The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader: Communities, Cultures and Play

Description

Casino games and traditional card games have rich and idiosyncratic histories, complex subcultures and player practices, and facilitate the flow of billions of dollars each year through casinos and card rooms, and between professional players and amateurs. They have nevertheless been overlooked by game scholars due to the negative ethical weight of "gambling" - with such games pathologized and labelled as deviance or mental illness, few look beyond to unpick the games, their players, and their communities. The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader offers 25 chapters studying the communities playing these games, the distinctive cultures and practices that have emerged around them, their activities and beliefs and interpersonal relationships, and how these games influence - both positively and negatively - the lives and careers of millions of game players around the world. It is the first of a new series of edited collections, Play Beyond the Computer, dedicated to exploring the play of games beyond computers and games consoles.

Mark R Johnson is a Lecturer in Digital Cultures at the University of Sydney, Australia. His work is focused on video game live streaming on Twitch.tv, as well as esports and competitive gaming, gamblification and digital gambling, procedural content generation, and game design. He is also an independent game developer noted for the game Ultima Ratio Regum, and a regular games writer, blogger, and podcaster.

Mark Johnson has collected a valuable primer of identities, cultures, and interactions in game and gambling play in The Casino, Card and Betting Game Reader. This collection is a must-read for anyone curious about the role of money in ludic activities across time and space. * Brett Abarbanel, Director of Research, International Gaming Institute, University of Nevada - Las Vegas, USA * At a moment when "gamification" has become a marketing buzzword, this volume of essays is as illuminating as it is essential. The rich historical, socio-cultural and subcultural knowledge in this edited collection provides a genuinely new lens through which to understand enduring and diverse connections between games and money in spaces of everyday life. * Fiona Nicoll, author of Gambling in Everyday Life (2019) *