Today’s Agenda

1. Today’s Agenda Experience of Play PPT Inquiry

2. The Experience of Play

3. 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.

4. 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.”

5. 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

6. 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. Enter Dostoevsky “The Gambler”

7. 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”

8. 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.

9. 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.”

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.” Repetition

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.”

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. 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.