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  ‘The Holy Game of Poker’: Gambling, Religion and Neoliberalism   You hate to see another tired man Lay down his hand like he was giving up the holy game of Poker -Leonard Cohen Joyce Goggin   This non-peer reviewed entry is published as part of the Critical Gambling Studies Blog.  How to cite:  Goggin, J. (2020). ’The Holy Game of Poker’: Gambling, Religion and Neoliberalism.  Critical Gambling Studies . https://doi.org/10.29173/cgs90     The title for this blog post is taken from Leonard Cohen’s song “ The Stranger ”, about a gambler who places his faith in Poker and follows a chance-led trajectory through train stations and women’s lives. With his attention focused on the game, the stranger watches ‘for the card that is so high and wild, he’ll never need to deal another’. The seeming profundity contained in these lines—the idea of finding the wild card that transcends the need for any other—raises a number of questions - at least ...

Darren R. Christensen How to cite:   Christensen, D. R. (2020). Responsible Gambling: Who is Responsible?.  Critical Gambling Studies . https://doi.org/10.29173/cgs83 What is responsible gambling? Responsible gambling is defined as either the responsible gambling behaviour of gamblers and/or as the responsible provision of gambling (Christensen, 2019). The term ‘responsible’ generally means a person or organisation is accountable for their actions or for performing certain duties (Cambridge Dictionary, 2020). However, it can also mean the capability to make ‘moral’ or ‘good’ decisions (Dictionary.com, 2020). These two definitions and meanings suggest that responsible gambling refers to the ownership and capacity to make ‘good’ decisions and that the actor is accountable for their actions. This has important implications for those experiencing problem gambling harms as increasing harms typically indicate increasing loss of control and compulsive gambling behaviour (American...

  Fiona Nicoll interviewed by Jay Daniel Thompson How to Cite: Thompson, J. D., & Nicoll, F. (2020). Opening new conversations about gambling: an interview with Professor Fiona Nicoll on her new book Gambling in Everyday Life . Critical Gambling Studies . https://doi.org/10.29173/cgs80 An earlier version of this publication was published by the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia . It is reposted here with their permission. Jay Daniel Thompson: In your book, Gambling in Everyday Life: Spaces, Moments and Products of Enjoyment , you mention that a great deal of research into gambling has been undertaken by researchers in the field of Psychology. How can a Cultural Studies framework enrich a reader’s understanding of gambling in everyday life? Fiona Nicoll: Yes.   Much of that psychology-influenced work has been produced since the 1990s, and can be understood as a consequence of the rapid expansion of commercial gambling and of electronic gaming machines (what we ...