ABSTRACT
The Sociology of Risk and Gambling Reader is a contribution to the sociological study of risk and gambling, a response to the variety of gambling forms found in North America and in other countries, which calls for more sustained sociological research. e reader collects an array of interpretations and methods of analysis, motivated by a sociological interest in understanding gambling as both subjective experience and cultural activity, which in its ocial legalized forms, requires particular forms of state regulation and governance. It also adds to the sociological conversation about gambling by linking recent developments in sociological theory, such as the sociology of risk, “risk society,” and governmentality perspectives, with contemporary gambling enterprises. While legalized gambling is oen represented now in terms of the “leisure” activity of individuals, such a focus tends to neglect the larger questions concerning the social organization of gambling, which must be considered in relation to political, economic, and globalizing processes (McMillen 1996, 2003). e orientation of the reader is primarily sociological, with some selections from history, cultural theory, and journalism.
