of legalized gambling—to put aside its illegal manifestations for a moment—are simply mind-boggling. In America, for instance, more money is legally spent on gambling than is spent on movie tickets, theme parks, sports events, and music events combined (Morais 2002). Of course, sociologists have spent a substantial amount of productive research time examining the vast sociocultural impacts of Hollywood's movies, and the field has developed an impressively broad literature on the sociology of leisure and sport. Furthermore, sociologists of popular culture have studied the sociological reach of a music culture that today encompasses everything from Mozart to MTV. Meanwhile, the gambling industry now dwarfs these more familiar sociological subjects, at least in the economic sense. Gambling also constitutes a formidable political entity: As of this writing, 48 of the 50 U.S. states offer some form of legalized gambling (Utah and Hawaii stand ...

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