2011 archive

Report from the Discovery conference

Responsible gambling was the theme of the Discovery 2011 conference, organized by the Responsible Gambling Council of Canada. The conference was held in Ottawa April 5-8 and had around 200 participants. Most of them were from Canada and the United States, but researchers, regulators and industry people from other countries around the world were also …

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Book on Swedish lottery millionaires

 Gambling advertising typically portrays hitting a lottery jackpot as the height of happiness. In the newspapers, however, we often read stories about how big lottery winnings have brought misery. A study at the University of Gothenburg gives a truer picture. Sociologist Anna Hedenus made a survey of 429 people who had won a lot …

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Trends on the gambling market 2010

The Gaming Board for Sweden is the authority with the task of ensuring that the Swedish gaming and gambling market is legal, safe and reliable. It also functions as a main source of knowledge about the Swedish gaming market and the developments of gaming regulation in the rest of the world. Each year the Gambling …

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Redesigned website

The Anthropology of Gambling – www.ongambling.org – has a new design. I built the old website in 2005, using MS FrontPage. At that time, it was perceived as quite good looking and having some impressive design features. However, time flies in the internet world and in 2010 the site looked very outdated. The huge amount of …

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Is poker a game of skill?

In 2009, a Swedish court of appeal judged that a poker tournament was a game of skill. Starting February 22, the Supreme Court will deliberate the issue. The verdict might have consequences for the Swedish monopoly on commercial poker games. Only the state-owned Casino Cosmopol is allowed to run live tournaments and games. The issue of …

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