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Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas. By Natasha Dow Schüll. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012. Pp. xiv+442. $35.00.
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Reith, Gerda |
| Copyright Year | 2013 |
| Abstract | Gambling, particularly machine gambling, invokes key concerns in sociological thought, and in the beautifully crafted ethnography Addiction by Design, Natasha Dow Schüll takes us on a journey from the inner life of gamblers to the broader social climate that they play in, using rich narrative accounts of their experiences, interwoven with sharp theoretical insights, to locate addiction within the structures and practices of late capitalist societies. The gambling industry has increased exponentially in size and power in recent years, with global corporations driving technologically innovative games that steadily colonize new markets within the United States and Asia, generating profits that are increasingly influential sources of revenue for states. Gambling machines are central to this global advance and account for some 85% of industry profit. Against this backdrop, Schüll begins the book with a striking spatial image: a road map designed by Mollie, a machine gambler, to illustrate the circuits of influence gambling has on her life, or the “experiential landscape” of gambling. Schüll uses the map as a conceptual tool to take us on an ethnographic tour de force of the gambling spaces of Las Vegas: casinos and strip malls, recovery groups and drugstores, academic conference halls and industry seminars. During our exploration, we meet many players like Mollie, whose “machine lives” are captivated by “the zone”: an affective, trance-like state in which time, space, and even the value of money dissolves in intense play. In the zone, winning is reduced to an unwelcome distraction while continuous play becomes an end in itself. Through the deceptively simple technique of moving outward from the interior workings of machines, into the ergonomics and design of gambling environments, and finally into the bodies and minds of the players sitting in front of them, Schüll builds up a compelling narrative that links the phenomenological experience of play with the wider structures of conAmerican Journal of Sociology |
| Starting Page | 838 |
| Ending Page | 840 |
| Page Count | 3 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| DOI | 10.1086/672948 |
| Volume Number | 119 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.natashadowschull.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/book1review-AmJnlSoc-Reith.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1086/672948 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
