Anthropology of gambling: ethnographic research and analysis of public policies

Just in few years Italy has become the major legal gambling market in Europe. The economic crisis which hit the country at the end of the first decade of the new millennium has often been used by policy makers as a public justification for the legalization of different types of games, motivated just by the necessity of collecting new tax revenues in an emergency situation. At the same time there has been an increase in the number of gambling addicts. Consequently, if on the one hand the Italian state earns money, on the other expenses have to be met for the rehabilitation treatment of pathological gamblers inside SERDs (Social service agency for pathological addiction). The 450.000 slot machines installed inside bars, tobacconists and arcades have changed the aspect of some neighborhoods in Italian towns, where new actors have appeared: managers, arcade employees and gamblers. The latter ones, when gambling, detach themselves from the world and daily life by entering into the “machine zone” (Dow Shüll, 2012) behind the darkened windows of arcades because gambling, though enjoying a favorable legislation, is still socially partly stigmatized. This work is the result of research based on interviews to gamblers, and ethnographic observation in legal gambling places; it aims to reflect on the conflictual interaction between different discourses related to the role of the state in regulating issues regarding the ethic and economic spheres but also public health, above all in a period of economic crisis