ABSTRACT
What has gambling got to do with everyday life?
This chapter begins by presenting a brief genealogy to contextualize the explosion of gambling industries over the last three decades in societies where neoliberalism has established and maintained political, economic, and cultural hegemony. I then introduce cultural theories of “everyday life” to explain gambling’s ambivalent status as simultaneously ordinary and exceptional. Simply put: gambling embeds unpredictable outcomes within everyday life for a price. While losing is the most likely outcome of the manufactured contingency offered by gambling products, moments, and spaces, the lure of large and small wins is nevertheless seductive, and gambling is an increasingly significant way through which social identities and values are articulated, embodied, and “played out.” The second part of the chapter develops the concept of “finopower” as a way to explain how proliferating intersections between gambling, finance, and gaming are organized and governed in national and transnational contexts.
