Suchergebnisse

This work explores the legal and political history of bingo and how gender shapes, and is shaped by, gambling regulation. The author argues that bingo can provide new insight into three areas of political economy: more-than-capitalist' economies; the role of regulation in shaping those economies; and the gendered nature of that regulation.

A critique of how the World Bank encourages gender norms, Developing Partnerships argues that financial institutions are key players in the global enforcement of gender and family expectations. By combining analysis of documents produced and sponsored by the World Bank with interviews of World Bank staffers and case studies, Kate Bedford presents a detailed examination of gender and sexuality in the policies of the world's most influential development institution

The British government is introducing new regulatory measures to address gambling harm, including affordability checks on online players that rely on cross-operators data sharing. This article seeks to understand these measures, and their limits. Section 1 recaps what we already know about differentiated restrictions on access to gambling, including as manifest in recent state-industry efforts to deploy online gambling technologies to identify and preempt gambling harm. Section 2 summarises agreed and proposed changes to British online gambling regulation since 2019, focusing in depth on affordability checks for players and the related imperative to develop a 'single customer view' of play. Section 3 outlines two grounds for concern about the measures, rooted in the industry's enthusiasm for affordability checks, and ii. the implications for groups of customers who may already be disadvantaged and hyper-surveilled. I raise these concerns in an attempt to identify a way out of an impasse, such that urgent concerns about gambling harm do not translate so readily into regulatory efforts to differentially restrict access to ever-expanding groups of adults considered vulnerable.

-

I am currently conducting a multi-country comparative research project on bingo regulation in both commercial and charitable contexts. Charitable gaming is remarkably under-studied, even though in many jurisdictions it is the most widespread form of legalized gambling. In the project overall I argue that it not only provides a distinctive lens through which to theorize gambling liberalization and political economy, but it is also key to exploring (and critiquing) the increasing emphasis on voluntarism in reconstituted welfare states. In this paper specifically I explore how volutneers in charitable bingo halls are impacted by bingo revitalization efforts undertaken in Ontario and Alberta (Canada). I focus on how charities and government officials try to manage the tension between regulating and incentivizing the unpaid workers whose labour sustains the game. I explore two efforts undertaken to resolve this tension, via a volunteer credit scheme (in Alberta), and a scheme to professionalize the volunteer role (in Ontario). In both cases, efforts to revitalize charitable bingo have involved increased scrutiny of volunteers, alongside initiatives designed to maximize the value of volunteer labour to charities and provincial governments. These initiatives have failed to protect people who need charitable services from being coerced into working for free. Both initiatives have also reduced volunteer autonomy, and increased the class distance between bingo volunteers and players. I conclude with some lessons that bingo might hold for those interested in voluntarism and the feminist political economy of charitable labour.

This article explores the gendered nature of gambling promotion as a modality of economic regeneration in the aftermath of the Gambling Act 2005. Using an exploratory case study of a district council licensing board, I examine how the gambling forms that reflect women's gambling cultures are faring under the current legal environment, focusing on the apparent contrast between casino promotion and bingo neglect. I ask what this reveals about the intertwining of legal reform, gender, and perceptions of worthwhile risk-taking in attempts to promote local development. In particular I probe the discrepancy between the state's legal regime (more restrictive of casinos than bingo halls) and local actors' regeneration ambitions (centred on casinos). In this way I examine what local legal actors 'see' as being legally and economically necessary or possible as they encounter a new legislative landscape around gambling.