Is Gambling a form of control of the classes within culture?

Gambling within many countries has become part of popular culture with more than 90 countries which have legalised it (Lesieur & Rosenthal, 1991), Gambling can be related to many different parts culture (Raylu & Oei, 2002) suggested that many studies have highlighted the fact socioeconomic status, employment, marital status, gender and age may all be linked to gambling and problem gambling the rates have been found to vary between different locations this applies to cities and even countries. There have been several media reports of Asians gambling at casinos (Courtenay, 1996; Jarrett, 1995; Kim, 1996; Legge, 1992). However there has been no substantial evidence suggesting that this is the case. The rationale behind this research is I have had an interest in gambling ever since I became a where of what it was. As I grew older I noticed lots of peoples involvement with horses this lead me on to horse racing. My first question is why do people decide to start betting on horse racing. Once viewing the grand national through media coverage and newspapers it opened up many doors into the gambling culture as a whole. Football games become not merely a sport that amateurs and professional play but they are categorised by their betting odds and are used to generate revenue. With televised poker it was clear to me gambling was everywhere and everyone had some exposure to it. There are many different theories which involve mass culture, this research will look at the key themes behind the Frankfurt school and that of Gramsci, and these two theories share some common ground but are independently linked when looking at the gambling across the class system. The picture to the left is a historical view of the bookies, it shows male domination and the transition of the classes the book maker is represented in a lighter grey suit showing his wealth compared the boys to the left which represent the working class, it also shows a Darwinist evolution where the public are slowing becoming more middle class ??? The picture to the left is a modern day bookies, this picture shows that gambling is still male orientated but comparing the two shows how less personal interaction take place between the better and the bookmaker.

Discussion of key themes (Strinati,d 1995), suggest that popular culture starts off in mass society. mass society is described as the disruptive consequences of industrialization and urbanisation. large scale industrial work and high city population are what is argued to destroy societies and their values which were previously held . He also describes this theory as like atoms in a compound this resulting in people becoming more isolated and losing sense of social identity and moral certainty. Mass culture is present here because it links people to fake moralities this is because people are much more open to mass media influence and popular culture, form this people become far removed from individual taste and place value in what (Strinati,d1995) describes as trivial culture. This mass culture then develops by its nature into popular culture. This found culture then gets held up by mass production resulting in indivualism being lost to a sea of consumerism The Frankfurt school uses the term commodity of fetishism this is where the product is not judged on its merit but the relative market value . (Adorno 1991) wrote that 'the real secret of success is the mere reflection of what one pays in the market for the product' this is reflected massively within all aspects of the gambling culture the reasons for this is the more the wager on an certain outcomes carries a certain risk which in turn give the wages an added value , so the consumer is given the value towards their self prediction that they are correct by the amount they stake even if they are wrong and lose a bet the consumer is still valuing how much they were willing to stake. (Adorno 1991) suggests that money and the price of the goods creates the restraints and controls of the social relations in a capitalist society whereby people are willing to consume because they are in control of the production of goods keeping them consuming certain products which again affects their individuality. The Frankfurt school describe a cultural industry "consolidation of commodity fetishism, the domination of exchange value and the ascendancy of the state monopoly ,this is suggesting that the need to consume items that people value in money, rather than other values which creates false needs of the consumer. (Adorno1991) suggests that culture is something which is forced upon the masses, and this in turn makes them prepared to welcome it insofar as they dont not realise it as an imposition (Adrono1991) describes this as 'products which are tailored for consumption by masses and which to a great extent determine the nature of that consumption are manufactured more or less according to plan. the culture industry intentionally integrates it consumers from above This implies that the more products are actually standardized the more appealing it becomes to the individual and results an even bigger mass culture Hegemony is a theory that is disgust by Gramsci .He defines hegemony as cultural and ideological means whereby the dominant groups in society including fundamentally but not

exclusively the ruling class maintain their dominance by securing the spontaneous consent of subordinate groups , including the working class. Gramisci idea is that the one class had influenced the other classes to in applying their morals politics and cultural values, this infiltration can be done without much peruse and can slowly filter though. Also it is used to describe the social control one group has over another , this is described as consensual control , this suggests that any part of culture is a result of harmony. Gramsci ideas contradict the traditional Marxist view because they are not applied with force , this results in the one of the groups accepting the ideas of another , Gramsci see this as one part of social control which has arisen out of social conflict , he suggest that it is not directly appointed by capitalists rather it is occurs to shape class and other social conflicts. Hegemony exists and works because it realise on giving concessions to the subordinate groups which do not pose a threat to overall control. Gramsci work carries on to suggest that the power get there because of their domination of the economic market once the group has control over this it can flood the market with products and social norms. These eventually get absorbed by the other groups within the society. Gramsci believes that popular culture and mass media result in hegemony being produced reproduced and transformed, they are institutions of civil society which involve culture production and consumption. Methods The research in this portfolio has come from a wide range of material and sources , the reason such a broad net has been cast is to insure that each aspect of the gambling culture can be assessed in on its own and part of a collective Firstly this study uses secondary data , using secondary data has it draw backs because it has already been collected and represented in a way that has been tailored to fit a given purpose that may be different from this study. However most of the data represented within this study has come from publications and these are checked for consistency before publication The second will be visual data which is presented by the media or the companies themselves , this will be collected by taking stills of images that have been watched on television or viewed on the internet , images like this are freely available and people are encouraged to engage with them , using images will allow for in-depth analysis of the messages that are conveying , the use of images usually accompanied by sound allow the advertising company to engage with the viewer in a completely different way. Thirdly will be using participant observation , this is the other side of the coin to the adverts(possibly not needed), this information is collected to find out whether what the adverts are suggesting and their message actually ring true within a given situation . Using three different methods like this enables this study to create assumptions of the state of gambling and how it is evolving.

The media influence within the world of gambling is huge , This section has managed to find , Day time Bingo adverts , Evening lottery adverts , Half time betting adverts on a football game , Late night on line gambling adverts, and poker advertising , these however are very similar in their message but are conveyed to complete different audiences because of their time of day. The biggest one of these is the grand national , the iconic event in which the horse chance of winning are predicted in number completely generated by the gambling companies. The participant observation of the race and the casino brought back very different results , The horse racing had very clear class divisions within the building , this is strengthened by the TV coverage like the grand national because although out at the races you can see the people who are dressed more smartly they are usually the ones in the enclosures and not representative of the majority of people who go to gamble.

The three picture here are all part of the media representation of gambling. the left picture is a online bingo site this advert is taken from day time T.V , it is aimed clearly at women with pink colours and a glamourous woman on , this fox speaks to the audience and its accent is northern , the north is seen to be much more working class than the south and by having a character with an accent is clearly aimed at the working and lower middle class , the nature of these adverts suggest that it is aimed at stay at home moms, this is based on the assumption that women looking after children have free time in the day and this persuades them to gamble. Picture two is completely different , this is from a late night add which is most definitely aimed at men , the powerful, emotive language High Stakes is meant to appeal to men , this advert uses strong short sentences appealing for men to challenge it , suggesting they can be the next pro poker player and lead the high life. Picture three however is aimed at the working class man , this advert appears in the breaks between the football matches it uses the colour green which is associated with football and a lot of beer companies , this advert is powerful because it places suggestions that you can understand football better than somebody else and reassures that if you know information about a team and how they will perform you should place money on that outcome. The participant observation at the casino brought back very different results , there didnt seem to be a class divide at all , in fact most of the people within the casino had regional accent suggesting they do not attract a wider range of people , most people within this

particular casino were dressed casual smart with many of the men having their shirt unbuttoned , and jeans and trainers , reading across other sets of observations it is very clear that the people who pay a cheaper entry price into the race and the people within the casino shared a very similar dress sense which would suggest that the majority of these people were within the working class bracket. Also these people shared very similar attitudes and used similar style of language e.g using a lot of slang and swearing. The secondary data within this research adds to the view that there are class divides within the culture of gamling. (Cassy E 2004), found data regarding the national lottery , she describes this as a brutal exploitation on of the working class and suggest that it is there only way out of a controlling society, classing it as an extra from of taxation selling false ideals to the working class, she also presented the idea that the working class seemed to be frowned upon by the middle class society and the lottery offers a way out of this class restraint. Secondary research also seems to uncover more reasons why gambling has devolved (McKibbin,R,1982) This is notably true in the United States, where rapid com- mercial expansion and industrial develop- ment conspire to spur the individual to eco- nomic success through sharp competitive practice, and where industrial expansion has depended to a considerable degree upon pre- carious and speculative enterprise. This research allows us to suggest that the rapid expansion due to capitalism has enabled gambling to flourish because the nature to gamble is to gain capital.

(McKibbin,R,1982)suggested that "until recently gambling in England was almost exclusively the sport of the wealthy, but now it has through the instrumentality of horseracing become a popular passion" This quote from an old source is suggesting that it was the practice of the elite that first brought gambling into to spot light and enabled it to filter down , this could suggest that manual jobs around working with horses gave the working class accesses to such a sport this is again proven to be true from the media evidence mentioned earlier.

The participant observation of the horse racing sees large groups of the public collect at a social location to bet on their horse , the first point that seemed to be very obvious to the eye was that of dress code , there were 4 levels within the grand stand , these were deemed by ticket price , however the view of the race changed between the locations , there was nothing that changed within the betting principles which enabled a distinction to be made in that respect , this correlates with adorns principle that value is placed on the ticket price rather than on the event its self , the logic behind this relates back to Marxist principle of that in a consumer society there is a state of unrest , where by the people at the bottom could be over throw the people at the top , not only was this observed by physical structure of the building but by the fact that it gave the people on the bottom a change to predict the right outcome of the race , this in turn enables then to achieve a money bonus and in some respect move them up the capitalist social status ladder , the winner of the race have achieved a money reward for being better than their peers.

Seen from this observation and that of bbc grand national coverage on the t.v, links are drawn to Grasmic theory, this is explained by looking at the betting markets. His theory suggests that influence is moved from one group and the Frankfurt school suggest that consumption is controlled from above. Well within the betting market as soon as money started flocking towards a horse the odds get dropped in price. This is a direct control from above resulting in the other classes or the lower classes gaining less reward for their stake. The secondary source overall fit very well to bother models of popular culture tendency of the working class to adopt the patterns of consumption of the middle class this quote is directly backing Gramscis theory of hegemony , it shows a direct infiltration on one group or class influence to another. Within the gambling culture it is clear to see that it has deep roots within popular culture , it was made through the class confines and now has become a driving force all on its own. With technological advancements it is becoming even easier for people to involve themselves within some form of gambling, due to increased accessibility i.e. smart phones, wifi etc. The media is playing a huge part in its expansion and with the continued spread of the internet to more corners of the globe it will enable this culture to spread more rapidly throughout the world. These Theories are really well supported by the evidence found within this study however gambling circle are some one of a closed circle and when you talk about gambling and gamblers you have to address it from such a wide angle because within these culture there is a point where gambling becomes problem gambling and this is where gambling splits and it becomes a different topic altogether. Future research should focus on this diving point because then neo-marxist theory of the damage to societies can be examined

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