The Experience of
Play
Making Millions the Easy Way
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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 consciousness,
thus allowing many worlds of
consciousness 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.
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
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”
Dream State and Escape
Trance States
Other gambler’s report the dream state as being like this:
•
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
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.
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 the gambling environment
becomes a place where one’s existence cam be confirmed
(psychologically and environmentally).
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-
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
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
•
I believe I had something like 4000 Gulden
in my hands within 5 mins. That’s when I
should have quit. But a funny feeling came
over me, some sort of desire to challenge
fate, an uncontrollable urge to stick my
tongue out at it, to give it a flip on the nose.
•
Fydor
•
Dostoevsky
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, everything was spinning. 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.
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 the
gambler’s “narcotic.”
Phenomenology of a gambler’s
time with my daughter; it
I went to a ringette tournament
•
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
Time (cont.)
The constant cycle of the ever-same implies a cycle of
no real change. Nothing occurs to distinguish one at
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 an empty
It was all the game! It really
hell.
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
The phenomenology of money
•
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 phenomenology 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 phenomenology of money
•
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.
A Final Phenomenological
Chunk: Tempting Fate