Today’s Agenda
Experience of Play PPT
Video
The Experience of Play
The Experience of Play
 Reith brings our attention to the
fact that our experiences of
“something” arise from our
perceptions.
 These perceptions are mediated
by consciouness, thus allowing
many worlds of consciouness to
pervade human experience.
 Hence, each gambler will
perceive himself/herself in many
ways which is mediated by the
gambling arena and the idea of
play itself.
The Experience of Play
 In essence, the author wants us to look at gambling
as having its own mode of “being.”
 In this sense, we need to delve into the subjective
states of the gambler.
 Ultimately, Reith wants us to see gambling through
the eyes of those who have been gamblers and try to
interpret gambling through their mode of
conceptualizing gaming and how this relates to their
“being in the world.”
Theme One: Excitement
Adventure – Dream State
 For some gamblers entering into the gambling arena temporarily
allows them to (consciously/unconsciously) step out of the real
world.
 This has been termed
• Dissociation
• Trance phenomena
• Pathological dreaming
Enter Dostoevsky “The Gambler”
 Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote
one of the first
phenomenlogical novels
about gambling.
 The novel reflects
Dostoevsky's own addiction
to roulette, which was in
more ways than one the
inspiration for the book.
 Dostoevsky completed the
novel under a strict deadline
so he could pay off gambling
debts.
Dostoevsky and the Dream State
 Speaking about the dream state Dostoevsky
remarks:
“ I lost track of the amount and order of my
stakes. I only remember as if in a dream”
Trance States
 Other gambler’s report the dream state as being like this:

It became something else that I can’t really explain. It wasn’t even
winning, like, well it was, I don’t know, I really don’t know how to
explain that to you. It was winning and also having that space.
That space, Yeah very peaceful. Yeah, but I would also think about
those problems. . . But they didn’t bother me. But if I was at work
and if I thought about my life problems, I was just, I made it worse.
Because I wasn’t enjoying myself at work and I would get doubled
depressed. When I had that clear sense on that machine I could
think how of ways to change those things. Eventually I came home
from the rigs and I went to the gambling machines and I couldn’t
afford my rent. So it wasn’t that peaceful after awhile, cause it was
wrecking my life, so that peaceful place was so still peaceful, but it
wasn’t, I don’t know it is weird, it’s very hard to explain.
Trance States
 Another gambler had this to say about his
trance state:

I think it was more, it was like, it was unreal. Like I was okay, I
was stepping outside my own body and I was watching myself
walk into this bar, and I’m watching myself throw money in this
machine. And it’s like, it’s not really happening, right. It was, I
don’t know how you would actually describe something like that. I
was actually down here in the safe-way parking lot. Because we
were living just down on ah, off of thirteen street and eighth
avenue. So I was down there, just walking up from the grocery
store, and ended up instead of walking to the grocery store I
walked into the bar and threw money into the machines. It was
like, I zoned out there for a second. It was like I partitioned my
mind. One part of my mind said, “I can’t believe I’m doing this”,
and the other part, “Doesn’t really give a shit, and I going to go
do it anyway, right.”
Thrill of the Play
 One of the most striking aspects of the experience of
gambling is the tension or “thrill” of the game.
 The apex of the gambling experience is the moment
when excitement peaks and gamblers are gripped by
the fever of play, playing on and on, oblivious to their
surroundings, to their losses, to the passage of time.
 In this state, the gambler becomes a creature of
sensation; seeing, but not really being aware of their
surroundings; perceiving, but not truly cognizant of
what is going on.
Phenomenological experiences of the
“thrill’.
 And when we were down in Reno, they had been down their
before and they would drop me off at one of the casino’s and
go shopping and not come back for five or six hours. It was
fascinating, because I mean, cause when you did win it would
come out, and you put it right back in. So the first day they
dropped me off about four o-clock and they didn’t pick me up
until midnight. And I had pots and pots of money but I didn’t
want to cash them in, I wanted to take them back to the hotel.
It was a real high I’m telling you. You get excited that you get
that amount of money and the adrenaline in there and you get
back to the hotel and you can’t get to sleep cause those
machines are right there, you just want to play them. But my
friends wanted to go to sleep, but I was all jazzed up, I wanted
to play, I wasn’t going to go and sleep.
Phenomenological experiences of the
“thrill’.
 Just constantly playing and when you run out of money, well
then I didn’t want to go home before he went to bed or before
he went to work, so I would stay out until then, then come
home then, many times slept in the car just so I wouldn’t have
to face him. It was, I did that many, many nights. I just had
such an overwhelming feeling that I was going to win it big,
which I did at different times, I mean large amounts, one
night at the El’ Rancho, I won twenty-two-hundred dollars and
then I stayed at a motel and hid the money under the mattress
and I was back there first thing in the morning. I mean it was,
it was the action and it was about the rush. So my mind was
total preoccupied even when I was at home, how you were
going to get money to go back there the next day, so as far as
why I played, it was a combination of things.
The Alteration of Identity
 The third quality of play inherent to gambling and
more specifically is the altering of identity through
game playing.
 This gambling identity is one in which the everyday
self is left behind and another persona, is adopted.
 In this way gambling provides the opportunity to
present an idealized identity to oneself and others.
 Here the gambler can affirm their self-worth and
makes gambling a site in which one’s existence cam
be confirmed.
Phenomenological experiences of altering
one’s identity
• It’s really all about identity. You know what,
when I have money in my pocket, I’m the
greatest looking guy there is, I don’t care what
people think about me. But when I’m in a bit of
bind, I am opening doors for people, and if I
won. . . I would go into the lounge and brag
about it. I would go, ‘I just won five grand!’
And the ladies would go, ‘Really!’ It worked for
them. . . I would buy drinks and then after they
would go home and the best looking guy would
be sitting there alone again. But, I would wake
up with 2,500 [dollars] in my pocket, and go
gamble again.
Phenomenological experiences of altering
one’s identity
 We played roulette for a couple of hours and then I was consistently back
there, bringing my friends back there. And we would go every weekend.
This might sound really bad, butI have to tell you. Good looking blonde
girls, you know, playing the scene. And having a great time, wearing the
clothes, playing the part, like a big shot, this sounds really bad, cause I’m
not really like that anymore, but I look back, oh I was such a bitch. I was
playing the role, I was, ah, oh yeah, I was getting a name, I ended up
getting a name, I was the roulette Queen. Because there were some points,
because I won so much money at roulette that people could not believe it.
It was like who wants to marry a millionaire. I could have been you know,
I could have been throwing money up in the air going holy shit. I won six
thousand three hundred one night. You know it pushed away the old
image I had in my head, you know. A little bit more insight here,
insecurity. I was always told by my mother, and I don’t think I’m an ugly
person, but I was always told by my mother that I was built like a brick
shit house. That I was never going to amount to anything, so all of those
things added up. To give me the, I needed to re-invent myself and being
the roulette queen made me feel like I was somebody.
Boredom
 Stepping outside the gambling arena, players find the
world unutterably dull in comparison to the one they
have just left.
 Seeking a release from monotony, gamblers plunge
into the tension of the game, only to come face to
face with the everyday world and all its attendant
tedium when they remerge from play.
Phenomenology of Boredom
 One gambler stated:
Well at home my husband was always working and then
he goes to sleep earlier and I was bored. So I started to
go to bingo and then I found that it was boring after a
couple years and then I started to play VLT’s. Let me
tell you their fast money, Oooo, yeah, and then I guess I
wasn’t bored anymore. . . But a few years later, I had
some big problems.
Repetition
 Because of gambling fleeting nature, especially
VLT’s, there is a vacillation between excitement and
boredom, making repetition an intrinsic feature with
respect to games of chance.
 Hence, the gambler can be said to play in order to
experience the tension and expectation of a game.
 But because it is over almost as soon as it begins, it
must be repeated continually.
Repetition
 The renown cultural
theorist and
philosopher, Jean
Baudrillard had this to
say about repetition:

The desire to know the
result of the next round,
to put one’s fate to the
test once more entices
the gambler to play on,
and so creates ‘the
vertigo of seduction.”
Phenomenology of Repetition
 One gambler describes repetition in this way:
 I had one trip to Vegas. I stayed up, I remember being sober up
to my elbows, I played the machines all night. Way after my
husband went to bed, like I played them all night. I didn’t
remember winning or losing, I had so much money I didn’t care.
I was doing great! Other than the fact I was a raving addict!
(laughing). Yup, I, everything was tense for me, everything, my
life was always on full speed. I just played and played, just
waiting for the big hit and then you would win and they you
would wait for the next hit. Oh yeah, it was a real zinger.
Categories of Play
 In the arena of play/gambling we are led
to the conclusion that inner and outer
experience undergo a transformation.
 The first transformation or transmutation
is time.
 Time can be said to have an active and
affective components.
TIME
 We all have experienced
the quickening and slowing
of time.
 For the gambler the
perception of time is a
constant repetition of a
fleeting present.
 The field of gamblers’
attention is defined by the
unfolding event on which
they have their stake.
Time
 Hence, in an instant, the uncertain becomes
known; the future becomes the present.
 In this frozen instance, in which the gambler
lives only for the moment, time has lost its
articulation.
 In this place, time can be said to be a
gamblers “narcotic.”
Phenomenology of a gamblers time.
 I went to a ringette tournament with my daughter; it was
over at ten o-o’clock. Her equipment was in the trunk of
my Supra. We had to two vehicles; I said, ‘Al, drive her
home I have got to do something.’ Well I went right to
the **** ****, right at ten o’clock when the lights go on,
and she had another game at one-thirty. Well, he shows
up at the **** **** just after her game started, his face is
all red. I hid my car up the alley so he wouldn’t find it,
and he said, ‘Your kid is standing outside the *****
crying, because her mother is off gambling somewhere
and you got her equipment.’ Well, I remember sitting
back being pissed off, ‘get out of here.’ I felt little bit
guilty, but, here’s the keys, get lost. I did care, but not
enough to get off my machine until 3:00 in the morning.
By that time nothing could tear me away. I don’t know if
it would have mattered if one of them would have been
hit by a car.
Time (contd).
 The constant cycle of the ever-same implies a cycle
of no real change.
 Nothing occurs to distinguish one night the casino,
one day at the bookmakers, from anything.
 In the end, the gambling arena can close players off
from the outside world and from themselves.
 Thus, they are frozen in the present, but without any
no real change, one is led into an empty hell.
Phenomenology of a empty hell.
 It was all the game! It really didn’t matter who was
around, or what was around me I really didn’t (pause)
care. I would go out gambling and all I cared about was
the gambling. It was just about the game. If I would just
kept on playing the game forever, as in, because its
unlike anything I have tried, alcohol, you to still have
your emotions when you smoke pot, when your
gambling you have nothing but the game. The game
completely um, is everything, like it’s, it’s, the world
completely revolves around the game and your really
not thinking about anything except for the gambling
itself, and it’s the life to be in, right.
Money
 According to Reith, most
gamblers do not in fact,
usually play to win.
 She suggests that most play
to simply experience the
excitement of the game or to
have an indefinite
continuation of play.
 Despite this premise, Reith
holds that the presence of
money in play is
nevertheless important.
The phenomenology of money and
the gambler
 It had nothing to do with the money, absolutely
nothing to do with the money, accept with having to
deal with all my creditors, because at that point
money wasn’t even real. The money you put into
the VLT’S wasn’t real, the credits weren’t real, the
money you get back isn’t real, none of that is the
issue. What the issue was, what the whole thing
was about was playing the VLT’S.
The Importance of Money
 For money brings about meaning and this is
the medium by which players are brought to
the game.
 Reith holds that in modern gambling, money
is both a means of communication and a
tangible symbol of the player’s presence.
 Thus it creates the affective tension – the
excitement and it also talks for the gambler
symbolically.
The Importance of Money
 By symbolic we mean the gamblers opinion and
judgment and along with a show of one’s identity.
 Here Reith, like Goffman, suggests that the
placement of a monetary bet sets the stage for the
gambler to become vicariously involved in the game.
 The fate of their wagers become a test of character,
and players who manage to shrug of their losses
demonstrate a strength of will or face.
The phenomenology of money and the
gambler
 Yeah it was the excitement, about playing,
going and watching the flashing lights, good
chance to win some money. But it wasn’t
the money, it was, it’s hard to explain what it
was. Just me against the machines I guess.
I Just wanted to beat the machines.
The Importance of Money
 In all, money comes assume magical
properties, but it still remains an
insubstantial chimera that contributes to
the sense of unreality and the affective
tension experienced by gamblers during
play.
Playing-in-Itself
 Our last theme that Reith brings to light, one
that she has hinted at for the entire article,
which is playing for the sake of playing.
 For Gadmer, the famous phenomenologist,
win or lose, play is all; it is an end in itself.
 And so the goal of a game is not so important
as the possibility of its being brought to a
conclusion.
Playing-in-Itself
 In summation, the gambler who is
caught in the demise of play forever
pursuing the fleeting sensations of play
is caught in what Schopenhauer
described as:
 As
a state of becoming and never being.
A final phenomenological report on becoming and never
being while gambling. . . One gambler stated:
So today, to maintain my abstinence from a horribly insidious
addiction, that 99% of we gamblers don’t understand, I have to pay
close attention, and I also stand in the mirror every morning and
say, ‘I love you too much to gamble.’ Like how can flipping a pop
can make me insane. . . I remember sitting on the couch saying to
myself, well ‘it’s only free pop,’ and then I said, ‘Well am I going
to threaten my abstinence.’ I mean that is how insane this addiction
is, eh, and if it hadn’t been for my, and I’m not bragging, if hadn’t
been for the grace of God and a tonnes of support from program
members and friends, I can’t even tell you Jason where I would be
right now. So, today, I feel pretty good, you know. . . I felt
tormented for a long time and remember writing about it, because
what it really comes down is that you really need to want to quit,
cause if you really don’t want to quit, if you really haven’t had
enough action, nothing can convince you otherwise, you know.