Larry Saha Room, HA2175 Haydon Allen Building (22), The Australian National University
Speaker: Elizabeth (Ellie) Kirk, PhD Candidate, ANU

Abstract

Gambling is a significant part of many Australian communities. Recent political debate has explored the role of poker machines (pokies) in problem gambling. This debate, however, has not fully explored what gambling, particularly gambling in clubs, means to the people who do it recreationally and regularly: why do they gamble, what does gambling in a club mean, what is the context in which gambling occurs, and what do patrons get out of a visit to the club? This thesis explores these questions through an ethnography of two Canberra social clubs.

The findings of this thesis expose the complex, and often contradictory, experience of gambling in social clubs. Clubs were a ‘third place’ where informal community connections were fostered, and where people experienced a variety of sociable encounters. Playing the pokies in clubs was about more than gambling: pokies offered an entry into social interaction. Paradoxically, however, pokies were also used as a means of avoiding unwanted social contact. Pokies were used by different club patrons in different ways to shape their experience of a trip to the club.

Gambling behavior was governed by a series of norms reinforced by other club patrons. These norms were strongly gendered: group reinforcement, for young men, encouraged high risk gambling behavior. For older women, group reinforcement largely promoted responsible gambling behavior, such as setting and sticking to limits.

Gamblers were also observed to demonstrate a degree of agency in their gambling behavior. Gamblers frequently demonstrated, in their interactions with gambling machines and one another, an understanding of risk, and conveyed the impression that they were, to some degree, attempting to manage odds.

The broader implications of these findings are that gambling needs to be reframed to acknowledge the complex context in which it occurs. Gamblers operate in a network of meanings and beliefs about their gambling behavior: a network that is framed by a cultural context of stigma around particular types of gambling.