ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on National Lottery play as it understood as mundane consumer activity. It describes use of a range of data, namely fifteen in-depth interviews with working-class, low income women living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and south east London, debates and social commentary on the National Lottery. The chapter focuses on the broadsheet and tabloid press, and other existing literature, taken from what currently stands for the sociology of gambling. It examines the lottery, class and moral economies. It explores further into the precise experiences of lottery play; it draws on postmodern accounts of consumerism, such as Featherstone's broadening of the concept of consumption so that it is more closely related to identity formation. The chapter shows how the experience of lottery purchase extends beyond the thing itself that is purchased. It also examines the concept of respectability into 3 main facets, namely family time, money management, and irresponsible others. It separates women from the reality of their domestic constraints.
