ABSTRACT

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the emerging global trends in casino development and in the process to attempt to understand the complex relationship between political, economic and cultural domains in this contemporary social trend. Two interrelated themes are developed. First, the period since the 1970s has been an age of extraordinary change in all realms of human activity, including gambling. The post-war mixed economy has undergone significant transformations with the strengthening of commercial and financial linkages across different regions of the globe (Emy 1993; Strange 1986; Stubbs and Underhill 1994). National authorities are losing control of domestic economies as they are subsumed by global markets. This process of globalisation has been a common denominator in the rapid expansion and transformation of commercial gambling in Europe, the Americas, Australasia, Africa and the former east European communist bloc. Technological innovation, the emergence of international financial markets, and growth in mass tourism and leisure industries have all contributed to the development of new, transnational forms of gambling and the commercialisation of existing gambling traditions. Business and political leaders in all parts of the globe are embracing gambling policies which would have been anathema to governments and the community alike a decade ago.