Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

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WOMEN, PLEASURE AND THE GAMBLING EXPERIENCE

‘At the age of thirty-seven She realised she’d never ride Through Paris in a sports car With the warm wind in her hair.’ Marianne Faithful The Ballad of Lucy Jordan

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

EMMA CASEY University of Kingston, UK

© Emma Casey 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Emma Casey has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. Published by Ashgate Publishing Limited Gower House Croft Road Aldershot Hampshire GU11 3HR England

Ashgate Publishing Company Suite 420 101 Cherry Street Burlington, VT 05401-4405 USA

Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Casey, Emma Women, pleasure and the gambling experience 1. Gambling - Social aspects - Great Britain 2. Women gamblers - Great Britain I. Title 795'.082'0941 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Casey, Emma. Women, pleasure and the gambling experience / by Emma Casey. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7546-4617-4 1. Gambling--Social aspects--Great Britain. 2. Women gamblers--Great Britain--Social conditions. 3. Social classes--Great Britain. I. Title. HV6722.G8C37 2008 306.4'820941--dc22 2007034133 ISBN 13: 978 0 7546 4617 4

Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.

Contents Acknowledgements 1

vii

Introduction to Researching Women, Class and National Lottery Participation Rationale for the Book Academic Rationale Challenges and Contributions to Existing Scholarship Feminist Epistemologies Structure of the Book Summary

1 3 5 6 10 13 15

2

Women, Gambling, Leisure and Consumption Introduction Background to the National Lottery Women and National Lottery Participation Dangerous Consumption: Addiction and the Lottery The National Lottery as ‘Popular Culture’ The National Lottery and ‘Consumer Culture’ ‘Domestic Gambling’ Lottery Play as ‘Leisure’

17 17 17 19 24 27 30 31 35

3

Working Class Women, Identity and Protest Introduction Women, Class and Culture ‘Respectability’ Everyday Culture and Caring for the Family Daydreaming and Fantasy Heterotopias Interviewing Working Class Women: Representing the ‘Other’ Summary

39 39 39 44 48 52 56 59 61

4

Domesticating Gambling: The National Lottery as ‘Normal’ and ‘Routine’ in the Lives of Women Who Play Introduction Dominant Critiques of Lottery Play The ‘Organised’ and ‘Routine’ Nature of National Lottery Play Winning Money as Part of the Routine of Play Scratchcards as Part of the Routine of Play

63 63 64 68 70 73

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

vi

Managing on a Budget Finding Time to Gamble Irresponsible Others Summary 5

6

7

74 76 83 87

Caring, Class and Pleasure: Metaphorical Leisure Spaces and National Lottery Play Introduction Good Cause Money Caring on the Jackpot Alternative Discourses of Femininity Fear of the Jackpot Summary

89 89 90 94 100 102 105

‘A Space to Be’: Physical Leisure Spaces and National Lottery Play Introduction Participation in ‘Other’ Forms of Gambling Lottery Syndicates Summary

107 107 107 115 122

Concluding Remarks Introduction Gambling ‘Respectably’ Gaps in Existing Gambling Research Contribution to Feminist Leisure Sociology Ways Forward: Feminist Accounts of Gambling

123 123 123 124 125 131

Bibliography Index

135 147

Acknowledgements Thanks to John Sparrowhawk, Gillian Wilson, Catherine Bates, Julie Scott, Irene Gedalof, Lydia Martens and Rupa Huq whose advice and words of wisdom sustained the often frustrating and isolating process of writing. The Casey family have also been an amazing source of support through frequent periods of self-doubt, anxiety and frustration. This book is a tribute to the generosity of the women who gave me access to their homes and time, and who revealed the immense complexities of so much that I had simply taken for granted. It is dedicated to the spirit of women’s pleasure and daydream which, at times, hindered the writing process, but ultimately was the inspiration behind it.

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Chapter 1

Introduction to Researching Women, Class and National Lottery Participation Thus did they dream, stupidly, happily of inheritances, jackpots, winning at the races … Sometimes, for hours at a stretch, a frenzy of desire to be rich, immediately, enormously and for ever, would seize them and hold them in its grip. It was an insane, unwholesome desire which seemed to control their slightest movement. Fortune became their opium (Perec 1965, 84). Gambling too often becomes an all-consuming passion. Families are ignored and rejected. Money is squandered. Mortgages are forfeited. Children are neglected. It starts off as fun and ends with tragedy (MP Roy Hattersley, 2004).

The UK National Lottery was launched in 1994 amidst an unprecedented flurry of publicity. Criticism of its introduction in the UK, the last European country to have a national lottery came from many diverse corners. Particularly vociferous was moral and ethical outrage that the National Lottery provoked and, more than a decade later, continues to provoke. Gambling has long occupied a key position in the popular British cultural imagination. A longing for riches, wealth, and a guiltfree submission to the temptations of consumer society is nothing new, but the National Lottery offered a new and unique vehicle through which people can dream, imagine and fantasise about wealth. Indeed, the ‘jackpot’ has become engrained in our national psyche; it has become a frequent topic of conversation, as synonymous with everyday life and gossip as the football, or reality television. Remarks about the jackpot – ‘have you won the Lottery or something?’ – are commonplace. Yet, despite its remarkable simplicity, there remains a certain mysticism to Lottery play, and a fascination with National Lottery winners. Emphasis is often geared towards the life-changing qualities of the National Lottery, particularly the jackpot. Although the chances of winning any money at all, let alone the jackpot, are very small, the chances are still, nonetheless there – it still ‘Could be You’. In the British class system, where class mobility remains exceptionally poor, the National Lottery offers a possible means of making money where life-chances would generally otherwise prevent people from doing so. Furthermore, in a society influenced by the belief that hard work and talent should be enough to achieve success, and where this belief is reinforced by an increasing emphasis on the rhetoric of ‘classless Britain’, the Lottery symbolises a problematic means of ‘making it’, of becoming ‘wealthy’. Getting ‘something for nothing’ certainly was never part of the ideology of the British Conservative party who were responsible for the National Lottery’s introduction. Interesting though, the British Conservative MP and then shadow arts minister, Boris Johnson, described the National Lottery in 2004 as a ‘Tory triumph’. British

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MPs and governments past and present, have struggled with defining their moral and ethical stance on the National Lottery, with those in favour, most obviously the Labour MP and, until 2007, secretary of state at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell, presenting to parliament the now infamous and much resented 2004 Gambling Bill, using the National Lottery as a springboard from which to relax gambling legislation. Those opposed to further deregulation of gambling in the UK and to the National Lottery have often cited perceived government mismanagement and bureaucracy as a key part of their opposition. Unpopular decisions about how National Lottery funding ought to be distributed have been singled out for particular criticism, with Lord Falcolner, then the minister responsible for the millennium Dome in London coming to symbolise a feeling of resentment and distrust of the political ‘elite’ which was to affect much public opinion of the National Lottery. It is certainly the case that criticism of the National Lottery and of gambling more generally does not appear to depend upon party politics. What does clearly emerge from the majority of debates surrounding the National Lottery is an emphasis on class. This emphasis is either implied, such as in Tessa Jowell’s argument that there is a ‘hint of snobbery’ (cited in Kite, 2004) in the arguments of those who opposed the Gambling Bill, or rather more explicit, such as Roy Hattersley’s claim that the Gambling Bill is contrary to ‘the socialist aims / values that [the Labour Party] stood for’ (2004). These on-going debates certainly seem to cross traditional party lines, but touch on class in a way which has re-invigorated old debates about working class people, prohibition, protection and freedom of choice. Moreover, as these debates about gambling and Lottery play raged, there developed an often unspoken, but clearly inferred implication for women gamblers. It is now not uncommon to read about the ‘feminisation of the gambling industry’ for example, or the increasing percentage of ‘addicted’ gamblers seeking help who are women. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is the supposed increasing ‘access’ of gambling that has caused the most outrage, often implicitly suggesting that as keepers of the household budget and as traditionally the arm of restraint and purveyor of care for the family, the availability of gambling to women – this ‘new breed’ of gamblers – is to be particularly feared. From this perspective, it becomes clear that the National Lottery in the UK has developed in the 13 years since its launch an important although ambiguous and awkward role in the British cultural imagination. This book intercepts class-related critiques of Lottery play and gambling more generally, with the unprecedented participation in this form of gambling. Faced with a long history of taking the blame when money is not carefully budgeted for, or when the family gets into debt, the book asks how women, especially working class women, have reconciled the old connotations of the ‘selfish’, individualistic gambler, with their own crucial roles as controllers of the household budget. History is littered with accounts of the frivolous woman spender and consumer. One might imagine that a modern day Emma Bovary might add Lottery tickets to her unsustainable spending which was to be her ruin.

Introduction

3

Rationale for the Book This book began with an initial hesitation at the idea of researching the National Lottery. Despite its undisputed position as a key aspect of British popular culture, I was daunted by the virtual absence of gambling as a substantive topic in sociology, cultural studies, leisure studies and in feminist research. There are very few social or cultural accounts of Lottery play or gambling, and although this appears to be slowly changing, it is still especially rare to find gambling research in mainstream sociology journals, or discussed in undergraduate courses. Indeed, my knowledge of the National Lottery was limited to psychological accounts of players, and the economic debates which dominated reports of the Lottery, both in the media, and in politics. Additionally, when I began to review the academic gambling literature, it was clear that here too, understandings of Lottery participation were dominated by critiques of the Lottery and those who chose to buy tickets. Certainly there seemed to be a general disdain for the Lottery, and on discovering this, my curiosity for researching Lottery play developed. I was reminded that one of the factors that had fuelled my interest in providing feminist accounts of women’s popular culture (such as soap opera and romantic fiction), had been my desire to produce accounts of participation in those activities that countered popular, middle class criticism of women who chose to participate. I remembered the outrage and frustration that I had felt, and the pleasure at reading feminist accounts of those activities that countered earlier condemnations of women’s popular culture. The basic premise running through this book, then, is that there currently exists a substantial gap in the literature and academic research to consider, firstly, women’s gambling experiences, and secondly, the everyday processes of gambling. This book offers new, alternative ways of understanding gambling behaviour by re-writing women’s everyday routines and practices of UK National Lottery play into the gambling literature. It is certainly the case that a lack of interest has been shown in gambling generally (see for example, Reith, 2003), and specifically National Lottery play amongst social scientists. This is surprising, given that the National Lottery is not only a hugely popular and routine consumer purchase, but also because it appears to have mass appeal in ways that other consumer products do not. Peter Fuller argues along the same lines: If we know anything at all about gambling, we know that its popularity cuts across all classes, racial and ethnic lines; and that in many cases the greater population of any society are gamblers than are non-gamblers. Thus, gambling behaviour is a perfect example of what sociologists seek to study: it is a persistent and institutionalized form of behaviour … Still few sociologists have shown interest in the topic (Cited in Douglas 1995, 25–26).

This also raises the issue of gambling as it is often framed within discourses of excess, waste, danger and addiction. In particular, I have argued elsewhere (Casey, 2003a) that the huge majority of gambling literature has focused on gambling addictions. Whilst research into addiction is clearly of great importance, not least for protecting vulnerable individuals from harm, both psychological and financial, I argue that there is space for a body of simultaneous research examining the everyday patterns and motivations of gamblers. In other words, since the majority of people

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who gamble are not addicted, there is also a need to develop understandings of why these individuals gamble and in what ways. It is essential that academics consider the decisions made by these individuals to make a rational choice to regularly gamble a proportion of their income. As Ken Roberts argued: Gambling is a normal rather than an exceptional pastime. Gamblers are not a deviant minority … Listing the frequency with which individuals gamble, their expenditure and their losses, fails to convey the quality of the experience that the punters are seeking and obtaining. Whether the behaviour is alcoholic, sexual or televisual, there is invariably a deeper, psychological, experiencing dimension to leisure (1978, 30).

It is clear, then, that any rigorous understanding of gambling would resemble a multitude of different approaches and examine a whole range of substantive themes. Detailed psychological accounts of the gambler and statistical representations of the economic impacts of gambling could usefully be positioned alongside increased sociological explorations of gambling in all of its guises; both as a potentially risky and dangerous form of consumption and as a regular, routine activity which operates in the everyday lives of many individuals without causing ‘harm’. This book aims to go some way in redressing the balance between gambling as harm and gambling as a mundane consumer purchase, by offering an account of the social meanings and motivations behind National Lottery play. It is hoped that this will go some way in demonstrating that sociological accounts of gambling are both relevant and necessary if we are to hope to properly understand why people gamble. This echoes the emphasis that McMillen places on complementing existing gambling research with what she terms the ‘positive’ effects of gambling: For many, the post-war understanding of gambling as “leisure”, rather than simply as vice or crime, seems to be a triumph of liberalism and humanity. Compared to pre-war attitudes and prohibitions, no doubt it is. But even among liberal sociologists in the United States, gambling has relatively low prestige; and persistent claims by psychologists and medical practitioners of its supposedly endemic dysfunctional tendencies have not made it any more convincing as a legitimate social activity. Clear sociological evidence for a positive social effect of gambling is still lacking (1996: 17).

It is almost certainly the case that the dominant, critical approach to gambling, and the focus on its ‘dysfunctional’ tendencies, as pointed out by McMillen, have been largely influenced by the range of recent attempts to ‘legitimise’ and deregulate gambling. The 2001 Gambling Review for example, proposed a liberalisation of gambling in the UK. In addition, the Government’s 2002 White Paper on the future of gambling in the UK backed these proposals by suggesting a range of reforms that, following on from the success of the National Lottery, are likely to transform gambling into a broadly legitimate and widely available leisure activity. In addition to this, however, the proposals imposed a duty of ‘responsibility’ on the gambling industry. Such responsibility combines protecting vulnerable users with ensuring freedom to gamble and increasing consumer choice. In order to meet these responsibilities, a much greater knowledge of the British gambling population than that which is currently available is required. In particular, more research is needed

Introduction

5

into the gambling behaviour of certain groups of the population. This book suggests that a shift of focus away from the pathology of gambling, towards an approach that engages with the social and cultural pleasures of gambling is essential. Specifically, it argues that some of the most important changes to the gambling industry since the National Lottery was introduced have to do with the popularity of the game amongst women. It is, therefore, imperative that we consider the specific appeal of National Lottery play to this hugely significant group of players, who may not have gambled with such regularity before the National Lottery’s launch. Academic Rationale From an early stage in my academic career, I was influenced by the work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. In particular, I took solace in the assertion made by feminist scholars working at the centre, that accounts of women’s popular culture which examine women consumers as thinking, rational beings, necessarily counter earlier attempts to reduce women’s relationship with popular culture to simple theories of class and class consciousness. Such a view was postulated by Franklin, Lury and Stacey in Off Centre, where they stressed the need to advocate a new feminist framework which would help to explore women’s participation in popular culture and which would: …(bring) together feminism and cultural studies, (and) to consider the significance within feminist theory and politics of questions concerning the cultural dimensions of gender inequality and patriarchal power (1991: 14).

From the outset, this book positions National Lottery play as a gendered form of popular culture. Noting throughout the influence and prevalence of criticisms of those who purchase National Lottery tickets, I demonstrate the usefulness of feminist cultural theory in helping to provide an account of the experiences and pleasures of Lottery play. I complement this with a classed account of players, and point out that criticisms of the decision-making abilities of players have tended to come from broadsheet newspapers. Ian Stuart, for example, in the Times Higher Education Supplement damned the Lottery as ‘a tribute to public innumeracy’ under the disdainful headline, ‘it probably won’t be you’ (1996: 14). Similarly, the journalist Zoë Williams in The Guardian expressed concern that the National Lottery might be coaxing money away from vulnerable groups of people: Once you’ve admitted that it’s a tax, you have to clarify what it’s a tax on – it’s a tax on being poor. Sure, it might also snag some of the stupid rich … but the real devotees of the Lottery are those to whom the fantasy of the win is attractive enough to off-set its laughable improbability – the more you need the money, the more likely you are to waste it (2002: 22).

The language adopted in such journalistic accounts of Lottery play is echoed in the vast majority of existing gambling scholarship, which has tended to focus on pathological, deviant gambling (such as Griffiths, 1997, a, b and c), and has criticised the decision-making abilities of those who play. This book begins by problematising

6

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

and challenging these dominant accounts of National Lottery play. I argue that these accounts have positioned gambling as an ‘irrational’ characteristic of individuals, and have neglected any account of the social and cultural experiences and motivations of Lottery play. One important factor that inspired this book stemmed from my discomfort with these theories. I believed that labelling Lottery players psychologically ‘irrational’, ignorant of the low odds of winning money, or simply people on low incomes who are not clever enough to recognise the National Lottery as a regressive and hidden form of taxation, had little use in providing an adequate account of the depth and quality of the gambling experience (see also Roberts, 1978: 30). Colin Campbell (1987) makes a similar point about traditional (economic) research into consumption, which has tended to consider conspicuous consumerism as the irrational behaviour of individuals. He argues that: Such a view (of ‘irrational’ consumer behaviour) is unjustifiable, for if behaviour is not perceived as ‘rational’ then the blame lies with social scientists for failing to see the structure of the meanings employed, and it is they, and not consumers, who should be reprimanded (1987: 58).

Similarly, this book argues that it is not useful to condemn National Lottery play as ‘irrational’. Such an explanation is inadequate because it ignores the social and cultural structures of gambling behaviour, positions Lottery play as a meaningless and pointless activity, and overlooks any exploration of the subjective pleasures that might motivate women to purchase Lottery tickets. This book emphasises the limitations of traditional theories of gambling behaviour for providing any account of the experiences and motivations of the women of this research. It re-considers the National Lottery as a cultural leisure and consumer product, rather than simply as a ‘gambling’ activity. In order to do this, the book draws from current feminist and sociological literature that has examined the experiences and pleasures involved in consuming capitalist products. Challenges and Contributions to Existing Scholarship This book makes three main challenges and contributions to existing, current scholarship, and subsequently develops a new theoretical framework for researching gender, class and National Lottery play. To begin with, the book challenges traditional gambling scholarship which has focused on economic and psychological accounts of gambling behaviour, by considering the extent to which it is useful to position Lottery play as a ‘leisure’ activity in women’s lives. Drawing on research with two groups of working class women living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and south east London, it shows how an activity which is so entrenched in women’s everyday, domestic routines can be understood as ‘leisure’. Interestingly, the women of this research themselves initially often appeared bemused, and even amused that I should be interested in an aspect of their everyday lives, that they saw to be ‘mundane’, and unspectacular. Echoing dominant discourses, such as those highlighted above, the women also placed emphasis and importance on the pathological and ‘deviant’ nature of gambling behaviour. Importantly, many of the women who were interviewed for

Introduction

7

this research, remarked in early discussions that I might be better off speaking to people with gambling ‘problems’. There was certainly an underlying assumption that I could not be as interested in these women’s ordinary, everyday gambling behaviour, as I might be in those women whose gambling was more ‘deviant’, ‘dangerous’ or problematic. The following quotes illustrate these attitudes: You should speak to my sister. She gambles all the time – horses, dogs, the lot. Me mother-in-law, she’s just got her pension and she’s lost half of it (on scratchcards).

Daniel Miller noted similar responses in his ethnographic study of shopping: The shopping that is evoked by the abstract term ‘shopping’ as a topic to be studied, which people immediately suppose I must be studying, or ought to be studying, is always an extreme form of shopping, an over-the-top activity devoted largely to indulging itself (1998: 68).

The assumption that I would not be interested in conformative, routine and ordinary gambling behaviour was echoed everywhere. Academic literature on motivations of play was almost entirely focused on psychological accounts of play, and the broadsheet media made much of the ‘addictive’ potential of the Lottery. In addition, almost all discussions with family, friends and colleagues almost always veered towards deviant gamblers, and those who had ‘gambling problems’. The first key challenge that this book makes to existing scholarship then, is in producing an account of Lottery participation which explores its ordinary and everyday nature, and which moves beyond attempts to provide psychological accounts of ‘problem gamblers’. It argues instead, that as an ordinary, everyday, activity and, moreover, one which occurs often within the domestic sphere – the National Lottery is of specific interest. The book examines the importance of the domestic sphere as a means through which the women of this research were able to negotiate a pleasurable leisure space. By doing so, it points to the limitations of traditional sociological definitions of ‘leisure’, such as Stanley Parker’s which states that: Leisure is time free from work and other obligations, and it also encompasses activities which are characterised by a feeling of (comparative) freedom (Parker 1976, 12).

This book opposes this definition by arguing that for women, ‘obligations’ to self or to others penetrate their everyday lives, and make escape into leisure time which is free from these obligations problematic. Instead, it adopts Betsy Wearing’s position that traditional sociological understandings of ‘leisure’ have failed to account for the complexities of women’s access to pleasurable leisure spaces (1998). The book draws from the work of feminist sociologists who have identified the home, and private, domestic spheres as being of specific importance in the facilitating of women’s domestic leisure spaces. These authors have drawn attention to leisure activities which easily fit into everyday demands and responsibilities (for example, Deem, 1986; Shaw, 1998), and have also examined the ideological constraints which restrict women’s access to public, ‘physical’ leisure spaces (Woodward and Green,

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1988; Imray and Middleton, 1983). The book positions National Lottery play as a ‘metaphorical’ leisure space, which appears to require neither time nor space to participate, and yet which offered the women of this research pleasure through daydream and fantasy. Additionally though, the book considers the National Lottery as occasionally facilitating a ‘physical’ leisure space in women’s lives. Through an analysis of their participation in National Lottery syndicates, for example, the book explores the ways in which the women of this research were able to negotiate a pleasurable, physical time and space away from the everyday, which enabled friendship and companionship with other women. In doing so, the book opposes dominant discourses which have positioned Lottery players as ‘irrational’ and ignorant. Instead, it considers how working class women have adopted this capitalist, revenue-raising leisure activity in order that they have access to a pleasurable leisure space. The book draws from the work of cultural theorists such as McRobbie (1991) and Willis (1977) by arguing that rather than being fixed and unchanging, power relations are shaped and reproduced through participation in popular cultural activities. The National Lottery is explored as both a ‘metaphorical’ and as a ‘physical’ leisure space within which women who participate not only have a chance to daydream, but can also work to expand the parameters of what constitutes ‘respectable’ and ‘appropriate’ femininity. The second main contribution that this book makes to existing scholarship is in developing a theoretical link between ‘leisure’ and ‘consumption’. It thus explores the women’s access to leisure spaces as described above, by considering this within the context of broader theories of everyday household consumption and money management. By examining the women’s National Lottery participation as it intersects with the ideological and material constraints placed on their everyday lives, the book considers how the women of this research worked to make their Lottery play ‘legitimate’. It shows how as a form of ‘gambling’, National Lottery participation is often positioned within discourses of ‘waste’. I argue that this is particularly true for working class women who buy Lottery tickets, for whom consumption and the right to pleasure, leisure and desire are constructed and negotiated within complex discourses of money management, respectability and caring (see also Skeggs, 1997; Wearing, 1998). The book will show how traditionally, gambling amongst working class women has been understood as a waste of scarce resources (Bell, 1911), and as a hidden tax on the working classes (Reith, 1999). There are only a few exceptions to this, notably Dixey and Talbot (1982). This book draws from this research in order to develop a theoretical framework within which to explore the ways in which women re-negotiate these conventional boundaries of money management, in order to position the National Lottery as a pleasurable leisure space. Drawing on the empirical research carried out for this project, the book also examines the ways in which women’s attitudes to the ‘Good Cause’ money raised by sales of National Lottery tickets, centred around broader ideas of wastefulness and ‘appropriate’ money management. Interestingly, and in contrast to the reports from the broadsheet press highlighted above, tabloid newspapers in the UK have rarely criticised the decision-making of those who choose to buy Lottery tickets, and instead, have devoted many headlines to stories of ‘ordinary’ people who have won the ‘jackpot’. However, tabloid newspapers have also tended to criticise the way in

Introduction

9

which National Lottery Good Cause money is spent, whereas the broadsheets defend spending on the Arts and Heritage projects, for example.1 This book demonstrates the classed nature of National Lottery play, and looks at the operation of class struggle throughout the women’s everyday lives. It considers how the women often aligned themselves with the views of the tabloid newspapers that they read. It also explores the ways in which they constantly defended themselves against dominant broadsheet critiques of National Lottery play. The book thus explores the relationship of gambling, as a form of consumption, to class and gender. It considers the National Lottery as an arena of class resistance within which working class women players are constantly under the surveillance of middle class others. It makes use of existing literature concerned with domestic money management (such as Graham, 1992; Pahl, 1989; Parker, 1992), and explores the ways in which the women of this research used the National Lottery to carve out a pleasurable leisure space whilst avoiding accusations of ‘wastefulness’. The third major development that this book makes to existing gambling scholarship, is in providing the first empirical account of working class women and National Lottery play. It draws on the claims made by a small number of authors, such as Roberts (1978) and Douglas (1995), who argue that although gambling is ‘a perfect example of what sociologists seek to study’ and a ‘persistent and institutionalized form of behaviour’, gambling is almost completely ignored by sociologists. This book thus produces a social and cultural account of gambling, which adopts an alternative methodological framework to much existing (quantitative, objective) gambling scholarship. Importantly, and uniquely, the book examines the role of gambling as it intersects with women’s everyday lives. Recent accounts of gambling have focused on the deviant and dangerous nature of gambling (for example, Fisher, 1998 and 2000; Griffiths, 2003). Such research is useful, but limited. Throughout the book, it is argued that a more thorough and comprehensive study of gambling would be possible by incorporating gender and class specific research into the literature, and moreover, by shifting attention towards the rational and careful decision-making capacities of National Lottery play, a more detailed and complex understanding of gambling will ensue. An important aim of this book, then, is to explore women’s everyday experiences of power and powerlessness via their National Lottery participation. This is especially important when one considers the prevalence of existing research on addiction and danger and when one also considers the political and social opposition to the National Lottery, variously described as ‘exploitative’ and a ‘hidden tax’ on the poor. This is not the first research to challenge such representations of the operation of power. Most notably, perhaps, the work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in the 1970s sought to re-examine the operation of power in women’s consumption of popular cultural products. However, this book does not seek to discount existing theories of gambling behaviour, nor to dismiss the 1 The tabloid newspaper The Sun, for example, in 1999 was heavily critical of the use of Good Cause money to fund the renovation of The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. The project was seen to use scarce resources to fund the leisure activities of a privileged and upper class minority.

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Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

huge significance of those who have opened up gambling as an academic subject, and those who have sought to question and challenge the motivations of the highly lucrative gambling industry. Instead, it reflects upon, develops, but also marks a departure from this literature, primarily by offering a feminist, classed account of the experiences of women Lottery players. What follows is by no means a definitive account, rather, it is hoped, a reflection of the subjective, complex experiences of gambling behaviour and a useful addition to the sociology of gambling in the UK. Furthermore, this book represents part of a wider project, not only on classbased research on culture, but also to emphasise the importance of incorporating more gender-specific accounts into what currently stands for the sociology of consumption. As Silva (2007) argues, for example, recent sociological applications of Bourdieu to the study of class and culture, can usefully be adopted to examine women’s domestic consumption practices. As Casey and Martens (2007) point out, sociology has much to benefit from embracing a turn from the public, extraordinary behaviour of consumers, and towards research which focuses on women’s everyday, domestic routines and ‘mundane’ consumption patterns. Feminist Epistemologies This book begins from the assumption that there exists a reality to the lives of working class women and their National Lottery participation. Furthermore, it starts for the premise that understanding the complex everyday processes and routines of women’s everyday lives, and especially how gender and class operate within these can work as part of a broader political, feminist project to ‘improve’ women’s lives. The notion that feminist research offers the potential for change and personal transformation is not new. bell hooks’ confidence in the revolutionary potential of feminism is inspiring in offering a means through which the feminist project of ‘knowing’ and understanding women’s lives can be translated into positive political change. hooks argues that: Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Its aim is not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege women over men. It has the power to transform in a meaningful way all our lives (Hooks 1997, 26).

I want to emphasise throughout this book the importance of diversity and difference, which as hooks also argues, ought to be at the core of any comprehensive feminist analysis. Historically, this has not been the case and a number of influential women writers have expressed their frustration and unease at this sense of absence. Virginia Woolf, for example, recalls her annoyance at having ‘wasted’ a morning’s work in the British Museum in a futile attempt to research women’s lives. Woolf’s discomfort at accepted modernist knowledge claims and their ensuing un-gendered and structural accounts of the world is clear in her diary of this period: I could not possibly go home, I reflected, and add as a serious contribution to the study of women … that women have less hair on their bodies than men … It was disgraceful to

Introduction

11

have nothing more weighty or respectable after a whole morning’s work … It seemed pure waste of time to consult all those gentlemen who specialise in women and her effect on whatever it may be – politics, children, wages, morality – numerous and learned as they are. One might as well leave their books unopened (Woolf 1993, 27–28).

Simone de Beauvoir echoes Woolf’s earlier work when she introduces the concept of women as the ‘other’ mis- and under-represented theme of Western thought. When Beauvoir asks ‘what is a woman?’ (1997: 15) she paves the way for rigorous and meaningful explorations of women’s lives that defy the conventional classifying of women as the ‘others’ to a dominant group. The notion of ‘othering’ is important for this book, firstly in terms of producing sociological and feminist understandings of class where in recent years this has become an unpopular focus for feminists (Skeggs, 1997). Indeed, the extent to which feminism has provided a meaningful framework for understanding working class women is debateable. Sheila Rowbotham noted that during the 1970s socialist movement in the UK, it was women, and moreover, working class women whose lives were both unseen and trivialised, and who were ‘oppressed by an overwhelming sense of not being there’ (1973: 35). ‘Othering’ is important for a second reason, namely that the academic who produces understandings of the everyday processes and routines of National Lottery play is without doubt in a marginal position. As discussed earlier, the majority of research into gambling behaviour has tended to focus on those for whom gambling has become dangerous and addictive. It is argued throughout this book that one of the key aims of a feminist project is to continue to ‘add’ the multifaceted range of women’s experiences into current knowledge claims and moreover to provide working class women an arena within which their stories and lives are given the opportunity to be expressed. In particular, for this project, class will be explored alongside gender, with the intention of providing specific understandings of working class women and their gambling practices. Although it is recognised that women share a similar history of exclusion, especially in terms of their relative absence from modernist knowledge claims, it is also the case that there is no single, underlying reality to women’s experiences. Thus, rather than attempting to ‘know’ women, it is more useful to aim to produce smallscale accounts of knowledge which will become part of a larger body of feminist literature which successfully presents the diversity and multiplicity of women’s lives and experiences (see also Longino, 1993). Moreover, this book prioritises and incorporates the notion of ‘difference’ into its analysis (Bhavnani, 1994: 37) and argues that a richer and more comprehensive understanding of working class women’s lives is possible by incorporating difference into the analysis. This can be achieved by examining the discrepancy between women’s own understandings of their lives and the feminist researcher’s use of categories to understand and analyse women’s lives (such as class, race, sexuality, age, even gender). Following Haraway (1988) it is recognised that all knowledge is situated and that by emphasising difference, it is possible to firstly, recognise the ‘situated-ness’ of knowledge claims, and secondly, to begin to react against assumptions of ‘woman’ as a universal category which provides no account of the diversity of women’s lives.

12

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

This book will consider public / private and work / leisure as dualistic assumptions which are classed and gendered, a critique of which could form part of the ongoing critique of modernist Western thought. It advocates a post-modern and feminist critique of ‘leisure’ which problematises the assumptions behind these dualisms and avoids any attempts to simply reverse them. The book re-considers leisure as one part of the various strategies employed by working class women for negotiating a space for pleasure and survival, rather than a resistance to, or an escape from, the everyday constraints of paid work. Additionally, as part of the critique of old Enlightenment philosophies of knowledge, truth and objectivity, it suggests that it is essential to strive for knowledge that appreciates and develops difference. As Fraser and Nicholson argue, a post-modern feminist theory would: … replace unitary notions of woman and feminine gender identity with plural and complexly constructed conceptions of social identity, treating gender as one relevant strand among others, attending also to class, race, ethnicity, age and sexual orientation (1990: 34).

Feminism’s commitment to opposing universalist modes of thought (see Evans, 1997: 56), whilst simultaneously providing an analysis of the operation of power within everyday experiences of women, matches the intention inherent in this book of providing understandings of gambling behaviour which not only incorporate women’s specific experiences of gambling into the literature, but which also challenge the existing preference in much gambling literature for economic and psychological accounts of the vulnerable or addicted gambler. There are of course some important exceptions to this (especially Reith 1999; 2003) but one of the key aims of this book is to adopt a feminist and post-modern critique of metanarratives of gambling, and to combine this with the social-critical power of feminism (Fraser and Nicholson, 1990: 20). It is also acknowledged that recognising and acknowledging ‘difference’ provides a useful opportunity to consider both the complex differences between women (in terms of for example, age, class, race, sexuality) and to observe the ‘external material reality’ of ‘inequality, exploitation and oppression’ that exists for women (Stanley, 1991: 207). Stanley’s account of the fractured and different (ibid.) as opposed to a universal notion of women’s experiences of oppression, has important implications for the study of class which underpins this book and offers a means of beginning to understand the multifaceted everyday performances of National Lottery play. In accordance with Fraser and Nicholson’s concern that feminism’s addressing of political problems can benefit from producing understandings of the world which draw from ‘categories’ framed according to historical and cultural narratives (1990: 34). In this book, I seek to produce a complex examination of the perceived ‘problems’ associated with National Lottery play, especially the risks placed to players, by exploring in greater detail than is currently available, some of the historical and cultural narratives which underpin women’s experiences of Lottery play. In short, this book seeks to develop post-modern feminist theory by producing a non-universalist piece of knowledge which could contribute to a plurality of feminisms, and moreover, one which will contribute to a widening of National Lottery research.

Introduction

13

In arguing against the idea that women’s knowledge should be used to increase ‘objectivity’ and ‘Truth’, I avoid attempts to make claims to any universal ‘truth’. Rather, I suggest that epistemological discussions should move beyond the pursuit of ‘knowledge and truth’, and towards ‘knowledge, desire, fantasy and power’ (Flax, 1992: 457). This has important implications for the discussions throughout this book of the dreaming and fantasy dimension to National Lottery play. One key epistemological assumption which heavily influenced this book, is a belief that the best way of gaining knowledge about women is not through any simple ‘fitting in’ of women’s lives into existing models and frameworks. Instead, it represents an attempt to work towards a sociology of knowledge which uses post-modernism to ensure that theoretical models are not simple attempts to fit women’s lives and experiences into dominant knowledge claims (Flax, 1992: 460). Feminism offers the opportunity for researchers to produce gender-specific explorations of women’s lives, however, feminist theory frequently offers only a limited understanding of working class women’s lives. This is especially problematic when one wishes to examine the everyday and subjective experiences of women which have tended to be overlooked especially in existing accounts of gambling behaviour. Some authors have argued that overlooking the detailed specific patterns and routines of consumers, especially of the women consumer as she arranges the domestic sphere, can seriously hinder the production of detailed understandings of consumer society and can lead to somewhat sketchy accounts of consumer behaviour (see Casey and Martens, 2007). Bettina Aptheker’s concept of ‘dailiness’ is thus a useful addition to feminist debate. Aptheker (1989) argues that alternative ‘ways of knowing’ and understanding women’s lives is possible by learning from women’s daily, everyday experiences. Her assertion that the meanings and patterns created by women throughout their everyday lives, within a complex set of social and cultural relations provides a useful alternative to traditional structural sociological frameworks, which seemed only to conceal the richness, and subjective detail of the lives and experiences of working class women. Aptheker’s concept of dailiness is especially important for working class women whose subjective experienes have often been excluded from accounts of everyday life in preference for accounts of cultural deviance and protest.2 Structure of the Book Chapters 2 and 3 provide a comprehensive review of literature relevant to this book taken from feminist, cultural and sociological accounts of leisure and consumption. A path is traced through this literature, and a suitable theoretical framework is developed for the purposes of the research analysis. In Chapter 2, the small amount of existing gambling literature is presented, and challenged by re-positioning the National Lottery as a ‘leisure’ and ‘consumption’ activity, rather than as a form of behaviour primarily understood in psychological terms. It draws on feminist 2 The particular importance of class to women’s experiences of National Lottery play and how this offers a contradictory examination of class to that which has been omnipresent in much sociological literature is examined in greater detail in Chapter 3.

14

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

accounts of household budgeting (Rubin, 1976; Pahl, 1989; Graham, 1992; Parker, 1992), and complements this with feminist accounts of women’s access to leisure time (Shaw, 1998; Deem, 1986) and space (Woodward and Green, 1988; Imray and Middleton, 1983). Chapter 3 explores the link between class, gender and culture, and the National Lottery is examined as a form of popular culture, participation in which enables women to define and re-define their class positions (Slater, 1997). It argues that the National Lottery is one important part of ordinary, everyday life, and that participation in this mundane form of popular culture enables the formation of class and gender identities (Walkerdine, 1997). Adopting Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of ‘cultural capital’, the chapter looks at how working class women strive for ‘respectability’ (Skeggs, 1997), by demonstrating appropriate levels of ‘care’ for their children (DeVault, 1991; Charles and Kerr, 1988). The chapter demonstrates the importance of looking at the everyday, ordinary performance of class and gender (Kuhn, 1995), and locates National Lottery participation as one way in which this performance can be illustrated. Chapter 4 is the first chapter to begin to analyse the research findings. Firstly, it provides a counter-discourse to mainstream accounts of ‘pathological’ and ‘deviant’ Lottery play, which explores the normal, everyday and routine nature of the women’s National Lottery participation. The chapter thus re-positions gambling as ordinary and mundane. Adopting the research of feminist sociologists of household budgeting, the chapter seeks to position the gendered norms of everyday household budgeting as central to the women’s experiences of National Lottery ticket purchase. The chapter also draws from feminist leisure sociology in order to demonstrate further the importance of gender in helping to determine the women’s choice of leisure activities. However, the chapter also argues that by playing the National Lottery, the women were active in re-positioning it as an everyday, routine and domestic gambling activity from which they could gain pleasure. Chapter 5 provides further analysis of the empirical research. The chapter offers significant advances, both in terms of challenging current gambling literature which ignores the subjective experiences of Lottery play, and also in terms of providing a re-definition of ‘leisure’. Such a definition re-positions National Lottery play as a ‘leisure activity’, despite requiring no easily distinguishable time or space within which to participate, and being an activity which is deeply embedded in domestic spaces. The chapter adopts Betsy Wearing’s assertion that traditional sociological understandings of ‘leisure’ have failed to account for the complexities of women’s access to pleasurable leisure spaces (1997). Feminist sociologists have identified the home and private, domestic spheres as being of specific importance in the facilitating of women’s leisure spaces which easily fit into everyday demands and responsibilities (for example, Deem, 1986, Shaw, 1998) and have drawn attention to the ideological constraints which restrict women’s access to public, ‘physical’ leisure spaces (Woodward and Green, 1988, Imray and Middleton, 1983). The chapter positions National Lottery play as a ‘metaphorical’ leisure space, which appears to require neither time nor space to participate, and yet which offered the women of this research pleasure through daydreaming and fantasy.

Introduction

15

Chapter 6 works to further expand the concept of ‘leisure’ in order to re-define National Lottery play as a leisure activity which does not correspond to traditional understandings of what constitutes ‘leisure’, in terms of time available and a ‘space’ away from the everyday. The chapter considers that the women used the National Lottery as a means of contesting, refining and challenging the norms of the ‘caring self’ (DeVault, 1991; Skeggs, 1997), and looks at how the women expanded the parameters of ‘appropriate’ gambling behaviour in order that their National Lottery participation did not conflict with the norms and values of working class femininity. It considers the National Lottery as occasionally facilitating a ‘physical’ leisure space in women’s lives. Through their participation in National Lottery syndicates, for example, the women were able to negotiate a pleasurable, physical time and space away from the everyday, which enabled a space for companionship and friendship with other women. Chapter 7 draws together the main findings of the research, outlines the main conclusions, and suggests ways forward for future research. Summary I have demonstrated in this chapter that this book will attempt to uncover a smallscale and inevitably politicised piece of knowledge which can usefully be added to a larger body of empirical research on National Lottery play. Acknowledging an alliance with post-modern theory, I have argued that I do not attempt to reveal any grand or universal truth surrounding National Lottery play. However, I have done so, whilst at the same time avoiding any claims to relativity which would, I argue, trivialise and disguise the real material and ideological constraints faced by the women in their everyday lives. The following chapters will reflect these ontological arguments, by applying a ‘post-modern feminist’ theoretical framework to the women’s experiences of National Lottery participation. Such a framework, as I have demonstrated in this chapter, will draw both from post-modernist concepts of rationalism and dualism, and from feminism’s commitment to providing social critique, and to provoking social and political change. This book aims to compile the first empirical study of women players of the National Lottery, and to offer an account and analysis of the experiences and motivations of these players. It attempts to understand the popular success of the National Lottery in terms of the proportion of the population who play, and the regularity with which they do so, by examining and analysing its appeal as a pleasurable leisure activity for women. The book examines the everyday, subjective experiences of women National Lottery players, and to analyse the importance of class and gender as factors motivating the women to purchase tickets.

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Chapter 2

Women, Gambling, Leisure and Consumption Introduction The National Lottery will become among the best in the world. It may become the largest in the world. It will capture the imagination of the nation with a series of fun and simple, high quality games that are attractive to adults across the country (OFLOT 1994, 20).

This chapter sets the scene of the book by documenting historical and contemporary attitudes to gambling in the UK. It locates the launch of the National Lottery, in November 1994, within the moral and political objections to gambling which haunt much existing literature on Lottery participation. It shows how the policy arena of gambling remains hotly contested. The quotation above, taken from the Office for the National Lottery, shows how the Lottery has begun to provide a discourse of gambling which conflicts with recent moral objections to gambling and its deregulation. The chapter will demonstrate that participation in the National Lottery is both a classed and gendered activity. It will begin to examine how it is that working class women are able to participate in the National Lottery, within these contradictory discourses, and within the confines of often-hostile attitudes to gambling. Background to the National Lottery Lotteries have been used at various stages throughout the history of Britain in order to help raise revenue. The Elizabethan lottery of 1566–1569 sought to raise money for new harbours and between 1694 and 1768 five lotteries were used to pay for the Westminster Bridge and the British Library in the British Museum in 1753 (Munting, 1996: 13–14). Lotteries were officially abolished in the UK in 1823 with the last draw taking place in 1826 (Clapson, 1992: 16). This followed recommendations from such ‘liberal Tories’ as Sir Samuel Whitbread who advocated laissez faire economics and was influenced by Adam Smith’s fear that lotteries discouraged individuals from pursuing ‘habits of continued industry’ (cited in Clapson, 1992: 15). Subsequent governments were keen to distance themselves from gambling. Gambling was perceived as immoral and ‘evil’ and many infamous scandals arose from participation in this ‘vice’. A well known example of this is the ‘Tranby Croft Scandal’ of 1890 where Sir William Gordon Cumming brought court action against his fellow baccarat players who had accused him of cheating. Among them was the future king Edward VII who had to face the indignity of not only being exposed as a

18

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

gambler, but also one of the only monarchs to have ever been called to give evidence in a court of law. Although his mother, Queen Victoria believed that the trial might come to some good by being ‘a shock to Society and to gambling’ (Hibbert, 1976: 158) she was nonetheless horrified that her son should have been ‘dragged into’ this pastime to which the Queen was so vehemently opposed. The Queen’s own distaste for gambling has been well documented and Edward’s passion for the ‘vice’ was symptomatic of their turbulent relationship and ultimately of Edward’s influence in relaxing some of the strict Victorian values, which had in many ways, constrained his life. Once, whilst driving through Monte Carlo (to which Edward was a frequent visitor) Queen Victoria rejected flowers and greetings from the famous casino and ordered that the doors and windows of her carriage remained closed until she had passed through Monaco (Goldblatt, 1976: 87). British gambling laws remained unchallenged until 1978, when Lord Rothschild chaired the Royal Commission which was set up to review the roles of gambling in British life. He recommended a National Lottery to help raise money for good causes, namely the arts, sports and charities. Rothschild was responding in part to the relaxation of gambling laws following World War I where gambling games such as bingo or ‘housey housey’ had been rife (Clapson, 1992: 95), and following the higher rates of gambling amongst the ‘more prosperous’ working classes during the 1950s (Clapson, 1992: 207). He was also acting in response to the suggestion that a national lottery would provide a more attractive alternative to rises in tax. In his 1968 Budget speech, the then chancellor Roy Jenkins argued in favour of a national lottery and in doing so summed up an increasingly popular political sentiment: I do not see why people should be prevented from contributing to the national finances in a way that they might find a good deal less painful than others (cited in Snoddy and Ashworth 2000, 29).

It is interesting to note that this view has frequently been challenged by social commentators concerned that lotteries represent a regressive tax on those on benefits and low incomes. However, Rothschild’s recommendation reflected increasing government concern that if a National Lottery was not introduced in the UK, then the British public might be tempted to invest in foreign lotteries (Munting, 1996: 82). The bill to establish the National Lottery was published on 18 December 1992 by the then National Heritage secretary Peter Brooke and by a post-Thatcher1 Conservative government which advocated free market economics as a determinant of greater economic efficiency (Creigh-Tyte and Farrell, 1998: 1). Following Rothschild’s report, there was a recognition that although gambling could be seen as ‘immoral’, it was nonetheless an increasingly popular pastime amongst the British public. If people were going to gamble then it made sense to Conservative economic policy to introduce a National Lottery which would enable some profit to be drawn whilst allowing the government control over the ‘type and conduct’ of games permitted. According to Roger Munting: 1 Margaret Thatcher was vehemently opposed to the introduction of a national lottery which went against her principles of ‘hard work’ as the most legitimate way to earn money. She was also philosophically opposed to gambling (Snoddy and Ashworth, 2000: 33).

Women, Gambling, Leisure and Consumption

19

... for the first time since the early nineteenth century not only was central government itself sponsoring and encouraging popular gambling, it was allowing a general broadening of the market of mass gambling (Munting, 1996: 88).

Camelot believe that they won the licence to operate the National Lottery on the basis that they were committed to spending less on operating costs and profits and that they had the strongest prospects of raising large amounts of money for Good Causes (The National Lottery, 2001). This, coupled with the conditions of their licence highlighted above, meant that the government was able to effectively condone National Lottery play as a ‘fun’ gambling game that was ‘acceptable’ because ticket purchases helped to raise money for charities. The Director General of the National Lottery summed up this sentiment in his annual report: The Lottery should be seen as a tasteful and acceptable way to win money, whilst generating funds for good causes (OFLOT 1994, 20).

Additionally, the prime time National Lottery Live show which features popular music, entertainment, celebrities, stories of jackpot winners and of those who have benefited from Good Cause money, and importantly the live draw, attracted (and continues to attract) an audience of around 16 million a week making it one of the most popular television programmes in the UK (The National Lottery, 2001). Women and National Lottery Participation According to Camelot, there is little to distinguish Lottery players from non-Lottery players in terms of their socio-economic characteristics: The appeal of the National Lottery appears to be widespread with no distinguishing biases in terms of who the players are. The people playing are spread across all age groups over 16 years and across all social classes. 65% of all adults claim to play regularly (Camelot 1997, 5).

The perception that the ‘typical’ UK National Lottery player ‘could be anybody’ (Rodgers and Webley, 1998: 3), might in part be because to date, there is very little empirical data or research which explores the profiles of National Lottery players. This section will seek to examine the available research in order to elucidate the various trends underpinning and characterising National Lottery play. Despite the fact that it is now a ‘well established’ gambling activity (Wood and Griffiths, 1998: 1), there is currently very little research available which documents the trends and patterns of play. This is especially surprising when one considers that in 1996, just two years after the Lottery’s launch, weekly sales exceeded £60 million, approximately two thirds of the adult population played each week, and approximately 90 per cent of the adult population had bought a National Lottery ticket at some point since its launch (Lewis, 1997: 20). Sproston et al’s gambling prevalence studies (2000 and 2002) represent some of the most comprehensive information to date both on the frequency of Lottery play in the UK, and on the extent of problem gambling. In a summary of their 2003 findings, the authors show

20

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

that 67 per cent of the British population had played any National Lottery game in the past year, that 41 per cent played regularly and 23 per cent said that they had purchased ‘Instants’ at any point since they were introduced (Orford et al. 2003: 3). Research into the frequency of National Lottery games played has been complemented by work which examines the different types of National Lottery games played. Notably, a recent Mintel report pointed out that the National Lottery Saturday draw remains by far the most popular game, followed by the Wednesday draw, scratchcards, then Thunderball (Mintel, 2004). In addition to considering the range of National Lottery games played, other authors have considered the impact that the Lottery has had on the rest of the gambling industry. Lewis cites Camelot research, which demonstrates that most of the money spent on Lottery tickets, is displaced money from other gambling games (p. 20). in particular, argues Lewis, the football pools have been most heavily affected by the introduction of the National Lottery in part because the minimum age of play was 18, compared with 16 for the National Lottery, and because before April 1995, pools companies were prohibited from using broadsheet media to advertise. Creigh-Tyte also writing in 1997, pointed out that total gambling rose from 0.8 per cent of consumer expenditure to 1.3 per cent after the launch of the National Lottery (1997: 331). the author also asks whether there has been a ‘knock on’ effect of the National Lottery on other forms of gambling. He concludes that whilst between 1994 and 1997 there was a 7 per cent rise in bingo stakes (p. 333), betting on the dogs and horses were down by 8 per cent in the same period (p. 334). Other authors have argued that it is possible to make correlations between National Lottery play and other types of gambling. Rodgers and Webley (1998), for example, point to a positive correlation between National Lottery play and scratchcard play, gambling on dogs and horses, football pools and bingo. In other words, people who play the National Lottery are also more likely to gamble in other ways than those who do not play the National Lottery (1998: 2). Although these statistics are useful in revealing the extent of National Lottery play and the range of games played, they are only of limited use in clarifying the reasons and motivations behind players’ decisions to gamble in certain ways. This book seeks to address this problem by delving more deeply into the complex network of decision-making that determines gambling choices. Additionally, it will argue that the general rise in gambling expenditure in the UK is, in part, due to the increasing popularity of gambling amongst new social groups. In particular, the National Lottery appears to have opened up new opportunities for women to gamble. The small amount of available research into profiles of players has uncovered significant differences between players in terms of gender, age and class. A Mintel study, for example, discovered that men were more likely than women to buy National Lottery tickets; 84 per cent of men had played the Lottery at some point since its launch, compared with 78 per cent of women (Mintel, 1998: 19). Similarly, Sproston et al. (2000) in a more recent study, found significant gender differences in gambling participation generally. Men were more likely than women to participate in every gambling activity with the exception of bingo where 10 per cent of women, and 5 per cent of men had participated in the past year (2000: 18). Although more men than women played the Lottery, the gender difference was low compared with

Women, Gambling, Leisure and Consumption

21

the differences for other activities. It was only scratchcards that men and women had purchased in equal numbers. The table below illustrates these findings:

Table 2.1

Participation in gambling activity in past year (2000) by sex

Type of gambling activity

Men

Women

National Lottery Draw

68%

62%

Scratchcards

22%

22%

Football pools

13%

5%

Bingo

5%

10%

Horse races

18%

9%

Dog races

6%

2%

Fruit machines

20%

8%

(From Sproston et al, 2000: 18)

Sproston et al. point out that the lower participation rate for National Lottery play amongst respondents who are looking after their family or home (64 per cent) reflects the finding that these respondents are also more likely to be women (2000: 22). The authors demonstrate that these respondents were far more likely to play only one gambling game, which was nearly always the National Lottery bi-weekly draw (ibid). Additionally, a Mintel survey found that scratchcards were more popular with women between 25 and 44 with children still living at home (Mintel, 1996: 10). These women were mostly in low paid employment, either in a family on a tight budget, or single parents (ibid.). Women also appeared to ‘stake’ less than men, with the average amount spent on the National Lottery draws being £2.50p and £3.10p for women and men respectively (Sproston et al., 2000: 22). Subsequently, more men admitted to losing more money through gambling than women (2000: 40). In another very useful piece of research uncovering trends in gender and National Lottery play, Creigh-Tyte and Lepper (2004) argue that gender is of key importance to understanding gambling behaviour in the UK. Similarly to the NCSR research, Creigh-Tyte and Lepper discovered that in 2004, fewer women than men had gambled in the past 12 months in all forms of gambling with the exception of bingo. The following table illustrates this bias:

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

22

Table 2.2

Female bias in gambling activities in 2004

Gambling Game

Men

Women

Total

Difference

Female bias

National Lottery

64

58

61

-6

-0.10

Other lottery

8

7

7

-1

-0.14

Scratchcards

17

15

16

-2

-0.13

Pools

7

4

5

-3

-0.60

Bingo

5

12

9

+7

+0.78

Fruit machines

14

5

9

-9

-1.00

Private bets

12

3

7

-9

-1.29

Betting on horses

15

7

11

-8

-0.73

Betting on dogs

6

2

4

-4

-1.00

Betting on events

7

1

4

-6

-1.50

Betting exchanges

1

Neg.

Neg.

-1

n.a.

Table games

3

1

2

-2

-1.00

Internet

2

1

1

-1

-1.00

Any other

1

1

1

0

0

(From Creigh-Tyte and Lepper, 2004: 2)

Creigh-Tyte and Lepper conclude by arguing that if it is possible to speak of the ‘feminisation’ of gambling, then this is occurring in the National Lottery, scratchcards and bingo where women gamble at least as frequently, if not more so, than men (p. 2). It is certainly the case that some of the most important changes to the gambling industry since the National Lottery was introduced have to do with the popularity of the game amongst women. Judy White identifies young women in lower and middle income groups as one socio-economic group who had never gambled before the launch of the National Lottery (White, 1997: 6). Additionally, Farrell and Walker found that overall men were more likely than women to play the National Lottery and to spend more than women when they did play (1996). Most women only buy one ticket, compared with men, who are more likely to spend more than £1 when they play (ibid.). The above data positions National Lottery participation as a gendered gambling activity, where women appear to play less frequently than men, to stake less when they do play, and to be less likely to participate in other gambling activities. Rodgers and Webley (1998) also point to a slight positive correlation between National Lottery play, age and income. However, they do so whilst pointing out that contrary to findings based on overseas lotteries, which have found that the ‘typical’ Lottery player is non-white, on a low-income, poorly educated, and of lower socio-economic status, the UK National Lottery player could be anybody. Thus there is only a very slight prevalence in lower social classes (p. 3). However, other research has revealed

Women, Gambling, Leisure and Consumption

23

a significant correlation between class and participation in the National Lottery. A Mintel survey, for example, concluded that Lottery play is a classed activity, with ticket purchase more popular amongst the less affluent C2 (skilled manual) category, and amongst people who are married with children and who work but are on a ‘tight budget’ (Mintel, 1998: 21). The NCSR2 survey supports these findings. It found that the manual social classes (IIIM, IV and V) were more likely to have gambled in the past year, and to have gambled in more activities than the non-manual social classes (I, II, IIINM) (Sproston et al., 2000: 23). Additionally, the authors found that the average National Lottery player works, but is in low paid employment (ibid.). The National Lottery Commission data correlated with the above. It found that those from social class C2 played the most, with also the highest expenditure, and that social classes A and B played the least (1999: 5). This book begins from the premise that an exploration of the motivations and experiences of those who play the National Lottery, would benefit from an understanding of how and why working class women play. It draws from White’s observation that the National Lottery has ‘opened up and made acceptable to new social and economic groups new forms of gambling’ (1997: 6), including women in lower and middle income groups (ibid.). It examines the ways in which women who are often on a tight budget, manage to find money to gamble. It also considers how women who have primary responsibility for looking after the family and home incorporate Lottery play into their domestic, everyday routines. Very little is known about how and why different women play the National Lottery. The only information currently available takes the form of statistics of Lottery participation. Mark and Lesiuer argue that the (often very striking) differences between men and women’s gambling should be explored in order to incorporate women into the analysis of gambling. In order to do so, we must firstly challenge the dominant (and dubious) notion that what is true for men must also be true for women, and second, acknowledge that research carried out by men cannot help but reflect men’s experiences (1992: 356). According to Mark and Lesiuer: An objective account of reality must make sense of both women’s and men’s experiences and, therefore, must be constructed from the vantage point of both (ibid.).

I argue that research by and about women National Lottery players is essential if any comprehensive account of gambling is to be achieved. This research explores the possibility that part of the popularity of the National Lottery amongst a group of working class women who had often not gambled regularly before the Lottery’s launch, has to do with Good Cause money as a means of positioning the National Lottery as a ‘legitimate’ form of gambling. It examines how the women appeared to feel more comfortable participating in this gambling activity than any other. However, it also recognises the critiques of lotteries as a means of raising revenue, which form an important part of the anti-gambling discourses, which were negotiated by the women who played.

2

NCSR – National Centre for Social Research.

24

Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

Dangerous Consumption: Addiction and the Lottery The study of gambling has often explored the ‘state of mind’ of the gambler, and has attempted to understand ‘pathological’ or ‘problem’ gambling. Indeed, some of the most detailed and extensive research conducted on the National Lottery has focused on the ‘addictive’ qualities of Lottery tickets and scratchcards. In attempting to provide a definition of ‘problem gambling’, Lesieur and Rosenthal argue that: A small minority of people gamble in a way that compromises, disrupts or damages family, personal or recreational pursuits (1991: 1).

The British psychologist Mark Griffiths has written particularly prolifically on the subject of gambling addictions and has been at the forefront of debates which suggest that as a form of gambling the National Lottery puts the health of the nation at serious risk (1997a: 5). Griffiths lists the often devastating consequences of compulsive gambling, including constant cravings for further gambling, severe mood modification, increased tolerance and therefore a need to engage in increasingly extreme forms of gambling behaviour, withdrawal symptoms, conflict and finally, a tendency to relapse into old behaviour patterns (1997a: 7). Griffiths expresses concern that the relaxation of gambling laws to allow for a ‘fair’ playing field with the National Lottery, will lead to increased incidents of problem gambling (p. 7). Indeed, by November 1995, Gamblers Anonymous reported that the number of calls they received had risen by 17 per cent. One key way in which players become ‘addicted’ to ticket purchase is via the process of ‘entrapment’ (Griffiths: 1997c). Pointing to the fact that 67 per cent of players select the same numbers each week (as opposed to getting the computer at the Lottery kiosk to randomly select numbers, Griffiths argues that many players will not miss a week for fear that their numbers will be drawn on the week that they do not buy a ticket (p. 28). Entrapment may not lead to the same devastating psychological and financial consequences as other forms of addiction, nonetheless, as a description of a process through which individuals are no longer able to stop purchasing tickets should they wish to, entrapment is certainly a type of addiction. Griffiths argues that the specific characteristics of scratchcards make them particularly dangerous and potentially extremely addictive (1997a). They have a short pay out interval, the ‘loss’ period is very brief, winnings can be re-gambled immediately, players are frequently frustrated at the ‘near miss’ that is deliberately perpetuated in scratchcards, ‘scratching’ requires no skill, scratchcards are deceptively inexpensive, and finally, they are highly accessible and available at a range of ‘respectable’ and ‘non-gambling’ shopping outlets such as Post Offices, supermarkets, newsagents etc. (p. 7). Griffiths goes so far as to place scratchcards in the category of ‘hard’ gambling products because of the possibility for high frequency playing, and labels them ‘paper fruit machines’, with fruit machines acting as a metaphor for high-frequency ‘hard’ gambling (p. 7). Griffiths points out that since many of the laws regarding other forms of gambling have been relaxed to allow them to enter a level playing field with the National

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Lottery,3 then this could lead to an increase in gambling, and potentially to an increase in ‘problem’ gambling (1997a: 5). Camelot has been eager to be seen to be taking the issue of ‘problem’ gambling seriously. Emphasis is often placed on gambling that becomes ‘problematic’ when the financial security of individuals and their families are put at risk because of ‘excessive’ gambling. The National Lottery Yearbook defines ‘problem’ gambling in terms of the percentage of gamblers who spend more than 40 per cent of their income of gambling (Fitzherbert et al., 1997: 26). In an article on fruit machine addiction, Griffiths applies some of his theories of compulsive gambling to a case study of a young woman who described herself as a former pathological gambler (Griffiths, 2003). Although the article does not directly focus on what it was about her gender that influenced her compulsive gambling behaviour, there are a number of ‘clues’ visible in the research. Amusement arcades appeared to offer a sense of place: Jo felt “safe and protected” at the arcade. She liked it that everyone who worked there knew who she was – she was a “somebody” rather than a “nobody”. In essence, being at the arcade boosted Jo’s self-esteem (p. 3).

This finding echoes other research which has identified ‘safe’ gambling spaces as one key factor which might motivate women to gamble (see for example, Casey, 2004 and Dixey and Talbot, 1988). However, in terms of addiction, it is interesting to note that when Jo seeks help for her addiction, she does not feel welcome or comfortable in the Gamblers Anonymous group because she is the only woman there (p. 6). This appears to reinforce the idea that gambling is overwhelmingly a ‘male’ domain, in terms of both the practice of gambling and seeking help and treatment for problem gambling. Other authors have suggested that gambling is synonymous with ‘bad parenting’. Sue Fisher, for example, argues that ‘parental indifference or approval’ of the National Lottery encourages underage Lottery participation (2000: 6). Additionally, Wood and Griffiths point to a link between parental and underage National Lottery participation (1998: 1), observing that 71 per cent of underage Lottery players had their tickets purchased for them by their parents. One important theme of this book explores the women’s awareness of dominant gambling and National Lottery discourses, which clearly did not sit comfortably with the norms of appropriate parenting and money management. It considers how it was that the women negotiated their Lottery participation in order that it did not conflict with their domestic and family spheres. Much of the dominant National Lottery research does not provide any account of the classed characteristics of Lottery players. Thus, whilst much of the available 3 According to Lewis, the football pools have been the gambling activity most heavily affected by the launch of the National Lottery (1997: 22). Family Spending statistics show that the average amount spent on the football pools per household in the UK, fell from 57p per week in 1994, to only 20p in 1997 (1994, 1997). As a consequence, Littlewoods Pools experienced a decline in turnover of 86 per cent between 1994 and 1996 (Mintel, 1998: 15). Lowering the legal age of pools players from 18 to 16, and permitting pools companies to use the broadcast media to advertise their products, enabled them to compete more fairly with the National Lottery.

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data demonstrates the ‘problems’ associated with Lottery participation, very little information exists to help understand the experiences and motivations of Lottery players. Some authors have conceded that there may be a ‘fun’ or a ‘social’ aspect to Lottery participation (Clotfelter and Cook, 1991; Creigh-Tyte and Farrell, 1998; Rogers and Webley, 1998). However, for the majority of authors, National Lottery play is triggered by an unfounded and ‘irrational’ belief in the possibility of winning the Lottery jackpot. Griffiths points to the ways in which National Lottery advertisements distort the chances of winning particularly via the on-going It Could Be You! campaign (1997c: 27). Drawing attention to the large audience figures for the National Lottery televised live draw, Griffiths argues that the ‘normal’ winners portrayed make the prospect of winning seem real (ibid.). Similarly, Clotfelter and Cook suggest that the publicity given to Lottery winners, both on television and it the tabloid press, remind the public that it really is possible to win (1991: 71). They argue that much Lottery play is characterised by a belief that it is possible to ‘beat the odds’, and that for some, Lottery play is a game of ‘effort and skill’ rather than simply a game of pure chance (p. 90). Clotfelter and Cook suggest that: … the Lottery agencies do nothing to educate the public on these matters; if anything they seek to encourage magical thinking (p. 71) [and that] … the mystique of numbers is an important element in explaining the popularity of the Lottery (p. 90).

One of the key features of National Lottery play, then, is a belief that numbers have a mystical, even magical quality, and in this sense are not ‘randomly’ selected. Creigh-Tyte and Farrell (1998) argue that many National Lottery players suffer from ‘gambler’s fallacy’ and believe that by carefully and consciously selecting their numbers, they will have a higher chance of winning than if they selected the numbers completely at random (p. 10). According to Griffiths (1997c: 28), the majority of players do not select their numbers randomly and since certain numbers are commonly less popular than others, there is often a low coverage of popular combinations. It is possible to argue that conscious selection has been variously encouraged by Camelot, as seen for example during the early How Do You Pick Yours? campaign, as a means of increasing the frequency of the more popular ‘rollover’ draws which are more likely to occur where players select broadly similar number combinations (Creigh-Tyte and Farrell, 1998: 8). The belief that it is possible to manipulate the odds of winning through careful number selection has been used by Griffiths as evidence to link motivations for Lottery play with the gambler’s fallacy (1997c). For example, he argues that players tend to focus on the amount to be won rather than the chances of doing so, tend not to pick certain numbers or sequences, believe that predictions can be made from past events and over-estimate the positive and underestimate the negative outcomes (p. 29). Rogers and Webley (1998) examine patterns of ‘irrational thinking’ found in traditional forms of gambling and examine the relevance of this to National Lottery play (p. 3). They part company with other commentators by arguing that players are not ignorant of the probabilities of winning the National Lottery, but rather that they frequently misunderstand the odds of winning (p. 4). The authors draw attention to a range of ‘heuristics’ which might influence a poor judgement of probability amongst

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players. These include choosing ‘random’ looking numbers (p. 4), a belief in ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ numbers (p. 5), a belief that it is possible to ‘nearly’ win (p. 6), a belief that there is a higher chance of winning during rollover weeks, and a belief that careful selection strategies can influence outcomes (p. 7). Hill and Williamson (1998) draw similar conclusions, but argue also that although ‘irrational’ or ‘biased’ thinking is a major motivation for National Lottery play, the most powerful motivation of all is the dream of becoming an ‘instant’ millionaire (p. 21). They hope that by uncovering ‘false beliefs’, their research will enable players to reduce their irrational thinking and may discourage players from wagering large amounts of money in the hope of increasing their chances of winning (ibid.). What this section has shown is that to date, there is little or no analysis of Lottery participation as an everyday and ordinary gambling activity, rather than as a deviant and dangerous pastime. National Lottery participation is both gendered and classed, but it is not known how and why it has become an everyday, ordinary and ‘respectable’ gambling activity in the lives of those individuals who are not ‘addicted’. To date, very little research has attempted to explore the trends and patterns of National Lottery play or to begin to understand why some forms of gambling appeal more to one social or economic group than another. This is despite the evidence discussed earlier which shows that although the National Lottery is popular amongst almost all social classes, lower income groups spend more as a proportion of their income than upper income groups (Sproston et al. 2000: 23). It also indicates that the percentage of women players is far higher than for any other gambling activity (Creigh-Tyte and Farrell, 1998: 5). There is only a small amount of research available, which may help to shed some light on the National Lottery as a social and cultural phenomenon. What follows is an attempt to reconcile the small number of sociological accounts of gambling, with sociological accounts of culture, in order to re-position and reclassify the UK National Lottery as a form of ‘popular culture’. The National Lottery as ‘Popular Culture’ Many traditional and contemporary accounts of gambling behaviour have tended to rest on critiques of the ways in which the working classes choose to spend their ‘spare’ money and their leisure time. Frequently, such critiques came from social reformers such as Seebhom Rowntree (1905), and George Orwell (1984), whose frustration at observing the poor investing money that they could not afford into gambling games that they have so little chance of winning, reflects Marxist rhetoric such as that advocated by early critics of contemporary consumer society. In particular, Richard Hoggart’s (1957) analysis of the stupefying and false consciousness-inducing effects that he believes post-war American popular culture has on its working class consumers, bears a remarkable similarity to Orwell’s fictional accounts of the ‘drugging’ effects that lotteries have on the lower social classes: The Lottery, with its weekly pay-out of enormous prizes, was the one public event to which the proles paid serious attention. It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principle if not the only reason for remaining

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Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant (Orwell 1984, 77).

Hoggart’s analysis of popular culture as ‘rootless and shallow’, and as something which ultimately silences the working classes and suppresses their ability to explore alternatives to their class subordination (1957: 270), offers a similar account: Most mass-entertainments are ... full of a corrupt brightness, of improper appeals and moral evasions ... These productions belong to a vicarious, spectators’ world; they offer nothing which can really grip the brain and heart (1957: 277).

It is definitely the case that sociological accounts of gambling have traditionally rested on critiques of gambling as a problematic form of popular culture, and have attempted to defend the working classes who are the ‘victims’ of the gambling industry. Working class gambling was the focus of early anti-gambling organisations, such as the National Anti-Gambling League, founded in 1890, and which condemned such gambling as irresponsible and a major cause of secondary poverty – that is, poverty which could be avoided by careful money management (see Rowntree, 1905). More recently, sociological accounts of gambling in Western culture have reflected these early critiques of gambling, by observing the National Lottery in similar class terms. Gerda Reith (1999) suggests that an integral feature of the National Lottery is that it represents a ‘brutal exploitation of hope’ of the working classes for whom purchasing a Lottery ticket is the only way that they imagine they can escape their subordinate position in capitalist society (1999: 100). This hope is exploited by the government for whom the National Lottery acts as an extra form of taxation; a means of raising revenue which, argues Reith, is spent on the wealthy, rather than on the working classes. She argues that: ... although Lottery participation is biased to the working classes in the North, proceeds are appropriated by the middle classes in the South. As a revenue-raising device then, the Lottery is a particularly regressive form of taxation, with those on the lowest incomes paying far more than their wealthier neighbours (1999: 102).

Ironically, Reith points out, it is the National Lottery’s emphasis on ‘Good Causes’4 which has been a factor in enticing many people to play by making the Lottery a ‘legitimate’ form of gambling (1999: 103). The type of moral anti-gambling position advocated by Rowntree (1905), coupled with the neo-Marxist critiques of the National Lottery, are reflected in much contemporary journalistic (see for example Bleasdale, 1995) and political critiques of the Lottery. Certainly, it is possible to speak of a dominant anti-gambling discourse in the UK, which is particularly critical of the ‘exploitation’ and ‘desperation’ of the participation of those in low income groups. Husz’s more recent work (2002) examines some of the complexities surrounding the moral and ethical dilemmas of gambling, and argues that lotteries represent 4 The recent Billy Connolly advertising campaign has been abandoned by Camelot in favour of adverts featuring members of the public who have benefited from Good Cause money.

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an illustration of some of the contradictions inherent in modernity, and can help to understand the complex dilemmas of gambling practice for individuals in both their public and their private lives. Husz argues that in Sweden, individual, private dreams of winning money are commodified into Lottery play, which has a range of social welfare benefits. Pointing out that traditionally, criticism of gambling has come from both right-wing sources (as synonymous with an anti-work ethic) and left wing sources (as an exploitation of hope and desperation stemming from poverty), Husz suggests that this diversity of criticism can be seen to be resolved by the Swedish state Lottery which deals with economic concerns of losing money to overseas lotteries, and which ‘gives something back’ via social welfare provision. Private dreams of winning money thus become public spectacles through, for example in the case of the UK National Lottery, local and national regeneration projects. The ‘welfare gain’ of state lotteries thus, according to Husz, softens the unpalatable notion of gambling as a ‘vice’ associated with the ‘sinful’ longing and desire for consumer durables (p. 74). For Husz, a clear link exists between the public and private in the case of state endorsed lotteries, simply for the reason that individual private dreams go on to finance supposedly collective goals. The assumption that the funding decisions of state lotteries are always ‘collective’ is problematic, as I shall explore later. Nonetheless, Husz’s point is a useful one, namely that a complex negotiation takes place between ‘morality and interests, both at an individual and at a collective level’ (p. 73). Furthermore, Husz critiques the conventional assumption that gamblers suffer from alienation and a mistaken belief that happiness is possible via gambling rather than hard work and thrift, and also the concern that lotteries will become a vision for the future of the young working classes, where ‘chance’ becomes a commodity that can be bought and sold (see also Reith, 1999: 102; cited in Husz, 2002: 67). In short, Husz suggests that a moral paradox of gambling exists which is far more complex than has previously been assumed. Certainly, many of the old dichotomies underpinning modernity are not altogether useful when one researches Lottery play. For Husz, these dichotomies include backwardness vs. progress, individualism vs. collectivism and hedonistic dreaming vs. rational calculations (p. 53). As we shall see, Lottery play appears to transcend all three dichotomies, and as such, offers an excellent example of a contemporary form of consumption which relates not only to broader debates about the individual in society, but also how consumer behaviour is entwined with the structures of civil society, and moreover, how individuals use consumption to manage some of the dilemmas affecting their everyday lives. The National Lottery is an important part of contemporary capitalist culture, and can be understood using early critiques of popular culture. What this book seeks to address though, is how working class women subvert popular critiques of National Lottery play, in order to negotiate something ‘useful’ for themselves. How do the working class women who participate in the Lottery defend themselves against dominant anti-gambling discourses, and in doing so negotiate their ‘respectable’ working class femininity?

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Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

The National Lottery and ‘Consumer Culture’ In contemporary capitalist society, one of the key ways in which individuals gain status and respectability is via the acquisition of consumer goods. Herbert Marcuse’s (1968) assertion that consumer goods ultimately work to silence the working class and to act as a form of social control, clearly echoes Hoggart’s (1957) arguments, but in addition, Marcuse considers some of the subjective ways in which individuals consume. Specifically, he argues that individuals believe that their lives and identities will be enhanced by the accumulation of consumer durables (1968): People recognise themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home ... social control is anchored in the new needs which the (consumer society) has produced (1968: 24).

The idea that by purchasing commodities, individuals are able to gain status and respectability, has very important implications for understanding the motivations of working class women who play the National Lottery. The ‘lure’ of the jackpot – of winning large sums of money – is generally cited as the main factor motivating individuals to purchase tickets. This book explores the extent to which the prospect of winning enough money to purchase consumer goods which signify status, was a key factor motivating women to purchase Lottery tickets. However, in developing a suitable theoretical framework with which to examine the possibility that the women used the National Lottery as a means of facilitating their dreams and longings for consumer goods, the book rejects the idea that the working classes attempt to emulate the purchasing of commodities and consumer goods of the upper classes. The concept of ‘social emulation’ derives from Thorstein Veblen who, writing in 1899, was perhaps the earliest social commentator to consider what individuals consume and why. Central to Veblen’s pioneering work, The Theory of the Leisure Class, was the idea that individuals purchased commodities as a means of displaying their wealth to others. He argued that the availability of consumer goods enabled consumers to present themselves as wealthy or of a ‘high class’ or ‘breeding’, even if they were, in reality, none of these things: In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth and power. The wealth or power must be put into evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence (Veblen 1953, 42).

According to Veblen, for those in the lower classes who seek to ‘emulate’ the ‘wealth or power’ of the upper classes, conspicuous consumption is their best means of achieving this. As the lower classes emulate the upper classes, the upper classes are continuously forced to re-establish themselves as the ‘real’ wealthy and powerful by consuming different types of conspicuous commodities. The only option left to the lower classes, who seek to emulate them, is more conspicuous consumption. The ‘social emulation’ thesis is one which remains popular in the sociology of consumption (see for example, Fine and Leopold, 1990). However such Veblenesque theories of conspicuous consumption have also been rejected, notably by Colin Campbell (1989) who argues that the ‘emulative theory’ is inadequate in a number

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of ways. Campbell’s first two criticisms are of particular use for examining the consumer behaviour of the women of this research. Firstly, he points out that people may desire goods for the immediate and obvious satisfactions that they produce rather than for any status these goods carry. This has important implications for any understanding of the consumption patterns of the women of this research, and demonstrates the gender blindness of Veblen’s early theories. It must be considered that for working class women, part of the ‘dream’ of winning money on the National Lottery, is in order to be able to afford the goods necessary for the everyday survival of the family – goods which, as Campbell notes, do not always carry any ‘status’. Secondly, Campbell usefully re-classifies ‘emulation’ as ‘imitation’ (1987: 40). He argues that whilst there might be evidence of the working classes imitating the designs etc. of the upper classes, this does not necessarily mean that their imitator is attempting to emulate a way of life. From this point of view, the ‘emulative theory’ is simply the result of upper class concern which perceives emulative behaviour by the lower classes as threatening to their positions of status. Throughout, this book will demonstrate that the working class women of this research never tried to emulate the ‘wealth or power’ of the upper classes. Rather, it will examine the ways in which the women dreamed of winning money via the National Lottery so that they might gain some of the status and power which they imagine goes alongside owning some of the goods that the upper classes possess. It shows that at no stage did the women of this research ever attempt to emulate a middle or upper class ‘way of life’. On the contrary, the book stresses throughout the women’s frequent rejections and criticisms of middle and upper class ‘ways of knowing’.5 ‘Domestic Gambling’ This book positions consumption as it can be used to understand gambling, as a ‘gendered’ concept throughout. It examines the specific appeal of the National Lottery to a group of working class women. In doing so, it makes use of feminist accounts of consumption, and complements this with the few existing gendered accounts of gambling behaviour, in order to provide a suitable framework with which to examine Lottery play as a gendered consumption activity. Consumption is a gendered activity. Celia Lury points out that although traditional theories of consumption examine capitalism and class relations, a more comprehensive understanding of consumer culture would emerge from more gender-specific theories of consumption (Lury, 1996: 121). This is precisely my point about existing National Lottery literature, and to a large extent, gambling literature generally. Current gambling research is severely limited in its refusal to acknowledge the gendered and classed nature of Lottery play. Participating in the National Lottery is a gendered activity, and although traditional theories of gambling have sometimes examined capitalism and class relations, a more comprehensive understanding of gambling would emerge from more gender-specific theories of

5 This is a central theme particularly in Chapter 5, where I demonstrate the ways in which the women were critical of my middle class position.

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Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience

National Lottery play. Existing research into the motivations and experiences of Lottery players considers those who gamble only as ‘individuals’ and not as social and cultural beings. I argue that Lottery participation is a consumption activity, and as gendered accounts of consumption have shown, women do not merely consume as ‘individuals’, but rather within familial, domestic and financial constraints. A number of early feminist accounts of everyday consumption drew attention to the position of women as the ‘chief consumers’ in contemporary Western society (eg. Friedan, 1965: 207). Importantly, emphasis was also placed on women as skilled consumers and money managers. In The Sociology of Housework for example, Ann Oakley drew attention to the role of ‘housewives’ as chief managers of the household budget, whose responsibility it was to purchase enough to satisfy the ‘needs’ of the home, husband and children, often within a tight budget (1976). Franklin et al. also drew attention to consumption as work, or a ‘task’ through which women gain respect and status: As consumers women ‘work’ with the acumen that is generally attributed to business, not to receive a wage but to receive compliments; ‘cutting the cost of coats’, ‘cut capital outlay’ – on clothes; budgeting for the cheapest buys (1978: 146).

Other feminist writers such as Delphy (1984) argue that as managers of the home and as responsible for domestic consumption, women become sacrificial as their consumption work reproduces patriarchal privilege. Delphy argues that: Women are in practice managers of the home and like all overseers, they find themselves confronting situations for which no instructions exist … This general principle is simple: the wife and mother should always preserve the privileges of the husband and father and “sacrifice” herself (1984: 50–51).

Delphy’s influential study may help to explain why subsequent feminist research tended to over-look domestic consumption. Furthermore, her work may help to understand the developments occurring in the late 1980s and early 1990s towards sub-cultural theory and a search for resistance via consumption rituals. Ultimately, this work advanced Delphy’s argument that domestic consumption acts as a key means of reproducing gender relations, but by adding to this a search for evidence of subversion and ritual resistance. It is interesting that Delphy’s feminist account of consumption as part of women’s unpaid domestic labour, occurs simultaneously to broader theoretical discussions of ‘everyday life’. Particularly influential was work by de Certeau (1984) who defined everyday life as a mode of productive consumption whereby individuals appropriate and manipulate consumer goods. Goods and services are thus transformed via consumption and identities are created. For de Certeau, it is through our everyday practices that social change is provoked as individuals re-work notions of what everyday life means. DeCerteau’s approach is only of limited use when applied to women consumers. Crucially, it assumes that all individuals have at their disposal an amount of control over the social world and that spaces exist where the pressures of the social body can be challenged, and even where individuals can escape such pressures. Clearly this is

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problematic when examining women National Lottery players. Although I will argue that the Lottery is often appropriated by women in order that they can challenge some of the ideological, material and cultural constraints which have traditionally hindered their leisure participation, it is also true to say that for women, everyday spaces in particular the home, do not always offer the type of refuge from the ‘social body’ that is implied in de Certeau’s writing (see de Certeau, 1998: 148). Indeed, it has been left to feminist writers to provide alternative understandings of the nature of domestic life, which may offer definitions of ‘everyday life’ which are more applicable to the specific characteristics of women’s lives. Jackson and Moores (1995) argue that one key problem emerging from much literature on domestic life, such as the anthropological emphasis on the ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ is that this overlooks the fact that, for women, domestic life frequently encompasses both sacred, ‘special’ or pleasurable experiences, but also ones which ultimately return women to (profane) positions of victims of a heterosexual, romantic ideal (see also Boden, 2003). Although in this book, I seek to critique the positioning of women as victims to the lure of romantic, domestic ideals, Jackson and Moore’s work remains pioneering in offering a twofold critique of existing work on domestic consumption, from which it is possible, especially in light of more recent research, to suggest ways forward for theories of domestic consumption, and to propose alternative ways of examining the intersection of class, gender, domesticity and identity in National Lottery play. Firstly, Jackson and Moores point out that there was – and is – a lack of examination between the ways in which public discourses define and reproduce cultural notions of ‘the family’. Similarly, it could be argued that for women National Lottery players, popular cultural practices of play frequently reproduce and challenge public discourses of appropriate play and how gambling impacts upon ‘the domestic’. Secondly, according to the authors, the sociology of domestic life has much to benefit from an increased emphasis on a range of different familial forms, for example in terms of class, ethnicity, sexuality, single parent families etc. By identifying working class women as the focus of this book, I am able to challenge prevailing assumptions about the homogeneity and uniformity of domestic life by identifying class as one key feature of everyday life. This book examines how purchasing National Lottery tickets became part of the everyday money management routines of the working class women of this research. In doing so, it draws from Rubin’s claim that women frequently employ extremely ingenious strategies for managing the household budget, even in the most difficult and oppressive circumstances (1976: 207). I consider National Lottery participation as one such ‘strategy’ employed by the women of this research in order to make their often difficult financial situations easier for themselves and for their families. I also explore how it was that the women were able to use the National Lottery to negotiate a ‘suitable’ gambling space within dominant anti-gambling discourses. The dilemma faced by working class women when presented with the chance to be able to relieve some of the pressures of a tight household budget, was articulated in 1911 by Lady Florence Bell who wrote of the plight of working class women gamblers: Systematic betting of the women ... is in many cases ... a quite deliberate effort to add to the income. A man comes to the door of a woman, who ... is hard pressed for money,

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Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience and presents her with a shilling and winning £5. How should she not listen to him? (1911: 354).

Gambling for working class women can be seen as a very important part of managing the household budget. This book will oppose the idea that National Lottery play is unsystematic, spontaneous or ‘irrational’, and instead proposes that purchasing tickets is part of an attempt made by the women to place a small stake in making an often difficult financial situation easier. The book also considers how the women were able to present themselves as careful money managers despite their decisions to gamble a small proportion of the weekly household budget. In exploring the specific ways in which the National Lottery fitted into the women’s routines of household budgeting, the book draws from existing studies of working class women and budgeting. Jan Pahl’s research into how money is spent within the family offers a useful framework from which to begin to consider the women’s decisions to purchase Lottery tickets (Pahl, 1989). Specifically, Pahl found that for low income families, women tend to be in control of finances, whereas for higher income families or where the husband is the only earner, he is more likely to control or manage the finances (1989: 168). Additionally, where women control money, a higher proportion is likely to be spent on housekeeping; ie. on food and other daily living expenses (Pahl, 1989: 169). Money earned by women, according to Pahl, is more likely to be used for housekeeping than the husband’s earnings which are more likely to be spent on leisure (ibid.). My discussion of gambling as a form of domestic money management confirms Pahl’s analysis. The women whom I interviewed were in low income families, where both themselves and their partners were in (low) paid employment. It thus follows the implications of Pahl’s analysis by investigating the position of gambling within the women’s ‘roles’ as household budgeter and provider of everyday essentials. The book explores the extent to which the women believed gambling enhanced – or offered the possibility of enhancing – their abilities as household budgeters. It locates the National Lottery not as an ‘individual’ activity that the women participated in ‘for themselves’, but rather prioritises the idea that working class women spend relatively small amounts of money on themselves compared to on their children, and the needs of the household (Pahl, 1989: 171). Other authors have examined the strategies employed by working class women to ‘make ends meet’. Graham, for example, in her study of women and budgeting in low income families in the UK, concluded by pointing out that women have a double burden of protecting both the health and the financial security of the family; they must find a way of budgeting in order to attain an ‘acceptable’ living standard without getting into debt (1992: 223). This book draws from this analysis by proposing that the women whom I interviewed had primary responsibility in the household for budgeting, and that playing the National Lottery provided them with a potential means of alleviating the struggle of maintaining a ‘decent’ standard of living without getting the family into debt. Budgeting played a major role in the women’s lives, and part of the reason for its importance lay in the fact that the women perceived ‘selflessness’ and caring ‘properly’ for their families as synonymous with ‘femininity’. Parker shows how women still retain primary responsibility for

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financial budgeting and managing as they did a century ago (1992: 237). She argues that blame and accusations of ‘bad caring’ tend to fall on women if the rent and bills cannot be paid or if the children are not ‘adequately’ clothed, and that being in debt only elicits further disapproval (ibid.). For working class women struggling to juggle these responsibilities (often on a low income), playing the National Lottery offers a possible means of alleviating financial pressures and avoiding the feared criticisms of others. These factors suggest that traditional theories of National Lottery players as somehow ‘deviant’ and ‘irrational’ need to be challenged. Rather, for the women of this study, Lottery play can be seen as a form of ‘domestic gambling’ which is played predominantly in the home, and which is entrenched in the women’s ordinary, everyday household routines. Lottery Play as ‘Leisure’ Such is the ‘domestic’ nature of National Lottery play, that the extent to which it may also be considered a form of ‘leisure’ is debatable. This book discusses the extent to which it is useful to position Lottery play as a ‘leisure’ activity in the women’s lives, in the same way as other gambling activities have been (eg. Roberts, 1978, Dixey and Talbot, 1982). It asks whether or not an activity which is so entrenched in women’s everyday domestic routines can possibly be considered to be ‘leisure’. An exploration of existing feminist accounts of leisure will seek to establish the extent to which it is useful to discuss the National Lottery as a form of ‘leisure’, which ‘fits into’ the ideological and material constraints placed on women’s lives. Dobash and Dobash pioneered this debate with their assertion that similar factors which constrain women’s paid work, also constrain their leisure time and the type of leisure activity available to participate in: (t)he dictum that a women’s place is in the home doesn’t so much mean that she shall not go out to work, but that she should not go out to play (1979: 91).

The ‘constraints model’ of leisure, can be roughly divided into two ‘constraints’; namely ‘time’ and ‘space’. What follows is an attempt to demonstrate the usefulness of employing these categories for the purposes of exploring the experiences of women National Lottery players. The analysis of time and space that follows, adopts these categories whilst registering the important differences between the women, and acknowledging the multiple versions, discourses and models of femininity that are operative in contemporary society. For the women of this research, their class, age, gender and geographical locations meant that more traditional versions of femininity continued to be dominant and this informed their negotiation of time and space within their National Lottery play. At the same time, however, this was never true in the same way for all of the women all of the time. Indeed, they often had occasion to draw on other discourses of femininity that contested the following (perhaps rather rigid) constraints of time and space.

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Time ‘Time’ is a gendered concept, and leisure time for women does not easily fit the traditional work / leisure dichotomy as postulated by early leisure sociologists, such as Parker (1976), for example. Certainly ‘time’ has a subjective meaning, and for women, leisure is not always simply an escape from ‘regulated and mechanical’ time structures (Sullivan, 1997). Rather, women’s ‘leisure time’ is limited and frequently interrupted (ibid.), and one consequence of this, is that women are far more likely than men to perform a number of tasks, especially household chores, simultaneously (ibid.). This lack of ‘spare time’ is exacerbated by the pressures placed on women to be good ‘wives and mothers’, which means that women are often left with very little, or no time to do things ‘for themselves’ which do not ‘come under the heading of duty’ (Shaw, 1998: 389). Women often struggle to negotiate time of their own, within these rigid time constraints, as Shaw documents: The only time I had any peace was driving to work. Sometimes I used to pull the car into the side of the road and just sit for 5 minutes ... (Cited in Shaw, 1998: 390).

This book examines the possibility that the National Lottery constituted a leisure space which the women had negotiated within their rigid time schedules comprising paid work, children and husband. This idea is supported by feminist accounts of leisure that have pointed out that for women, there is no easy split between work and leisure (Deem, 1986: 82). In order to negotiate leisure time, Deem observes that women frequently resort to ‘quick’ activities which require no preparation, and which can easily ‘fit into’ a hectic and fragmented time schedule (1986: 88). Such activities include for example, knitting, reading, watching television and day-dreaming, all of which, Deem argues, can be carried out whilst working (1986: 81). This book positions the National Lottery as this kind of constrained ‘leisure’ activity. It draws from feminist understandings of leisure, and in particular the notion of ‘time’ as a central factor constraining women’s leisure activities. It locates the National Lottery within this literature and research, and argues that participation can be understood in terms of the ways in which women ‘carve out’ a pleasurable leisure space, often within very rigid time structures. Space Women’s access to leisure activities is often limited, not simply due to a lack of time available to pursue desired activities, but also because of ideological restrictions. The explicit divide in industrial society between ‘work’ and ‘home’ which is often presumed by traditional accounts of leisure, does not take into account women’s experiences of domestic work, and how this might affect their leisure participation. In terms of leisure as a means of gaining pleasure and satisfaction, and ‘escape’ from everyday constraints on their lives, this is not an appropriate analysis for women. Woodward and Green argue that leisure is an aspect of women’s lives which is constrained as much as any other:

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… the area of leisure, which is portrayed as the ultimate in freedom and pleasure, is actually one of the aspects of life in which women’s behaviour is the most closely monitored and regulated (1988: 131).

Ideologies exist to help monitor and regulate women’s behaviour and to persuade women that stereotypes and representations of women are ‘natural’ and ‘universal’ (Woodward and Green, 1988: 132). One very important consequence of this, is that those leisure activities considered ‘appropriate’ for women to participate in are limited (1988: 133). This is particularly true for married women who are keen to present an image of ‘domestic harmony’, which is evidenced in their choice of leisure activities (1988: 135). Thus, women often experience feelings of guilt and selfishness when they pursue leisure activities for themselves (ibid.). I consider the National Lottery as a form of gambling which is often played with the family, and thus enhanced familial ideals of ‘togetherness’. Research into the ideological constraints on women’s leisure activities, has been complemented by studies which examine the ways in which women are reprimanded when they engage in leisure activities which are considered ‘inappropriate’ for them. Imray and Middleton demonstrate the formal and informal male control over women in pubs as an example of public spaces (1983). Drawing on the popular idea of a public (male) and private (female) divide in society, the authors found that women who attempt to enter these public spaces unaccompanied by men, challenge the boundaries between the private and the public, and constitute a threat to the men who had claimed these spaces as their own (1983: 26). Subsequently, women’s behaviour in these public spaces is tightly controlled by men, through joking, excessive courtesy, gossip and ridicule (ibid.). These control mechanisms enable men to position women as members of the private rather than the public sphere, and consequently to reinforce and protect the barriers between the two (Rodgers, 1981). This has important implications for any gendered analysis of the National Lottery and gambling. One central theme of this book is ‘gambling spaces’ and the ways in which Lottery play fits into traditional gendered notions of the public and private as highlighted above. In particular, I consider how, in participating in the National Lottery, women need only enter domesticated public spaces, such as newsagents and post offices where tickets are purchased, and importantly, how participation occurs predominantly in the home. Subsequent chapters consider the ways in which the women of this research defended themselves against the possible gossip and ridicule of others (men and women) when entering gambling spaces, and position the National Lottery as one way in which women have carved out a suitable gambling space from within these constraints. I examine also alternative gambling spaces which might require entry into traditional ‘male / public’ spaces, such as betting shops and dog racing tracks, and how those women who do gamble in these spaces defend their right to do so. The techniques used by managers in the gambling industry as an attempt to cash in on women gamblers, have centred around the assumption that women feel uncomfortable and intimidated in certain gambling spaces. Indeed, there is increasing recognition across the gambling industry that women might be more tempted to gamble in ways other than the National Lottery and the bingo, if they were offered

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gambling spaces which felt ‘safe’. Trevorrow and Moore (1998) for example, argue that within the Australian gambling industry, there has been a ‘feminisation’ of various gambling products, as increased attempts are made to make different forms of gambling ‘women friendly’ and socially acceptable through attractive venues with food and sometimes childcare (p. 3). Attempts have also been made in the UK to make women feel welcome and more willing to gamble in different ways, by repackaging gambling products and shedding the image of ‘men’s games’. Betting shops have attempted to become more ‘welcoming’ to women by opening their windows and doors, having refreshments, and on ‘big’ race days (such as the Grand National), having extra staff at the door to welcome women, and to help newcomers to fill in betting slips. Judy White quotes Ian Wassell of the UK betting firm Ladbrokes, who proposed that other aspects of the betting industry, following the success of the National Lottery, might develop the company in ways that might appeal to women and expresses optimism that such techniques are working: We have more ladies now. We have spent a lot of money trying to make our shops more welcoming with coffee and a bit more comfort, and it’s beginning to work. Ladies can look into our shops now and see that the people who bet do not have two heads and are not old men smoking Woodbines. They are like anyone else down the pub. In the future, we will definitely see a much more even spread of men and women customers (Quoted in Hennessey, 1996: 52).

Recently, some advertisements for betting shops have attempted to appeal to women, by featuring images of women gamblers in their windows. These advertisements are in stark contrast to other often overtly sexist advertisements in the gambling industry which appear to make no effort to attract women customers. The extent to which Wassell is accurate in his assumption that pubs constitute a space in which women feel comfortable is debatable (see Imray and Middleton, 1983). This book explores in detail women’s access to public gambling spaces, and highlights the existence of deep-rooted ideological constraints which make the National Lottery one of the only gambling spaces that many women feel is appropriate for them. Despite the ideological constraints which monitor and regulate women’s leisure lives, women are adept at employing innovative and ingenious strategies for negotiating their own personal leisure spaces, often away from the family (see Mason, 1988). National Lottery play should therefore be seen, both as a leisure activity in which working class women participate because of the ideological and material constraints on their everyday lives, but also as an activity which they have adopted in order to create a pleasurable leisure space of their own.

Chapter 3

Working Class Women, Identity and Protest Introduction The previous chapter examined some of the ideological and material constraints placed on women as they live their everyday lives, and the choice of leisure and gambling activities available to them. This chapter develops this theme by further problematising the notion of ‘women’ as a unified category. Specifically, it explores the use of class analysis as a means of understanding women’s relationship with culture, and builds a suitable model for examining class, for the purposes of this research. The chapter considers how ‘class’ and ‘gender’ are constructed around notions of ‘respectability’ and ‘caring’ (Skeggs, 1997), and how working class women use the National Lottery as a means of negotiating their working class femininity. It proposes a theoretical framework which expands on the traditional class models discussed in the previous chapter, by investigating how working class women claim, develop and shape culture for their own needs. It asks how it is that the women used the National Lottery in order to gain pleasure and satisfaction. The chapter considers how sub-cultural accounts of leisure can be complemented with Foucauldian notions of ‘space’, in order to begin to understand the pleasures afforded by National Lottery participation. Women, Class and Culture Working class women’s scepticism of, and frustration with, middle class discourses and ways of knowing, can be illustrated by exploring women’s desire for ‘cultural power’ and status. The types of power and status sought by working class women tend to be counter to the types of power and status sought by middle class women. This finding is echoed in studies which have drawn attention to the cultural behaviour of the working classes, which is often counter to the cultural attitudes of the dominant (middle) classes. Thus, Paul Willis (1977), in his classic account of working class boys, revealed a general working class scepticism and rejection of ‘middle class’ culture, symbolised by education and the school. Recognising that the status and power achievable via the school system were unattainable, Willis shows how working class boys rejected the school in favour of their own counter-school culture within which they were able to gain status and power. Juxtaposing middle class with working class culture, Willis provides a useful framework from which to begin to understand working class rejection of middle class ways of knowing.

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Willis suggests that the state school in capitalist society exemplifies the processes of class conflict and class reproduction. By distrusting, opposing, and struggling against authority, the school, and, more generally, capitalist society, the working class inevitably reproduces it, since they never gain the qualifications necessary to transcend their working class lives. As they form their counter-cultures, which reject the school’s authority, and subsequently the quest for knowledge and qualifications, so they are destined to leave school and enter ‘working class’ occupations. This book considers dominant anti-gambling discourses (as discussed in the previous chapter), as one aspect of the middle class power that working class women react to and attempt to resist. It explores the ways in which working class women use the National Lottery in order to help shape, resist and reproduce their normative working class femininity, through the production of their own gambling counter-discourses. Working class women demonstrate a scepticism of middle class femininity, from which they believe they will always be excluded. I shall argue that National Lottery participation represents one such rejection of middle class ways of knowing, which working class women have replaced in favour of their own gambling counter-culture. The ways in which the working classes create counter cultures as a means of opposing the middle class norms and values which exclude them, adds further weight to my argument presented in the previous chapter, that the working classes do not seek to emulate the middle classes. Contrary to Veblen’s ‘emulation’ theory, I argued in favour of Campbell’s ‘character-action’ approach, which replaces emulation with ‘imitation’. This has important implications here. Rather than attempting to ‘emulate’ the middle and upper classes, working class women, in a variety of different ways, desire some of the cultural goods which signify status, but not the lifestyles of the middle classes. Thus, although the working classes may envy and desire middle class power and status, their own means of attaining this are firmly embedded in a set of counter-cultural norms and values. Raymond Williams’ understanding of class is useful, and contradicts Veblenesque claims that the working class is becoming more bourgeois, simply because it possesses increasing amounts of consumer goods: ... it is not “bourgeois” to possess objects of utility, nor to enjoy a high material standard of living. The working class does not become bourgeois by owning the new products, any more than the bourgeois cease to be bourgeois as the new objects he owns change in kind (1987: 323–324).

This book argues that the working class women of my study did not want to become middle class. Instead of equalling ‘class’ with only a higher or lower material standard of living, it examines class in relation to an overall lifestyle which is often counter to dominant, bourgeois norms and values. It argues that the women desired some of the cultural goods which they imagine will give them status as working class women. As demonstrated above, working class women often reject middle class norms and values, in favour of their own alternative – or counter – set of cultures and beliefs. I thus consider firstly, to what extent culture is a consequence of class, and explore the notion that class determines the type of cultural activity that individuals participate in. Secondly, though, the book argues throughout that culture is a central feature in

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the production of class and gender identities, and that ‘culture actively enters into the formation of class itself’ (Slater, 1997: 162). Class and gender are constantly refined and redefined by cultural behaviour. Class is central to this book, and one key aim is to provide a link between class and gender. The book proposes that it is not always useful to interpret working class women’s relationship with popular culture as one of resistance and protest to their working class situations. It considers the National Lottery partly as a counter-culture which women have claimed as a means of re-negotiating their normative working class femininity. However, it also proposes that part of the pleasure of Lottery play for working class women, is that it offers a chance to ease everyday struggles to get by; it is not always an expression of resistance or dissatisfaction. In order to understand properly the Lottery as a pleasurable form of popular culture existing in working class women’s everyday lives, I consider the Lottery as a means of coping and surviving the everyday. It advocates a re-examination of ‘class’ in left and feminist theory, in order to incorporate an understanding of working class women’s participation in popular culture which does not assume continuous resistance to patriarchal capitalism. Valerie Walkerdine supports such a viewpoint and expresses anger at middle class perceptions of the working class: How can we also understand the place of popular culture in the lives of people whose lives do not appear as romantic rebels or continually resisting audiences? (1997: 22).

According to Walkerdine, middle class cultural theorists have largely been concerned with popular culture, and the cultural production of the working classes when they can be seen to be subverting and resisting the status quo (1997: 19). She argues that such work has merely fetishised and exoticised the working class ‘other’, and has made it seem as though any aspects of working class culture which are ‘conformative’ rather than ‘active and positive’ are not worthy of analysis (1997: 20). Walkerdine’s claims might begin to explain the lack of analysis of gambling as a sub-culture. The previous chapter highlighted the popular neo-Marxist critiques of gambling which express disappointment and frustration at participation in a cultural form which appears to suppress political action. I argue that providing some analysis of gambling as a sub-culture is useful, particularly as a means of understanding the counter-discourses of gambling which contradict popular critiques of gambling. However, I argue also that adding gambling to the study of women, class and culture, can help to counteract the tendency in cultural studies to overlook aspects of popular culture which appear ‘conformative’. I suggest throughout that it is vital not to focus only on the cultural participation of ‘the conscious working class, those who have sub-cultures and can demonstrate resistance’ (ibid.). Arguing that cultural studies could benefit from a move away from readings of culture which focus on sub-cultures and resistance, Walkerdine advocates a more sophisticated understanding of culture which would explore the coping and survival strategies of ordinary working class people ‘who are subjects formed in the complexities of everyday practices’ (1997: 21). The Left has tended to forget about these people, who have been dismissed as problematic and pathological, and as ‘the reactionary problem’ (ibid.). Any understanding of National Lottery participation

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as a form of popular culture, needs to move beyond existing accounts of Lottery play, which have expressed only despair and frustration at the ways in which Lottery players have been ‘duped’ and ‘exploited’ (see Chapter 2). Such accounts of popular culture are problematic because they propose an ideal of transformation and resistance (Walkerdine, 1997: 22). They ignore issues of conformity, oppression and exploitation, all of which Walkerdine believes to be essential components of the ‘normative development’ which must be explored if we are to understand the working class psyche (ibid.). This has extremely important implications for my research. This book is less an examination of the resisting and reactionary tendencies of working class women Lottery players, and more a story of how the women claimed the Lottery as a cultural space which offered a means of easing the everyday struggle to ‘survive, cope, hope (and) dream’ (1997: 25–26). As Walkerdine argues, accounts of working class women’s everyday lives should be less about revolution and resistance, and more to do with accounts of survival (1997: 26). This book argues that the everyday, apparently ‘conformist’ consumer behaviour of working class women offers a means of easing the everyday struggle to survive. Participating in the UK National Lottery is one contemporary example of this ‘conformist’ consumer behaviour. I explore the ways in which Lottery participation offers the possibility of social status, ‘power’ and pleasure. The Lottery can provide economic capital, which potentially offers prestige and status when it is successfully exchanged for ‘cultural capital’ (Featherstone, 1991: 89). In their attempts to gain cultural capital, individuals seek also to gain social status and ‘power’ via the presentation of consumer goods (Featherstone, 1991; Bourdieu, 1986). Featherstone identifies the emergence of a ‘narcissistic’ postmodern consumer who engages in ‘the search for expression and self expression’, and who has a ‘fascination with identity, presentation and appearance’ (p. 91). He argues that individuals attempt to satisfy this narcissism through the purchasing and presentation of consumer goods. By contrast, this book argues that for working class women, cultural capital is displayed by a specific set of codes which signify their status as working class women. The codes which signify status and cultural capital for working class women are different from those for middle class women and which cannot be explained within a framework organised around notions of narcissism or an atomised self-expression, as explored further in the next section. Thus, I acknowledge the importance of the heterogeneity of class, and examine the classed and gendered search for cultural capital via National Lottery participation.1 In addition, the book takes its lead from theoretical work which has sought to bridge the gap between consumption and identity, without overlooking the structural influence of for example, class and gender. Most notable, is Bourdieu’s work on distinction which has been lauded by many social scientists as the most useful development in our understandings of cultural consumption, which combines a sense of identity with ‘taste’ – symbolic or ‘cultural capital’ – whilst retaining an 1 In Distinction, Bourdieu (1986) recognised the ways in which different social classes read and deconstruct cultural symbols. This book deconstructs the category ‘working class women’, and considers the problems that homogeneous accounts of cultural capital pose to analysis of this sample.

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emphasis on class reproduction and status. Despite some quite persuasive accounts of the limitations of Bourdieu’s approach (see for example, Mackay, 1997: 5), this book draws heavily on notions of habitus and cultural capital. It recognises the need to provide gender-specific accounts of consumption and takes inspiration from authors who have offered feminist applications of Bourdieu (for example, Skeggs, 1997; Silva, 2007). The book also acknowledges the uses of other, more recent work, such as du Gay (1997) who have suggested that consumption might be more suitably understood using categories of lifestyle rather than class. Post-modern literature such as Baudrillard (1988) takes this theme to its logical conclusion; that consumption has very little to do with need, use of utility and that rather than consuming according to our class, gender etc., we become what we buy. Thus, it is signs and signifiers rather than products per se which are consumed, and: We are left with society as pastiche, a play on signs with no reference beyond the commodity (Mackay 1997, 5).

As we shall see, such an approach is of limited use for understanding the gambling consumption of working class women. To an extent, the women of this research used the Lottery as a ‘signifier’; a sign of external dilemmas, anxieties and everyday problems. However, this book examines the ways in which Lottery ticket purchase itself did not so much act as signifier as the dream of what could be produced. The idea that the National Lottery appears to act as signifier and use, need and utility will be explored. This book critiques the assumption that consumer culture must necessarily be pleasurable. Instead, it argues that often consumption, especially for women, is less about pleasure and more to do with necessity, routine, budgeting etc., and this is particularly true for working class women who choose to gamble an amount of their limited household budget on Lottery tickets. The National Lottery is thus considered as a signifier of class and gender, whilst retaining an emphasis on class and gender as social institutions. Examining class, gender and National Lottery play provides a most appropriate means of developing this debate and of considering both the limitations of Bourdieu’s approach and the extent to which it is useful to re-think consumption from a more post-modern point of view. Key to this debate, is the extent to which from Bourdieu’s perspective, class (and gender) determines consumer behaviour, or, as with Baudrillard, class and gender are formed and re-formed via the consumption of signs and signifiers. As far as possible, this book adopts a theoretical framework which attempts to reconcile the argument that the reality of women’s lives and especially their class and gender identities, were shaped by their participation in National Lottery play. In other words, the meanings and motivations behind Lottery ticket purchase will be examined as an important means through which signifiers of class and gender are consumed. For example, the women’s discussions of their budgeting of Lottery ticket purchase and winnings will be considered, as a signifier of class and gender and of the women becoming working class women via their consumption practices. However, the data presented in this book clearly points to the ways in which, at times, class and gender determined consumption practices and the decision to play the Lottery.

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‘Respectability’ As a form of gambling, National Lottery participation can be viewed not only as a form of consumer behaviour itself, but also as a possible opportunity for more consumption – through spending any winnings. Cohen and Taylor (1992) usefully made this point in their examination of attempts made by individuals to ‘escape’ or temporarily dislodge the self from reality. The authors argue that as a form of mass consumption, gambling offers, firstly a temporary time and space away from the ‘poverty, alienation and boredom’ of everyday life (p. 233), and secondly, a potential ‘means of transformation’, via the consumption of more consumer goods (p. 122): The structured chance that we encounter at bingo halls, casinos and racetracks pays out identity dividends for some and cash dividends for others which provide the means for transformation and not the transformation itself (p. 122, my emphasis).

Although this book recognises that as a form of gambling, the National Lottery offers a possible opportunity for the purchase and display of consumer goods, it argues also that Cohen and Taylor’s un-gendered argument is not entirely suitable for this project. The book brings into question the usefulness of the authors’ assertion that consumption is used to ‘escape’ or to dislodge the self from an oppressive ‘reality’. Instead, I argue that for women, there is frequently no easy escape from ‘the self’, however temporary, and that in consuming, women often avoid distancing their selves from social reality. What women consume, is very often bound up with notions of ‘respectability’. I argue that working class women engage in cultural behaviour which is often consistent with the norms of behaviour considered respectable and ‘appropriate’ for them, but which also enables them to refine and negotiate the boundaries of their class as well as their femininity. They desire the means through which they can become ‘respectably’ working class (Skeggs, 1997), and look to culture as a means of attaining this. Since this book attempts to problematise the traditional view of ideology which positions culture as a means of alienation and escape, it considers as problematic early feminist accounts of working class femininity which positioned women’s ‘caring’ work in terms of its ‘oppressive’ functions (for example, Barrett and McIntosh, 1982; Oakley, 1976). Although this book does not dispute the effectiveness of powerful norms which constrain the types of activities considered ‘appropriate’ for them (especially leisure activities, as discussed in the previous chapter), it considers also the power and status which is afforded working class women through caring, and the respectability that accrues from caring. This book takes on board the idea that women have often come to ‘represent’ the household, and that the state of the home often reflects on her. It acknowledges that women’s status and ‘respectability’ are entwined with the equipment and style of the home (Barrett and McIntosh, 1982: 64), and that women often use their homes in order to display their status and respectability. However, I argue also that these early accounts ignore the status and respectability which flow from ‘caring’ and from which considerable pleasure may be derived. As a form of cultural behaviour, the National Lottery demonstrates how the norms of ‘care’ for women are never static and unchanging. Rather, participating

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in the Lottery offers a form of limited power and protest at the type of rigid norms discussed by Barrett and McIntosh, and a means of refining and negotiating the parameters of appropriate caring behaviour. Finally, these early accounts prove problematic for this research project, since they rely on very rigid categories of ‘women’ and ‘the family’. At no point do they deconstruct these categories in terms of, for example, class.2 Beverly Skeggs (1997) warns of the dangers of avoiding class analysis: To abandon class as a theoretical tool does not mean that it does not exist any more; only that some theorists do not value it. It does not mean the women would experience inequality any differently; rather, it would make it more difficult for them to identify and challenge the basis of the inequality which they experience (p. 6).

This book considers class inequalities to be based firstly on material wealth and income, and secondly upon a popular critique of the lifestyles and cultures of the working classes. These inequalities have specific relevance for working class women who often express pride and pleasure in being able to provide a ‘good’ ‘caring’ environment for their families. DeVault, for example, found that working class women express pride in their ability to feed and care for their families in a way that they thought was appropriate, despite often extremely difficult financial situations (1991: 187). She was struck by the women’s determination to make up money resources that they lacked in order that they might be able to care for their families. This often involved taking on paid work (p. 188). This book considers the pleasure and pride expressed by women at being able to demonstrate their care for their families, but also the women’s frustrations at the unrealistic demands to provide for their families in a way that was rarely possible on a limited budget. It explores National Lottery participation as one enormously pleasurable way in which the women dreamed, imagined and longed for the financial resources necessary to provide the types of care that they felt was appropriate for them. Caring for both poor and affluent women signifies family sociability, love, comfort and pleasure (DeVault, 1991: 191). However, for poor families, ‘survival is never ... taken for granted’, and there exists a ‘consciousness of scarcity’ (ibid.). Caring for working class women, thus becomes more an ‘urgent necessity’ than a romantic pleasure as it may be for more affluent families (ibid.). For those women who feel unable to perform caring tasks ‘adequately’, there often exist apologetic accounts of how they fall short of the things they ‘try’ to provide and ‘need’ for their families (p. 196). Often the standards which women attempt to follow and live up to are unrealistic and contradictory, and frequently women are aware of this. I consider the apologetic references that women make when they feel constrained through a lack of financial resources available to care in a way that offers more pride and pleasure, and less struggle and frustration. The book also considers how women negotiate their own definitions of ‘caring’, and how they re-negotiated their National Lottery participation, as a form of gambling in order that it enhanced rather than hindered their abilities as carers. 2 In the next chapter, I argue that recognising the diversity of ‘woman’ as a category is an important part of any feminist project.

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DeVault concludes by arguing that public discourse mystifies and misrepresents caring and underestimates the effort and skill that it requires (p. 228). Because ‘caring’ is idealised as ‘womanly’ and ‘feminine’ behaviour, it is often women who are blamed – even vilified – when problems in the family arise (ibid.). One of the themes of this book rests on an exploration of how the caring abilities of working class women are constantly monitored and are under scrutiny of other working class women, as well as middle class women and men. It examines how the women of this research used the National Lottery in an attempt to enhance their caring abilities, but also how the women drew clear boundaries around what constitutes appropriate and ‘inappropriate’ gambling behaviour. Such is the centrality of being a ‘good carer’ in women’s pursuit of respectability, that DeVault suggests that it is impossible to separate the ‘material’ and ‘emotional’ aspects of caring work (p. 229). In women’s caring lives, ‘work and love’, ‘power and deference’, ‘intimacy and self-deprivation’ become entangled (p. 232). By internalising their caring roles, women thus develop a ‘caring self ’. Skeggs (1997), in her study of young working class women undertaking ‘caring’ courses, explores the ways in which the ‘caring self’ is produced, performed and negotiated (p. 56).3 She argues that through their caring for others, women create a ‘caring self’ (p. 64). Such a claim contradicts Cohen and Taylor’s thesis discussed earlier, which suggested that individuals survive in contemporary society by dislocating themselves from social reality (Cohen and Taylor, 1992), and is more useful for the purposes of this project. Skeggs found that the women of her research did not have any means of separating the reality of their ‘caring’ professions from their caring selves (p. 64). It was impossible for the women to distinguish between ‘caring’ per se and a caring ‘personality’ or ‘self’ (p. 68). ‘Caring’ was seen in terms of the possession of specific personality traits, and no distinction was made between ‘doing’ and ‘being’ (ibid.). According to Skeggs: ... you cannot do caring without being caring. To be caring means that you have to embody the personal dispositions (ibid.).

‘Caring’ is a classed and gendered concept (p. 64), and is an important technique employed by women to validate their own concept of self, and to give the self value and respectability (p. 69). Working class women demonstrate a specific caring self, and different signifiers of ‘respectability’ to middle class women. The concept of ‘selflessness’, and the ways in which women work to avoid feelings of selfishness and guilt, is adopted by Charles and Kerr (1988) in their study of women as providers of food. The authors discovered that: (Women) sacrificed their own preferences to such an extent that when asked about their own likes and dislikes most of them replied that they would eat anything; they fitted in with the rest of the family ... In contrast, when they were asked about their children and partners’ likes and dislikes, they went into great detail describing them (p. 63).

3 Chodorow (1978), Radway (1994) and Gilligan (1982) have written about women and caring, but the concept of a ‘caring self’ can be attributed to Skeggs.

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Charles and Kerr describe the ways in which women struggled to feed their families, and found pleasure when they were able to do so ‘properly’ (p. 175). As Skeggs (1997) has also shown, women crave a high social status and respectability, which they believe is attainable through demonstrating high levels of care for their families. As I argued earlier, in contemporary capitalist societies, this care is often achieved through buying more things for the family. For Charles and Kerr, the purchase of food is one such means of demonstrating care. They argue also that women are frequently constrained by the food preferences of their partners and children (p. 237). ‘Innovations’ or changes in diet are unwelcome and unappreciated (ibid.). For Charles and Kerr, one key constraint on women’s caring abilities is income (ibid.). I consider throughout the idea that the women of this research imagined that winning money on the National Lottery would help to relieve the daily struggle of being a caring and responsible self. The notion of respectability has particular pertinence in terms of gambling research. Despite the link between gambling and family problems, including underage gambling, there is a small but growing body of evidence to suggest that unlike other forms of gambling, the National Lottery bi-weekly draw is popular amongst women because it is a ‘respectable’ form of gambling. If this claim is accurate, then it might similarly be the case for bingo, which as we have seen, attracts significantly more women than men players. Bingo as a form of respectable leisure activity for women was first addressed in Dixey and Talbot’s classic study Women, Leisure and Bingo published in 1982. The study usefully positioned bingo as a key leisure activity within the broadly working class and female community in Armley, West Yorkshire. Importantly, Dixey and Talbot argue that bingo is so popular amongst women because it is a cheap form of entertainment, which not only offers excitement, but also offers a ‘safe’ and ‘acceptable’ leisure space that also offers excitement. Furthermore, Dixey (1988) draws attention to the importance of producing sociological understandings of working class women’s leisure lives, and in particular to the necessity of exploring bingo as an area in which working class women have created a useful and meaningful leisure space for themselves within a range of political and economic constraints (p. 97). Bingo thus became so popular because it fitted in with financial, familial and access constraints. In addition, since bingo is uncompetitive and requires no skill, the major reasons for playing include winning money and socialising. For older women, especially, bingo play offers a source of social contact in a place which can feel ‘like home’; Dixey argues that in the 1980s men gained similar social contact and a sense of belonging from the local pub (p. 97). It is fascinating that the women of Dixey and Talbot’s research did not cite winning money as their main motivation for play. Rather, it was the sociability and the company provided through bingo that was most important (Dixey, 1988: 98). As one bingo player remarked: I’m not here to win really. If I win, good enough, but I’m here for the company and the relaxation (ibid.).

Other, more recent studies of women and bingo play have also drawn attention to bingo halls as offering a ‘respectable’ leisure space which perpetuates a sense

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of belonging to a community (for example O’Brien-Cousins and Witcher, 2004). Additionally, Faith Freestone (1995) in a large-scale survey of bingo players found evidence to support the idea that bingo halls offered a sense of locality and community support (p. 23). Indeed, players were often wary and unwelcoming of technological and commercial changes to bingo, preferring the intimate and community leisure environment it traditionally offered. Interestingly, Freestone suggests that by 1995, a ‘new era’ of bingo players were emerging who had gambled for less than ten years, spent more, gambled more sporadically, had little allegiance to any one club and enjoyed the ‘excitement’ of bingo more than the traditional bingo players (p. 28). It is certainly the case that prior to the launch of the UK National Lottery, bingo play was the only gambling game in which women participated in significant numbers. It is fascinating to note that the National Lottery is the first gambling game in which men and women participate in approximately equal numbers. It is worth considering the extent to which research has provided evidence to suggest that, like bingo, Lottery play offers a safe and respectable leisure space for women. Mark Griffiths argues that one of the reasons for the popularity of National Lottery play is that it is perceived as a ‘normal’ and ‘socially acceptable’ form of gambling (1997b). Indeed, he shows that 89 per cent of the population approved of the National Lottery and 71 per cent think that it is ‘a good thing’ for the country (p. 23). Creigh-Tyte and Lepper (2004) usefully examine approval or disproval in a range of different gambling activities and look at how this might be gendered. They discovered that overall, women are far more critical of gambling than men (p. 5), and that, perhaps unsurprisingly, women respond more favourably to those types of gambling that they actually participate in: Participation in betting offices, on-course betting, private bets and fruit machine play is male dominated and these forms of gambling are considered most unfavourably by women (p. 6).

Everyday Culture and Caring for the Family One of the major criticisms frequently levelled at gambling and particularly problem gambling, has to do with the supposed negative effects that it has on the family. This has particular ramifications for women for whom ensuring the well-being and security of the family has particular significance. A wide range of authors have argued that it is primarily women who are defined and measured in terms of their ability to manage and protect the family, and who are blamed, and even vilified when things go wrong. Other authors have expanded this argument by arguing that it is very often working class women who are singled out for blame by the media for example, and through the negative judgements of ‘surrveilant’ others when things go wrong (for example, Skeggs, 1997, Lawler, 2002). It is vital then, when considering the reasons why women might gamble money on the National Lottery, that we attempt to do so from within the context of women’s broader lives, with particular reference to their familial responsibilities. Looking at the ways in which gambling and National Lottery play are framed by social commentators and academics as detrimental to family life, can provide a framework for understanding how women tread a careful balance

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between gambling on the one hand, and avoiding critique for putting the family ‘at risk’ on the other. The British newspaper the Daily Mail in 2004 launched an ongoing campaign to oppose the Gambling Bill, and the expansion of the gambling industry more generally. In doing so, they have made much of the possible link between gambling and family problems. Arguing that ‘problem gambling is a health issue, causing depression, domestic violence and child abuse’, the newspaper cites research conducted by Griffiths who suggests that gambling can harm the family: Personal costs [of problem gambling] can include irritability, extreme moodiness, problems with personal relationships, absenteeism from work, neglect of family and bankruptcy (My emphasis; cited in the Daily Mail, 5 November 2004).

Trevorrow and Moore (1998) further argue that it is not only the case that gambling can cause serious familial problems, but also that many women gamble as a means of escaping rather than dealing with family difficulties and associated feelings of loneliness and social isolation. They argue that ‘escaping’ family difficulties as a factor motivating gambling is specific to women and contrary to men’s experiences of gambling, which tend to be motivated by excitement and financial gain (p. 3). Trevorrow and Moore thus argue that the outcomes of problem gambling are gender specific and that for women, these outcomes have particular ramifications for the family (p. 15). They suggest that: [p]roblem gambling was manifest in these women in various ways including gambling more money than they intended, chasing losses, feeling guilty, experiencing criticism from others about gambling, arguing with others over money used to gamble, and “borrowing” from housekeeping money to support the gambling habit (My emphasis; p. 16).

It is interesting to note the ways in which gender-specific accounts of gambling behaviour have frequently shown how women’s gambling practices are structured around the family. Trevorrow and Moore thus position gambling as a means of offering women an escape from the loneliness which they associate with the family, but also how often the consequences of women’s gambling can negatively impact upon the family. Julie Scott’s anthropological study of gambling in casinos and in coffee shops in northern Cyprus examines women’s role in these gambling spaces (2003). Scott argues that within local gambling discourses, the feminine ideal of ‘sense’ and ‘restraint’ over the gambling practices of husbands and partners was constantly reinforced. Indeed, often the women were not seen by the regular gamblers to be ‘gamblers’ at all (p. 271). Scott quotes one local casino manager as he explains the role of women in casinos: The true gambler does not know the value of money – they like to play with chips and continue. The presence of a wife in the casino – somebody who does know the value of money – after a dinner dance or a reception for example – well, that can stop the man playing (My emphasis; p. 273).

Women are frequently positioned, then, as those with primary responsibility for protecting the family, and acting as an arm of restraint on the gambling practices of husbands and partners. This reinforces women’s role as ‘carer’ and one who guards,

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rather than puts the health and finances of the family at risk. Protecting children from gambling via National Lottery play is a contentious subject and one that has been hotly debated. Some researchers have recognised that the National Lottery offers a possible familial leisure space where the family can gather together, perhaps as a syndicate, or in order to watch the winning numbers being drawn. White, for example, argues that the National Lottery is perhaps the first form of gambling which can truly offer a form of sociable ‘family gambling’ (p. 6). Other commentators have argued that allowing children to observe and take part in gambling instils a gambling personality in children which is likely to be adopted in childhood, or earlier. Fisher (2000), for example, uncovered a link between ‘parental indifference or approval’ of underage National Lottery play and actual underage participation and problem play, and also a link between viewing the (pre-watershed) televised live draw and underage play (p. 4). Interestingly, Fisher’s research revealed a steady growth in past week expenditure on Lottery tickets amongst under-16s. However, she argues that this growth is not due to any significant increase in illegal sales, but rather to a growth in parental purchases for their children (p. 5). Wood and Griffiths (1998) similarly exposed a strong link between underage gambling and parental gambling. Most under-age National Lottery players had had their tickets and scratchcards bought for them by their parents (71 per cent of National Lottery ticket and 57 per cent of scratchcard sales) (p. 2). When one considers the negative relationship that is commonly discussed in popular discourse between the family and gambling, in terms of for example, underage play, coupled with the customary depiction of women as responsible for protecting and setting the limits on gambling participation, it is interesting to note that women play the Lottery at all. Moreover, it is useful to consider how women who play the National Lottery do so whilst defending their ‘respectable’ identities. For working class women especially, where the demands of ensuring the security of the family are further compounded by a limiting financial budget and by a tradition of willingness in British culture to single out working class women for particular scrutiny and often ridicule (see Lawler, 2005), the frequency of Lottery play amongst women comes almost as a surprise. Aside from the unfair prejudice inherent in such representations of working class women, one of the less obvious problems with such an approach is that theoretically, it presents only a very limiting narrative of working class life. In terms of the more subjective, complex patterns of consumption, care, work etc., which underpin everyday routines, a more careful examination of the relationship between class, gender and everyday subjective life is essential. I argue throughout this book, that as a form of popular culture enjoyed by working class women, the National Lottery plays an important role in the formation of the women’s everyday lives, and the negotiation of a caring self. Annette Kuhn (1995) believes that there is a failure in mainstream sociology to recognise the ordinary, everyday performance of class, and to acknowledge sufficiently the relationship between class and culture:

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There is too often a failure to imagine how social class is actually lived on the pulse, how it informs our inner worlds as it conditions our life chances in the outer world (p. 101; my emphasis).

As another example of the respectability that working class women desire in order to gain status and public approval, Kuhn argues that working class women often use their children (particularly their daughters) as a ‘space’ upon which to write their own desires and fantasies (p. 43). She argues that for working class women, public presentations of their children as ‘well turned out’, are imperative because they are expressions of a woman’s love (p. 44). Since a child’s appearance commonly stands as evidence for this love, then failure for children to be publicly ‘well turned out’ is seen as a mother’s failure (ibid.). Skegg’s argument about the role of ‘caring’ in validating the self and giving it respectability, can be seen to echo Kuhn’s claims that ‘loving’ is synonymous with ‘good’ caring; with having ‘enough to eat and decent clothes to wear’, and with being a ‘good’ mother (p. 45). Whilst acknowledging the great economic cost and the labour required of being a mother, Kuhn suggests that it is possible to gain pleasure, pride and ‘emotional reward’ from being the ‘successful’ mother of a ‘well turned out’ child (p. 48). She thus talks of ‘the mother’s fantasy of identification’ in which a daughter is the means by which a mother can demonstrate ‘proper’ care (p. 52). A publicly displayed, ‘well turned out’ daughter is a distraction to some of femininity’s limitations, dissatisfactions and disappointments with everyday life (p. 57). One important theme of this book explores the ways in which women’s desires and fantasies are often inextricably linked to their expressions of care for their children and grand-children. It examines the women’s dreams and longings that the National Lottery could provide a means of attaining this care, through relieving financial constraints. This book is partly an attempt to decipher the types of caring and respectability that the women of this study demonstrated, and is also an exploration of how participating in the National Lottery might have relieved the women’s everyday struggles to care and to be ‘respectable’. In addition, it is an examination of how Lottery play represents part of the negotiation of the caring self; how the women expressed some dissatisfaction with, and worked to expand the parameters of the caring self. I attempt to decipher some of the special features of working class women’s culture and consider the relationship between culture and caring. I argue throughout that working class women participate in cultural activities which give them pleasure and some power, and which ease the struggle to be respectably working class. The book argues that rather than striving to be middle class, working class women adopt a critique and rejection of middle class cultures and ways of knowing, in order to make their cultural behaviour acceptable and appropriate in the eyes of their families and friends, and also to defend their cultural behaviour against middle class discourses. Skeggs suggests that working class women often feel the need to ‘prove’ their caring abilities especially when under the scrutiny of middle class others (1997: 67). In this book, I discuss the ways in which much of the women’s presentation of their gambling behaviour was a defence of their working class lives against middle class criticisms. As a form of cultural behaviour, National Lottery play is discussed as one

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important cultural product which helps to formulate what it means to be working class and a woman. I have highlighted above some of the constraints placed on women as they attempt to care, and the pressures to be respectably working class. Being able to successfully demonstrate care, is synonymous with status and some cultural power, and often offers a pleasurable experience. One central theme that this book seeks to address, is what it is that working class women want and desire, and how they believe that participating in the National Lottery can help them to achieve this. It considers the National Lottery as a space upon which women write their desires and fantasies. Additionally, the book explores the extent to which women dream of the pleasurable experiences available through the process of caring, but also how women work to refine what constitutes ‘good care’, in order to alleviate some of the guilt and frustration at not being able to care as they would like. Furthermore, the book considers how women might use the National Lottery as a pleasurable space upon which identities other than that of caring wife and mother might be written. It thus considers how National Lottery participation constitutes a site upon which gender and class are formed. Being able to successfully demonstrate care, is synonymous with status and some cultural power, and often offered a pleasurable experience. Daydreaming and Fantasy As I noted in the previous chapter, it is very difficult to understand the motivations and experiences of women who play the National Lottery using conventional definitions of leisure. Most feminist accounts of leisure have examined women’s participation in ‘tangible’ activities which require some time and space (for example, playing bingo, shopping, watching TV, reading, knitting etc.). As a ‘leisure activity’, the National Lottery – more popular amongst the women than almost any other leisure activity – is a fascinating case. Participation appears to require neither time nor space, both of which have traditionally been considered by male sociologists to be essential components of leisure participation (eg. Parker, 1976). Yet, I argue that National Lottery play is a form of leisure, and a very important part of the leisure lives of the women whom I interviewed. In her classic study of women and leisure, Rosemary Deem mentioned ‘daydreaming’ as one important aspect of women’s leisure lives; one which requires little, or no, time and space to participate (1986). Joan Smith (1987) has also suggested that, for women, there is no easy split between work and leisure as there might be for men. She argues that women have specific ways of finding a leisure space which may be notably different to men’s. An exploration of the experiences of women National Lottery players, must seek to write ‘daydreaming’ into feminist accounts of leisure. For the women whom I interviewed, daydreaming was an integral part of their leisure activities, and one which was facilitated through National Lottery play, in particular through the dream of winning the jackpot. It is certainly the case that aside from addiction, the most common assumption made about National Lottery players is that the dream of the ‘big win’ or the jackpot, is the primary reason for buying tickets. Thus, Creigh-Tyte and Farrell (1998), in

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their attempt to understand why it might be that so many people play the National Lottery despite the long odds of winning the jackpot, argue that ‘buying a dream’ or the possibility (however remote) of winning very large amounts of money is a very important factor motivating participation (p. 4). The lure of the jackpot seems even more apparent when one considers that the number of tickets sold significantly increases on weeks where the jackpot is ‘rolled over’ (ibid.). Clotfelter and Cook (1991) also identify the temptation of winning large amounts of money as being a key factor motivating play. Often, this dream of winning the jackpot is couched in quite explicitly class terms, as an opportunity to escape the ordinary and mundane, and to ease everyday financial constraints and fears, such as Orwell’s fictitious account of a lottery, which offers a source of pleasure, and escape for the poor discussed earlier. Indeed, the implication inherent in much gambling literature is that National Lottery play offers a possible ‘way out’, or a means of escaping financial hardship and boredom. Charles Livingstone, in a recent account of poker machine gambling in Australia (2001), argues that individuals often resort to gambling as a means of temporarily alleviating boredom and escaping the mundane (p. 10). Furthermore, Livingstone suggests that there is a direct relationship between life chances and an individual’s decision to gamble. Those individuals for whom birth has not led to success (financial or otherwise) resort to chance and luck to improve their lives. This, according to Livingstone is actually the most ‘rational’ option available to them (p. 11). He says: … there is a certain logic to the idea that for many people, there is no hope of advancement beyond the mundane, day to day eking out of an undistinguished and largely unrewarding life of work and domesticity (2001; p. 10).

Walker and Hinch (2005) expand the notion of gambling as a form of escape to women casino players. They argue that casino gambling offers women a chance to ‘escape everyday problems’, usually temporarily, but sometimes for longer if they happen to win any significant amount of money (p. 125). They propose that: [c]asino gambling may not only allow some women to escape their everyday problems, but it may also through the process of compensatory secondary control help ameliorate the lack of perceived social control women have over extended events in their day-to-day lives (p. 126).

It is interesting to note that for every newspaper story publicising National Lottery winners as personifications of the ‘rags to riches’ dream there is a story reporting on the pitfalls and dangers of winning such large amounts of money. The relationship presented between happiness and winning the jackpot is thus an uneasy one, with stories of ‘jet set’ lifestyles pretty much matched with stories of family breakdown, squandering of money and arguments over how the money should be spent. However, in a BBC survey of 249 players who had won at least £50,000 on the National Lottery (111 had won more than £1 million), 55 per cent said that they were happier now than before the win, and the majority of the others said that they were just as happy as they were before the win (1999). Only 2 per cent said that winning the Lottery had made them less happy.

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Whatever the ultimate outcome for those who win the jackpot, the British sociologist Gerda Reith agrees that it is the dream of the Lottery jackpot that ultimately persuades people, especially those on a low income, to buy tickets (1999; p. 100). This follows in a sociological tradition of understanding cultural and leisure practices in terms of their potential for easing everyday struggles and anxieties. Historically, women’s leisure spaces have offered a pleasurable means through which women can daydream, escape and protest against the struggles of their everyday lives. As we have seen above, many accounts of National Lottery play and gambling more generally, interpret the dream of the jackpot as offering a potential means of ‘escape’, temporarily or otherwise. However, other forms of women’s leisure have also often been understood as attempts at ‘escape’. One example of this might be diary writing, as an opportunity for women to express an often very angry and embittered protest at the constraints and unrealistic expectations placed on their lives. Sophie Tolstoy’s diary provides a good example of a working class woman’s private longing to explore other subject positions to that of ‘honourable and good’ wife and mother: I have always been told that a woman must love her husband and be honourable and be a good wife and mother. They write such things in ABC books, and it is all nonsense. The thing to do is not to love, to be clever and sly, and to hide all one’s bad points – as if anyone in the world had no faults! And the main thing is not to love. See what I have done by loving him so deeply! It is painful and humiliating; but he thinks it is merely silly ... I am nothing but ... a useless creature with morning sickness, and a big belly, two rotten teeth, and a bad temper, a battered sense of dignity, and a love which nobody wants and which nearly drives me insane (Cited in Gilligan 1982, 124).

Feminist sub-cultural theorists first made this point in the 1970s when they explored the importance of leisure spaces as a means of facilitating the daydreams and fantasies of working class women. The majority of this research focused on popular women’s culture such as magazines, romantic fiction and soap opera (for example, McRobbie, 1991; Lovell, 1987; Ang, 1990; Radway, 1984), and demonstrated how participation in these activities can be seen to be sub or counter-cultural. In the same way that diary writing is a private expression of dissatisfaction and a longing to resist the often stifling pressures of working class femininity, so too is contemporary consumer culture. The 1970s literature challenged early claims that popular culture was a weight suppressing working class resistance, by drawing attention to the resisting strategies employed by its consumers, and to the pleasures afforded by popular culture as an expression of dissatisfaction. It considered how, as sub-cultural products, working class women reverse the intended meanings of consumer goods in order that they become meaningful and pleasurable. Thus, for Ang (1990), traditional views of ideology are inappropriate analytical tools with which to examine the appeal of popular culture for women. This is because they presume that individuals are blind or ignorant of the ideological forces which oppress them. On the contrary, Ang argues that for working class women, the pleasures afforded by popular culture – specifically soap operas – are two fold, and rest on a recognition and an expression of dissatisfaction with patriarchal capitalism. Firstly, pleasure lies in a melancholic recognition of the viewer’s own powerlessness, and of the constraining pressures of

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reality on subjectivities, wishes and desires (p. 86). Secondly, identifying themselves with melodramatic characters enables women to indulge in these feelings and to momentarily escape to a place of alternative feminine identities, or of women ‘taking control’ of their lives (ibid.). Considering the usefulness of Ang’s analysis for understanding the motivations and experiences of working class women National Lottery players, requires closer consideration of her definition of ‘fantasy’. According to Ang: Fantasy is an imagined scene in which the fantasising subject is the protagonist, and in which alternative scenarios for the subject’s real life are evoked. Fantasising obviously affords the subject pleasure, which ... has to do with the fulfilment of a conscious or unconscious wish ... the pleasure of fantasy lies in its offering the subject an opportunity to take up positions which she could not do in real life: through fantasy she can move beyond the structural constraints of everyday life and explore other situations, other identities, other lives (1990: 83–84).

The key thing about fantasy, for Ang, is that indulging in alternative identities is possible only in fantasy and fiction, and that adopting similar identities in real life would have devastating effects (p. 87), such as the demise of Emma Bovary. To act out fantasised subject positions would be to risk the sanctions imposed on women when they attempt to move away from traditional forms of working class femininity. This book examines the ways in which the National Lottery facilitates the fantasies, wishes, hopes and desires of a group of working class women, and how the women dream of adopting alternative subject positions and identities to those which are generally considered ‘appropriate’ for them. An important difference between the National Lottery and other forms of popular culture, such as soap opera, is that there is always a (very small) chance that the dreams and fantasies afforded by Lottery play could be facilitated through winning money. The dream of winning the Lottery is always mingled with a fear of the consequences of adopting what might be socially impossible or unacceptable subject positions. The previous chapter positioned the National Lottery as a form of popular consumer culture, which is subject to the same types of critique as other popular cultural forms. Here I have delved deeper into debates surrounding the nature of the link between class, women and consumer culture. By considering the ways in which working class women negotiate popular cultural forms, I have pointed to some of the ways in which women can gain pleasurable and satisfying leisure spaces. One important argument running through this book is that class is not something which is prescribed to women, as a series of restrictive and oppressive ideologies. Instead, it is negotiated via popular cultural forms. This is not to deny the power of the ideological and material constraints on women’s lives, and their influence on the women’s decisions to purchase Lottery tickets. Rather, I suggest that working class women simultaneously use the National Lottery to help re-negotiate normative working class femininity, and to gain some pleasure and power. National Lottery participation should therefore be perceived is a site where class divisions are reproduced, but also as a site for class struggle. Such a view is consistent with Angela McRobbie’s analysis of working class girls’ sub-cultures:

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The ‘cultural’ is always a site for struggle and conflict. Here hegemony may be lost or won; it is an arena for class struggle (1991: 36).

That ‘hegemony may be lost or won’, is of vital importance to this book. It is certainly the case that Lottery participation re-produces class divisions, and does little to challenge the dominant social order. However, as a form of counter-cultural behaviour, the National Lottery can also be seen as a site for struggle, conflict, and the re-negotiation of normative working class femininity. The women used the National Lottery to gain power, pleasure and satisfaction, whilst rejecting middle class discourses of gambling behaviour. Working class women are adept at discovering pleasure in their lives, in a number of ways, and in gently expanding the parameters of appropriate, normative working class femininity, in order that they can pursue even those activities – such as gambling – that might traditionally constitute ‘inappropriate’ behaviour. The theoretical framework developed in this chapter, draws primarily from sub-cultural theory. This provides a useful starting point from which to begin to explore the ways in which working class women use the National Lottery in order to subvert dominant discourses of the Lottery which have positioned the Lottery as an exploitative hidden tax on the poor, and to carve out a suitable, pleasurable leisure space from within these discourses. Feminist sub-cultural theory helped provoke my own research in aiming to provide a counter-discourse to the dominant discourses which have criticised and belittled women’s popular culture and leisure activities – especially those of working class women. As I also argued in the introduction, the National Lottery is a fascinating example of a popular cultural activity, with those who participate being subject to criticism. I apply the work of sub-cultural sociologists to Lottery play by exploring the ways in which working class women provide counter discourses to such criticisms, and in doing so, carve out a pleasurable leisure space. Like Willis’ working class lads, the women of this research developed a counter discourse to the real and imagined middle class critiques of their behaviour (Willis, 1977). Heterotopias This section takes as its starting point the pioneering work of the 1970s feminist subcultural theorists discussed above, but looks also towards more recent research into women’s leisure which has pointed to the usefulness of Foucault’s notions of ‘space’ or ‘heterotopias’ (1986). I argue that ‘leisure’ is more than simply an opportunity to temporarily ‘escape’ or express some dissatisfaction with an oppressive reality, rather, it offers the chance to imagine, and expand the notion of a working class, feminine ‘self’ beyond what it is expected to be. I provide an alternative view of pleasure and leisure, than has been proposed by writers (such as Sennett and Cobb, 1972) who present us with a choice – either the self is split, or the place and position in which pleasure and leisure takes place has to change. Instead, heterotopias offer the possibility of a single self, occupying multiple, often contradictory spaces simultaneously. As Hetherington argues:

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Meaning literally “other places”, heterotopias are sites established through incongruous spatial relations that challenge the spaces of representation and their mode of representation within society (1998: 131).

If we are to break down traditional work / leisure and ‘time’ / ‘space’ dichotomies which do not seem to be relevant to the lives of working class women, then an application of post-structuralist theory is essential. Betsy Wearing proposes that the concept of ‘leisure’ needs to be refined if it is to adequately explore women’s lives: The expansion of the concept of leisure that I am suggesting, then, is that of space, one’s own space, that is, space physical or metaphorical over which one has control to fill with whatever persons, objects, activities or thoughts that one chooses. There are many possibilities here. These could include: a mental space in the midst of routine household tasks; a time space where obligatory tasks are done; a money space created by money kept aside from necessities ... As well the space could conceivably be ideas, writings, poetry, art, sculpture, crafts, an emotional space for emotions in a safe environment ... (1998: 149).

Delving deeper into the idea of ‘pleasure’, I consider that the women gained pleasure not only through imagining the care that would be possible if they had the appropriate financial resources, but also through using the National Lottery as a means of challenging the dominant discourses, which constructed them as ‘caring selves’. This challenge is explored throughout using Foucauldian concepts of ‘resistance’, which sees the potential of small-scale resistance as a strategy for rearranging power relations. Such a perspective allows for the emergence of counter-discourses from the relatively powerless, and a ‘space’ within which to resist dominant ways of thinking and knowing. For Foucault, power is never totally determined, or ‘top-down’, and part of the effectiveness of modern forms of power is in its ability to be pleasurable in its operation, and as it is performed through everyday micro-practices and power relations. He argues that: What makes power hold good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it doesn’t only weigh on us as a force that says no, but that it traverses and produces things, it induces pleasure, forms knowledge, produces discourse (1980: 119).

In this sense, the norms of appropriate gambling behaviour for working class women, come less from ‘the state’ or the bourgeoisie and more from the women themselves, who, through their performing of these norms help to define and refine them. This book considers that one way in which the norms and standards of working class femininity are performed and reproduced, is through women’s participation in the National Lottery. Importantly, this performing and reproducing can be pleasurable, thus, much of the ‘power’ of the Lottery lies in the pleasure of taking part, in addition to the ability of the National Lottery’s operators to suggest norms of appropriate, ‘legitimate’ gambling behaviour (as discussed in the previous chapter, and introduction). Betsy Wearing makes a very important link between ‘leisure spaces’ and Foucault’s concept of ‘heterotopias’ (Wearing, 1998: 146). She points out that

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leisure spaces are powerful sites upon which to imagine, and offer ‘a realization that makes me come back towards myself to reconstitute where I am [heterotopia]’ (Foucault, 1986: 24).4 In other words, for Wearing, leisure spaces offer women a space within which to imagine – even temporarily ‘try out’ – alternative selves to those which are scripted in dominant discourses. These alternative selves disturb the traditional bonds between dominant discourses and women’s presentation of self. Thus, as Wearing argues: So I am suggesting that both physical and metaphorical leisure spaces can act as heterotopias for struggle against and resistance to domination of the self and inferiorized subjectivities. They also provide a space for reconstituting the self and rewriting the script of identity (p. 146).

Although Foucault’s heterotopias refer to public spaces such as churches, prisons, asylums etc. as possible sites of resistance (Foucault, 1984), Wearing welcomes the possibility of incorporating ‘everyday’ leisure spaces as additional sites of resistance (1998: 146). Leisure then, has the potential to provide a space within which the self is able to expand beyond what dominant discourses (such as the traditional critiques of women who gamble discussed in the previous chapter) tell it that it should be. Women can thus use leisure spaces to explore alternative ‘selves’. This has interesting implications for the ‘caring self’ argument highlighted above. Wearing’s application of Foucault implies that for women who emphasise the importance of caring, there is always a sense in which this self can be contested, refined and challenged. I explore firstly, the women’s desires to demonstrate a level of care which would provide value and status, and secondly, the ways in which the women used their National Lottery participation in order to imagine the possibility of adopting different and ‘alternative’ selves. Wearing’s account of leisure could usefully be used to produce a body of new and alternative accounts of women and leisure. She proposes that leisure studies works to refine the concept of ‘leisure’ in order that it may encompass subjective accounts of pleasure, and the experience of leisure for women. I position the National Lottery as a vital subjective space, within which women who participate fashion this capitalist product, in order that it facilitates a ‘safe’ space within which to explore their fantasies and day-dreams. Within these spaces, women can be seen to stress their dissatisfactions at the limitations of their lives, and also to express hope and to dream for the future. The definition of ‘leisure’ adopted in this book, differentiates between ‘physical’ and ‘metaphorical’ leisure spaces. It argues that one explanation for the absence of the National Lottery in leisure sociology, might be that participation appears to require no clearly distinguishable time nor space, in the way that other leisure activities such as those discussed above (reading magazines, watching soap operas etc.) might do. My work thus focuses on ‘everyday’ leisure. It proposes that current conceptions of ‘leisure’ be expanded in order that women’s metaphorical leisure spaces are accounted for, namely, those activities for which participation appears to require neither time nor space, or those activities which are so closely entrenched in 4

Cited in Wearing, 1998, p. 146.

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the everyday, that there is some debate over whether or not they actually constitute ‘leisure’. I argue that these ‘metaphorical’ leisure spaces are not ‘imaginary’, because they definitely do exist. Even if they are not physical, they offer real fantasy and pleasurable experiences. The women do not imagine this. I suggest also that the term ‘fantasy spaces’ is not appropriate either, since it is not the space itself that constitutes the fantasy – rather, the fantasy experiences occur within the ‘metaphorical’ space. Finally, something is metaphorical when it ascribes the meaning or quality of one thing onto another thing. So, imaginary, fantasy moments are generally not seen to be ‘leisure’ experiences because they have no clear, ‘physical’ presence. This book adds to current theories of leisure by defining these spaces as metaphorical because they encompass experiences that are not normally seen to fall within the realm of ‘leisure’. For the purposes of this book, ‘leisure’ has close connotations with pleasure. Identifying Lottery play as an important leisure space, I consider the pleasurable, experiencing, subjective role that leisure / National Lottery play constitutes in women’s lives. Examining ‘metaphorical’ leisure spaces reveals a new arena, in which the importance of daydreaming is emphasised, and where the hopes, dreams and longings of working class women can be expressed. Interviewing Working Class Women: Representing the ‘Other’ Before continuing, it is important and useful to spend some time elaborating on the development of the relationship between myself and the women taking part in the research. The process of interviewing raised some incredibly important issues to do with class and gender, and revealed the delicate and fragile operation of power in the interviews. This was particularly important when one considers the sensitivity of asking people on a small budget about their routines of spending their limited finances on gambling. I wanted to aim for a partnership of ‘co-research’ as an ideal (Reinharz, 1983). This meant avoiding rigidity in the interviews and enabling an open and active exchange between the researcher and researched (ibid.). The women were often cautious, and said that they had discussed the interview with other work colleagues and with family. In particular, they were often unsure about my motivations. Some of the women asked whether or not I worked for Camelot,5 and it was possible that many of the women thought that I was ‘testing’ them to see if they were ‘addicted’ to the National Lottery. Hence, without any prompt from me, many of the women went to great lengths to point out that they were not addicted, perhaps reflecting dominant discourses of Lottery players, which tend to focus on addiction and ‘irresponsible’ gambling.6 This is important when considering the power relationship between myself and the women, and the extent to which the women may have felt intimidated or ‘powerless’ in my presence. The women were not used to being asked in any detail about their everyday lives, and although some mentioned that they had been interviewed before, this was usually for market research 5 ‘Camelot’ is currently the operator of the National Lottery. 6 This is true, as we have seen, both in academic literature, and in media representations of Lottery play. The Guardian newspaper, for example, cited ‘addiction’ as the first of its three objections to the launch of the National Lottery in November 1994.

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of new consumer products. The women were unfamiliar with the interview format and were often bemused that I should be interested in their everyday ‘ordinary’ lives. They often stated at the start of the interview that their lives were mundane and that possibly I would not be interested in them when I discovered this (‘I’ve never won the jackpot or owt like that …’). During the interviews, it became clear that I represented a ‘middle class other’, who ultimately held the power to (re)present the women’s lives, via the dissemination of the research for example. The women often combined their hostility to my middle class presence and ways of knowing, with mild amusement and a gentle mocking of my research, as the following quotes indicate: ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to tell you anything that isn’t in the library mind!’ ‘The National Lottery? How do you get a PhD in that?!’

The women were well aware of often-unfavourable middle class representations of their lives, and particularly of their gambling behaviour. It is possible that these quotes were examples of the attempts made by the women to defend themselves against my middle class interpretations of their working class lives. In this sense, the women could be seen to be reversing the traditional assumption that it is the researcher who is in the position of power during interviews. I recognised power as an important part of every stage of the research process, and as the research progressed, the differences between the women and myself, and the absurdity of the notion that women suffer universally from the same oppressions became clearer. Acknowledging the differences between the women and myself, and the centrality of ‘class’ in the women’s lives, became most poignant during the ethnographic research. This was particularly true when I began visiting women in their homes in deprived areas in the west end of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in north east England and in Lewisham in south east London. Occasionally during the interviews, the women talked about painful experiences which became very upsetting for me too, as I became increasingly aware of the often harsh reality of these women’s lives. The following extract from my research diary illustrates this: As I was preparing to leave, Helen started to talk to me in greater detail about her family. She showed me photographs of her children and grandchildren, and told me that if she won any money on the Lottery, it would go straight to her family, because “they are the most important thing”. She went on to tell me of the cot death in 1982 of her eight month old son and told me that she thought that more Good Cause money could be used to fund cot death research7 (Research Diary, 8 February, 2001).

One of the most unexpected and surprising outcomes of the interviews was the women’s almost total rejection of any implication that their lives were tough or a struggle because of their gender. However, the particular material constraints on 7 Twenty-eight per cent of money raised by National Lottery ticket purchases goes to fund ‘Good Cause’ projects. There has been much controversy over the types of projects that this money funds, with some calls to spend money on health and education, rather than on arts, sport and heritage projects.

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their everyday lives meant that they thought about their economic situations a great deal, and the women often politicised their economic and class situations in a way that they did not their gender. It is entirely possible that pressing money concerns left the women with little or no time or effort to worry about gender inequalities. But what I found really interesting, as I was attempting to ‘make sense’ of the women’s accounts, was that gender was indeed a vital component of the ways in which the women experienced everyday life. Thus, I now see feminist theory as an important means of understanding women’s articulations of their own lives. Reading Angela McRobbie’s retrospective account of her ethnographic research experience highly influenced my research analysis. McRobbie describes her confusion at the refusal of the young women whom she interviewed to produce accounts which fitted into existing ‘class models’: Being working class meant little or nothing to these girls – but being a girl over-determined their every moment. Unable to grapple with this uncomfortable fact, I made sure that, in my account anyway, class did count … I would (now) not harbour such a monolithic notion of class, and instead I would investigate how relations of power and powerlessness permeated the girls’ lives – in the context of school, authority, language, job opportunities, the family, the community and sexuality. And from this I would begin once again, perhaps to think about class (McRobbie 1991, 121–122).

During my analysis then, I tried to bracket off the notion that ‘women are oppressed’, and instead to explore how the women experience and use power via National Lottery participation. If nothing else, the interviews provided me with a means of ‘getting started’. Before I began the ethnographic work, my research seemed to mean very little. It was only through the qualitative interviews that I was able to begin to gain a sense of the effects of structural constraints (specifically class and gender), on the women’s everyday lives. Summary This book is a ‘story’, an account of the everyday, classed and gendered lives of the working class women of this sample. It asks how it was that the women gained pleasure, power and satisfaction from National Lottery participation, considers how participation was indicative of their struggles to survive, and how it facilitated dreams and fantasies. The next chapter seeks an appropriate method and epistemology within which an ethnographic account of working class women and National Lottery participation is possible.

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Chapter 4

Domesticating Gambling: The National Lottery as ‘Normal’ and ‘Routine’ in the Lives of Women Who Play Introduction Emma: ‘Do you play the National Lottery every week?’ Barbara: ‘Every week. Every Saturday. Every Wednesday.’ (Barbara, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

This chapter will highlight the types of National Lottery games that the women of the research played, the frequency of play and the amount of money gambled. It offers an analysis which positions the Lottery in the lives of women who play, in accordance with my first research aim. The chapter will challenge and problematise traditional theories of gambling behaviour discussed in Chapter 2, which have perceived gambling as a potentially addictive and deviant leisure activity. This chapter argues that although the women were aware of the negative connotations traditionally associated with gambling, they adopted the National Lottery as an important part of their leisure lives. It draws attention to the ways in which the women shook off labels of ‘deviant’ gambling behaviour by demonstrating the everyday, ordinary and mundane nature of their Lottery play, which begins to satisfy my second research aim. By stressing the ordinary and routine nature of National Lottery play, the women simultaneously rejected the derogatory connotations often associated with traditional gambling forms, and stressed their own organised, routinised and respectable gambling behaviour. The chapter uses findings from the quantitative and qualitative data in order to demonstrate how the women created counter discourses to dominant, middle class academic and political critiques of gambling. By re-conceptualising National Lottery play as ordinary, normal, routine and domestic, the chapter problematises the theory of ‘entrapment’ popular within recent gambling scholarship. Drawing from research by sociologists of household budgeting, such as Rubin (1976), Pahl (1989), Graham (1992) and Parker (1992), and by authors of less recent accounts, such as Bell (1911), this chapter also attempts to present the efforts made by the women to present their gambling behaviour in a way that was consistent with acceptable norms of effective money management and housekeeping. This will work to further problematise the entrapment theory, and will emphasise the domestic, ordinary and routine nature of National Lottery play.

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The chapter further emphasises the routine and organised structures of Lottery play by exploring the time structures which often constrained the women’s access to leisure spaces. By examining the gendered nature of time, the chapter demonstrates that for the women of this research, there was no easy distinction between domestic work and leisure time. Adopting claims by feminist leisure sociologists, such as Deem (1986), Hamner (1987) and Wearing (1996), the chapter considers women’s access to leisure time as it is rooted in domestic spheres. The chapter argues that playing the National Lottery represents a rare leisure space which fits into women’s domestic time schedules, despite the constraints imposed upon their access to pleasurable leisure spaces, and the designation of domestic space as a site for the intensification of women’s work. Highlighting Kenneth Robert’s observation that ‘(g)ambling is a normal rather than an exceptional pastime’ (1978: 30), and his assertion that gamblers ‘are not a deviant minority’ (ibid.), this chapter shows how through their organised time and money management, and routines of play, the women interviewed refined the norms of working class, feminine behaviour which have traditionally positioned gambling as deviant. Interestingly, the women emphasised their structured and often complex gambling ‘routines’ and rituals in order to distance themselves from conventional images of ‘deviant’ and ‘irresponsible’ gamblers. The chapter repositions gambling as a pleasurable leisure activity in the women’s lives. It acknowledges the limitations of traditional understandings of ‘leisure’, and draws from contemporary feminist leisure sociology in order to begin to relocate the National Lottery as a pleasurable leisure activity. By providing a classed and gendered account of Lottery play, the chapter aims to provide some of the ‘missing information’ about women who gamble. Dominant Critiques of Lottery Play Gambling has often been understood as a temporary ‘escape’ from the everyday struggles and frustrations experienced by the working class and the poor. Alan Bleasdale believes that the decisions made by the poor to purchase National Lottery tickets illustrate their desire to ‘escape’ these struggles and frustrations: My instinctive moral horror of the Lottery is re-lived every Saturday in newsagents throughout the land as the worn-out, the elderly, the shabby and the desperate queue up in the hope of their only escape. Is this really all there is on offer? (Alan Bleasdale, playwright, 1995).

This type of critique of Lottery play draws from traditional Marxist sociological accounts of class, which have positioned the working classes as ignorant of the forces which oppress them, and desperate to find an escape. Such accounts are problematic because they do not specify what it is that the working classes want to escape from. The accounts of popular culture discussed in Chapter 3 (such as Cohen and Taylor, 1992) are similarly problematic because they assume that the working classes are desperate to escape their class positions, and use popular culture as a means of facilitating a temporary escape. First and foremost, the women of

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this research never ‘lost consciousness’ of their working class situations, nor did they ever express a desire to ‘escape’ their class positions. As Sennett and Cobb (1972) and later, Cohen and Taylor (1992) have pointed out, although the pursuit of pleasure is a classed experience, it has little to do with a desire to lose consciousness, however temporarily, of class positions. Secondly, the pleasures gained from Lottery play for the women of this research, were not a consequence of their desires to ‘escape’, rather, they were embedded in the women’s desires to be working class. A recognition of their working class-ness was thus a vital aspect of the women’s decisions to purchase Lottery tickets. The idea that the women never lost, or wanted to lose, consciousness of their working class positions is illustrated through their discussions during the interviews of the dominant critiques of Lottery play. This disputes the notion that as working class participants in the National Lottery, the women were unaware or ignorant of the ‘real’, hidden nature of this form of popular culture. The women of this research were generally very aware of the popular critiques of National Lottery play, and of gambling more generally. Particularly, they were aware of the hostile media reactions which accompanied its launch. The women were particularly aware of the dominant critique of the Lottery as a form of ‘addiction’. One of the main justifications for the claim that players are becoming addicted to National Lottery tickets and scratchcards, has to do with the frequency and routines with which individuals play. Certainly, Lottery play appears to have become an important ‘routine’ in many of the women’s lives; 98.9 per cent of women who completed the questionnaire had purchased a £1 Saturday draw ticket at some point since the launch of the National Lottery, and as the following sections demonstrate, the qualitative data revealed that for the majority of the women interviewed, Lottery tickets were a twice weekly, regular purchase. The routine and regular patterns of National Lottery play have often been interpreted as an indication that many players have now become ‘addicted’ to Lottery tickets and scratchcards. In particular, Griffiths has drawn attention to the process of ‘entrapment’. He suggests that one important reason why so many people play the National Lottery each week has to do with the ‘high proportion’ of players who always select the same numbers, and have consequently become afraid to miss a week in case their numbers are drawn (Griffiths, 1997: 28). For the women of this research, there is some truth in claims that these players frequently select the same set of numbers each time they buy Lottery tickets. Of the women who responded to the questionnaire, a slightly higher proportion said that they selected the same numbers each week (57.3 per cent) than those who said that they did not. Similarly, eight of the women interviewed said that they selected the same numbers every time they played, and only three women said that they used the ‘Lucky Dip’ facility.1 According to the ‘entrapment’ theory, the number of women who select the same numbers each week is evidence of the prevalence of addiction. The women were aware of these dominant discourses of addiction and entrapment, and some of the women articulated their own Lottery participation in terms of these discourses. 1 Players can either select their own six numbers, or they can request that the Lottery machine randomly selects the numbers for them. This facility is called ‘Lucky Dip’.

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Betty, for example, recognised entrapment as a process through which playing the National Lottery had become a routine from which she now had great difficulty escaping: ... you can’t escape it, so you’ve got to ... I mean even if it went down to a pound a week, I would still have to put that pound on because I picked birthday numbers, that was a foolish thing to do. I should have stuck to ... alternate numbers. And that way I could stop it like that. But I can’t. I’ve been selective. I can’t. (Betty, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

Despite the admissions made by some of the women that they felt ‘caught’ in a routine of National Lottery play, the concept of entrapment is of limited use in attempting to provide an adequate understanding of women’s experiences and motivations of Lottery play. Elsie, for example, described the appeal of the National Lottery partly in terms of a fear of not playing and her numbers coming up, but also in terms of the pleasure and excitement surrounding the ‘dream’ of the Lottery: I think it’s just, you dream about what you could do with all that money, and it is just a dream, you know, you think “well I might win it one day” and if you don’t put it on you think “oh well if I don’t put it on and me numbers come up” … then well it’s frightening isn’t it?

The usefulness of the entrapment model is limited because it does not explain why the women say that they are afraid of seeing their numbers being drawn on weeks where they haven’t bought a ticket, when the odds of winning the jackpot are so small. It also does not explain why a significant proportion of women who completed the questionnaire and who were interviewed, still played every week regardless of the fact that they had not ‘fallen into the trap’ of choosing the same numbers each week. Subsequent sections will challenge the ‘entrapment’ argument by attempting to understand the women’s National Lottery playing routines in terms of the Lottery as a pleasurable leisure activity, rather than as an addictive gambling game from which it is impossible to escape. I argue that the routine of Lottery play was not simply something that just ‘happened’ to the women. It was not merely imposed upon them via an external force. Rather, the women were actively making sense of their lives through their National Lottery play. For the women of this research, Lottery play represented a choice. The qualitative interviews carried out for this research, suggest that most of the women were aware of the idea that selecting the same numbers each week meant that stopping the routine of buying tickets could possibly be very difficult. The majority of the women recognised the ‘risk’, that if they decided to stick to the same numbers each week, then they might be unable to stop playing if they wanted to. Some of the women who selected different numbers each week argued that this was a deliberate attempt to avoid entrapment. Diane’s weekly routine of National Lottery play included a conscious attempt to avoid becoming entrapped:

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... I thought, “I’m not going to fall into that”. So I just random(ly) pick numbers on each ticket every week. (Diane, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

None of the women used the word ‘addicted’ at any point to describe their gambling behaviour, preferring instead to use terms such as ‘caught in a trap’ and saying that they felt that they were often unable to ‘escape’. Part of the women’s reasons for doing this has to do with the less favourable connotations associated with the term ‘addicted’ which implies behaviour which is ‘out of control’. Clearly, all of the women who selected the same numbers each week, whilst being unashamed to admit that they felt unable to stop buying tickets now that they had ‘selected’ their numbers, sought to avoid any suggestions that they might be ‘addicted’, and therefore not in control of their gambling behaviour and their money. The National Lottery may have been a gambling activity from which the women imagined it might be difficult to escape, but it was also a routine from which they did not want to, nor had any intentions of attempting to escape. The model of entrapment has limited explanatory value because it overlooks the subjective pleasures of the National Lottery which made the women interviewed extremely willing, if ‘responsible’ players. Traditional understandings of gambling behaviour not only leave no space for an understanding of pleasure, but also, no space for the particular constraints of ‘normative femininity’. Providing a more subjective account of Lottery play is a useful means of explaining the women’s desire to frame the National Lottery as ‘routine’ and ‘mundane’, and as a ‘responsible’, unselfish family and domestic activity, which far from threatening the family and domestic order, appears to enhance it. From this point of view, one major problem with much existing gambling theory, and particularly the entrapment model, is that it pre-supposes an isolated subject who makes decisions only in relation to (him)self. For the women of this research, such an analysis hardly seems appropriate. As the next section demonstrates, the decisions made by the women to buy National Lottery tickets were made by a self who always situates (her)self in relation to others, and in relation to certain norms of respectability, which are rooted in the routine, mundane and the domestic. The next section identifies alternative discourses of routine and dailiness rather than psychological accounts of ‘addiction’, in order to explore these norms of money management, and so further problematises the notion of ‘addiction’ as a factor motivating women to participate in the National Lottery. I argue that the Lottery represented an important part of the women’s everyday lives, rather than an extraordinary, deviant, addictive form of psychological behaviour. I contest the logic of the ‘entrapment’ argument which sets up the practice of gambling as a rather deterministic process of exploitation. Instead, I adopt a more Foucauldian understanding of the way in which women produce themselves through discourses and practices. The women adopted the National Lottery bi-weekly draw as a means of reconciling the traditional critiques of gambling with normative femininity. By doing so, they worked to create a ‘suitable’ gambling space.

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The ‘Organised’ and ‘Routine’ Nature of National Lottery Play The ‘regular’ nature of National Lottery play as highlighted above was reinforced in the women’s own accounts of play, where they further emphasised the ‘routine’ nature of participation, which played an important role in enabling the women to present an image which they saw to be consistent with ‘acceptable’ playing habits. The women worked to define themselves as careful managers of National Lottery spendings and winnings, and subsequently as ‘responsible’ managers of the household budget. By spending time describing the routine nature of play, they also helped to ensure that their gambling habits were not perceived to be ‘spontaneous’ or ‘spur of the moment’, since to do so would be to admit to gambling in a way which has been criticised as irrational, irresponsible and potentially dangerous in traditional accounts of gambling. By establishing themselves as ‘routine’ gamblers, the women sought to distance themselves from stereotypes of spontaneous, ‘irresponsible’ gamblers. The women often talked about the ways in which they organised and made routine, the amounts of money spent on tickets, and how they manage or might manage any money won through gambling on the National Lottery. Most of the women spent the same amount of money on National Lottery tickets each week; in these cases, the amount to be gambled had been pre-arranged and had become a weekly, routine purchase. All of these women said that they paid for the tickets out of the housekeeping budget which suggests that for these women at least, purchasing tickets is not a spontaneous activity. Rather, it is a managed and conscious purchase. Only two of the women interviewed (Ros and Kate) had stopped playing regularly, but for the other thirteen women, Lottery tickets had become a twice weekly, regular purchase. The National Lottery was a ‘systematic’ gambling activity amongst the women interviewed (see also Bell 1911). As I have begun to describe above, the women gambled in very organised and unspontaneous ways. All of the women interviewed employed routines of play which they stuck to and which they believed to be important characteristics of gambling in a ‘responsible’ manner. The women adopted a number of different ways of spending and organising their National Lottery winnings and spendings. Irene’s gambling routine was typical and usefully illustrates the idea of National Lottery play as ‘systematic’ and unspontaneous: It (National Lottery spendings) comes out of the housekeeping ... then we put (our winnings) in a jar and it buys the rest for the next few weeks. We have a jar for our winnings. (Irene, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

Since National Lottery tickets tend to be purchased using housekeeping money, it became difficult for the women to break their spending routines by spending more on tickets. They could not easily spend more money on tickets, since to do so would be to risk using up money which was perhaps set aside for something else. A small number of the women (Sandra, Debbie, Barbara and Wendy) admitted that the amounts they spent on National Lottery tickets could fluctuate on a weekly basis. However, this did not mean that they did not stick to a similar routine of purchasing tickets. Rather,

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these women said that they made a decision at the beginning of the week as to how much they were able and willing to gamble on the National Lottery. Those women who spent different amounts each week tended to be financially less well off than the women who bought the same number of tickets each week. Often these women and their husbands or partners were paid weekly rather than monthly, and tended to organise their finances at the beginning of each week. Sandra for example, says that although she gambles within a weekly routine of purchasing tickets, the amounts that she spends fluctuates depending on how much spare cash she and her husband have. Thus, part of her routine is to organise at the start of the week how much she will spend on National Lottery tickets: Emma: ‘Do you put the same amount on (the National Lottery) every week?’ Sandra: ‘It depends if we’ve got spare cash. That’s probably why we don’t bother with the Wednesday, cos there’s not usually much money through the week till his wages come in on the weekend ...’ (Sandra, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

Additionally, two of the women (Debbie and Wendy) said that although the amounts of money that they gambled on the National Lottery were organised and regular, this routine was sometimes broken during ‘rollover’ weeks.2 Both Debbie and Wendy stressed the importance of maintaining a routine of National Lottery play which involved organising how much money they could afford and were willing to gamble each week. However, they added that one of the factors which could lead them to spend more on National Lottery tickets and thus to break their usual routine was if the weekly jackpot was higher than usual. In this sense, it can be suggested that although the women’s routines of National Lottery play were occasionally broken, they were replaced by an alternative method of play which appears to be just as organised, routine and unspontaneous: Emma: ‘(Do you spend) the same every week?’ Debbie: ‘(Yes) ... until it’s a rollover and, you know, you’ll have another couple of lines, but, yeah, it’s usually ... just three pounds a week.’ (Debbie, south east London)

Debbie then, stresses her usual routine of play (spending ‘just £3 a week’) and then draws attention to the rollover as the only instance which would lead her to break her usual routine. However, the fact that she raises the issue suggests that spending more during rollover weeks is something that she has organised and has thought through. Debbie’s routine of purchasing three tickets a week is occasionally replaced with an alternative routine of buying two extra lines for rollover draws. By describing this carefully managed and considered method of playing the National Lottery, the 2 When there is no jackpot winner, the prize money is ‘rolled over’ into the next week’s jackpot. This makes the amount to be won significantly higher than in ‘non-rollover’ weeks.

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women worked to distance themselves from traditional images of gamblers. Wendy, for example, insists that any money she spends on tickets is ‘spare’. It is never money that she has taken from the bank which is intended for something else, such as food or rent: I don’t specifically go to the bank and draw money out just to get scractchcards or just to have a go on the Lottery … I’ve got it there, it’s usually just that if the money’s gone it’s like … “I haven’t got it here” so I must have used it to purchase Lottery tickets.

Winning Money as Part of the Routine of Play The women’s discussions of routines of purchasing Lottery tickets provide counterdiscourses to the traditional interpretations of gambling behaviour as deviant, spontaneous and irresponsible. This section expands on this point by exploring the importance of winning money as an additional example of how the women demonstrated their routine, unspontaneous Lottery play. It considers the pleasures afforded by winning money and the possibility of winning money, through participation in the National Lottery. I draw also on earlier discussions which highlighted the limitations of the assumption that working class participation in popular culture is part of an attempt to escape their class positions. Rather, this section demonstrates how winning money was pleasurable because it enabled the women to manage their household budget in a way that was less of a struggle than usual. In this sense, winning money enabled the women to be more easily and unproblematically working class. The majority of the women who played the National Lottery had won money at some point. Most of the women had won £10 although some had matched four or five winning numbers and had won amounts ranging from £50 to £1400.3 There is, therefore, an important distinction to be made between ‘small’ (i.e. £10), ‘medium’ (i.e. four or five balls winning from £50) and ‘large’ prizes (i.e. the ‘jackpot’). None of the women who were interviewed or who had completed the questionnaire had ever won any large prizes.4 Nonetheless, the ways in which the women spent and organised their winnings, represented a central part of the routine nature of National Lottery play. All of the women interviewed, including those two women who no longer played the National Lottery regularly (Ros and Kate), had won £10 at least once since the National Lottery’s launch. The women adopted a number of different ways of spending their £10 winnings. Irene, for example, points out that winning £10 is the only circumstance which would make her consider purchasing more tickets than usual: 3 If a player matches four or five balls, the amount to be won is not ‘fixed’ in the same way that it is for matching three balls. Rather, the amount to be won fluctuates depending upon the number of other players who have also matched four or five balls. 4 The role of the National Lottery jackpot as part of the experiences and motivations of play is discussed in greater detail in subsequent chapters.

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Emma: ‘So you always stick to the same number of lines each week?’ Irene: ‘Yes. If we win any (money) we might be tempted to get more’. (Irene, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

Some of the women saved any £10 Lottery winnings for the next weekly Lottery draw. Wendy remarked that it is only when her winnings were in excess of £10 that she would consider buying herself a ‘treat’. For smaller amounts won, she, like Irene above, used the money for the next lot of tickets: If it’s a four number I get a treat. Apart from that, it’s just … well it all just goes back.

Sandra also keeps the winnings aside for the next lot of tickets. This was particularly useful for Sandra, since this freed up money which she could spend elsewhere. It also gave her the opportunity to give her children some extra pocket money: We normally, erm, if it’s like a tenner, we normally keep that five for the next lot (of tickets) and half the other five on me kids. Two-fifty each.

For other, more affluent women, the occasional £10 winnings did not represent a significant contribution to the household budget. Judith, for example, did not have any specific strategy for spending her £10 winnings: Emma: How do you spend your winnings? Do you make a point of doing something special with them? Judith: No, not really. Just a bit extra isn’t it? Just whatever.

Diane also did not see £10 winnings as offering any particular alleviation from financial concerns: Just put it in yer purse, I mean it’s nothing really. It’s hardly worth noticing is it?

For these women, medium sized prizes – those resulting from four or five matching balls – offered the most important contribution to the household budget. For some of these women, this involved providing occasional ‘treats’ for the family. The women took great pleasure in being able to buy for their families, especially when it was something that they would not normally be able to afford. This echoes Pugh’s work on budgeting in low-income US families, which considers how childhood is constructed via consumption practices (2004). Pugh points out that where money is scarce, it is often also unstable (p. 233), and uses the term ‘windfall child rearing’ to help explain a situation where income is low and often irregular, and where ‘good’ and ‘bad’ luck come to determine the amount of money available to the family. Furthermore, Pugh argues that because of its unreliability, money cannot be used to reward ‘good’ behaviour as it is in higher income families (p. 242), and observes a culture of restraint over money that is not present in upper and middle class households (see also Chin 2001). Money which suddenly becomes available unexpectedly – such as a Lottery

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win – is thus frequently used to fund ‘compensatory’ treats (p. 242). Certainly, in this research, discussions about money, either the frustrations and anxieties associated with not having it, or imagining what effect more money would have on the family, were commonplace. Debbie, for example, describes the way she organises her £10 winnings and also how she manages the medium amounts of money that she has occasionally won so that the whole family gets a ‘treat’: We always ... well if we’ve won ten pounds we split it four ways ... my two little uns get £2.50 and we have £2.50 ... so if it was big money we all get treated, like we go out for a meal, something like that. (Debbie, south east London)

The women who had won ‘medium’ amounts of money carefully organised and managed their winnings. They stuck to routines, and by describing these routines to me, ensured that they could not be accused of in any way ‘wasting’ or badly managing their money. Sandra’s portrayal of how she decided to spend her £75 win provides a useful illustration of these routines: I bought a new carpet for the bedroom upstairs, that was it. Oh, I wouldn’t waste it, there’s no way I would waste it ... aye I did, I bought a carpet. (Sandra, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. My emphasis)

The women discussed the ways in which they spent the money that they had won through participation in the National Lottery bi-weekly draw in order to stress further their careful money management. Following Lunt and Livingstone (1992) it is possible to speak of a ‘conformity of living’ within the women’s system of consumption. The women never admitted to spending their winnings on themselves; they did not buy on impulse and above all were eager to be seen to be ‘economical’ (Lunt and Livingstone, 1992: 90). Daniel Miller (1998) calls this type of consumption ‘thrift’, and describes the often very complex strategies for saving adopted by working class women. He demonstrates also, how saving or investing might be re-interpreted as a pleasurable form of spending (p. 59). Such an analysis of thrift can be complemented by DeVault’s study of gender and caring work which explores some of the economic contexts within which women’s everyday lives are experienced (1991). DeVault argues that poorer women are forced to continuously struggle to calculate exact amounts of money needed in order to meet all of the family’s expenses (p. 172). In an attempt to hold the household budget at a constant level, poorer women often employ informal strategies in order to stick to a limited budget (p. 171). This was certainly the case for the women of this research, as they attempted to justify their National Lottery purchases. Both Helen and Sandra bought ‘things for the house’, namely furniture and a carpet and Barbara said that she used her winnings to pay off debts and bills. In all of these women’s cases, and particularly in Barbara’s, winning medium amounts of money on the National Lottery is seen as a real means of alleviating some of their daily concerns which are the result of their relative poverty. For Barbara, matching four balls and winning £1400 came at just

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the right time – when she and her husband were experiencing significant financial difficulties: ... on that occasion (winning £1400), me husband was out of work, so I had to use it towards bills and everything. (Barbara, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

Barbara’s disadvantaged economic situation meant that she necessarily spent a lot of time thinking about money and how best to manage on a small budget. It is interesting that whereas she felt so relieved at her medium win on the Lottery, she sees her smaller (£10) winnings as far less significant: I mean the ten pounds and that, you know … well I just won one on Saturday … I just spend that on cigarettes or anything really.

Certainly, many of the women were motivated by the medium sized prizes that they occasionally won, which helped to alleviate some of their financial concerns. As Elsie, for example, pointed out, winning the occasional prize in part compensated for any concerns that she may have ‘wasted money’ on tickets that were not winners: That’s eight quid a week like ... I used to think what I could do with eight pound. But we’ve won, we keep our money up you know. We’ve won the odd tenners and things like that so really I don’t think that we spend that much on it anyway. (Elsie, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

The idea that working class women purchase National Lottery tickets in order to enable them to buy essentials or to alleviate financial pressures that ordinarily their poverty would prevent them from doing, provides evidence to support claims made by Bell (1911) and Reith (1999) that gambling for women in low income households can be interpreted as a genuine attempt to make a difficult financial situation easier. Scratchcards as Part of the Routine of Play So far, I have explored routines of National Lottery play, but have over-looked the relevance of scratchcard play.5 As highlighted earlier, scratchcard play was by no means as popular as the National Lottery bi-weekly draw amongst the women. The vast majority of the women said that they never or only very rarely purchased scratchcards, and only 24.7 per cent of women responding to the questionnaire said that they had ever bought scratchcards, compared with 98.9 per cent of women who said that they had bought a £1 Saturday ticket at some point since the National Lottery’s launch. Despite this, it is important to spend some time examining scratchcard play not only in terms of its relative lack of popularity amongst the women compared to participation in the bi-weekly draw, but also in terms of the 5

I use ‘scratchcard play’ to refer to the National Lottery ‘Instants’ game.

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ways in which a number of the women had fitted scratchcard play into their usual National Lottery playing routine. For the women interviewed who regularly purchased scratchcards (Wendy, Diane and Barbara), the decision to do so was located within a system of careful money management. All were quick to stress that only money remaining after the family’s and household’s requirements had been accounted for was spent on scratchcards. The women employed strategies in order to distance themselves from what they described as ‘real’ and ‘irresponsible’ scratchcard play, which stood in contrast to their own playing routines. Although less ‘regular’ than the National Lottery biweekly draw, scratchcard play was similarly organised and systematic. Wendy’s system of buying more scratchcards with any previous winnings was typical: Usually I buy one (scratchcard). If I win on that one, then I buy another two. (Wendy, south east London)

Regarding this point, and contrary to women’s routines of National Lottery bi-weekly play, those women who said that they did purchase scratchcards were less specific about how often they did so. For a number of the women, purchasing scratchcards was something that they decided to do only when it fitted into already established routines of National Lottery play. Thus, some of the women said that they spent a portion of their £10 winnings on scratchcards. For Diane, this is in addition to her usual routine of sharing out £10 prizes amongst her family: Well if we won a ten pound on the Lottery, we divide it three ways, two kids and me, so we’ve got a pound left. So I bought the scratchcard out of that. So that’s how I buy scratchcards. (Diane, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

Managing on a Budget ... if you can’t afford it you don’t do it do you? (Irene, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

The above sections problematise traditional accounts of leisure which have positioned leisure as an escape from the pains and struggles of being working class. They demonstrate how, for the women of this research, participating in the National Lottery never constituted an ‘escape’ or temporary loss of control. The women frequently worked to construct alternative meanings behind their Lottery participation, which contradicted the often derogatory critiques of gambling and Lottery play. In particular, they were very eager to position it less as an ‘escape’, and more as a leisure activity which was firmly rooted in their everyday, domestic routines.

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Although many of the women associated gambling with not having ‘enough’ money, all were quick to stress that they always avoided spending money that was not ‘spare’. Jan Pahl’s research into household budgeting is useful here as a means of beginning to understand the various ‘responsibilities’ that were characteristic of the women’s everyday experiences (Pahl, 1989). The women were all in low income families, but both they and their husband or partner were in low paid or parttime employment. Pahl discovered that women from this socio-economic group are usually responsible for the household budget and men from these families were more likely to spend money on leisure (Pahl, 1989: 169). Important similarities can be found between Pahl’s work and the women whom I interviewed. Although decisions on National Lottery play and the amounts of money to be spent were made jointly, it was often the men who bought National Lottery tickets ‘for the family’ whereas the women were responsible for managing (collecting and spending) money won. In this sense, although the women saw playing the National Lottery as a possible means of alleviating some of their poverty, they were careful to be seen to be managing the household budget effectively and to never put the money intended for ‘essentials’ at risk. The women suggested that an important part of their everyday lives was an attempt to find a means of budgeting in order to attain an ‘acceptable’ living standard without getting into debt (see also Graham, 1992): ... I wasn’t working and I only had two pound to me name and ... I thought, well that’ll buy us bread and potatoes through the week so I didn’t put it on (the National Lottery) and me numbers come up. But I didn’t let it get us down, I just thought ‘it could have been’, just one of them things. I’d rather have kept me two quid for the milk and bread. (Sandra, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

The above quote highlights the dilemma faced by the women in a similar way to Florence Bell’s much earlier account (Bell, 1911). Budgeting was a major part of the women’s lives and being a successful ‘budgeter’ meant for the women being ‘selfless’ and caring ‘properly’ for their families which they saw to be synonymous with ‘femininity’. Sandra’s story depicts the women’s everyday struggles to juggle their ‘responsibilities’ with the appeal of purchasing National Lottery tickets which the women believed offered a possible means of alleviating some of their financial concerns. However, the women were also profoundly aware that in taking such a ‘risk’, they were in danger of jeopardising the money intended for ‘essentials’ for the family. Wendy was the only woman to imply that she had ever had a ‘problem’ with gambling. She associated gambling with being poor but also suggested that it was only when gambling made her unable to ‘go shopping’ in order to provide for her family that she managed to ‘cut down’ on the amount spent on gambling: (I) used to (play on fruit machines). Believe it or not, it was when I was on the dole. Because, like when you’re skint you think, just put a pound in and get 20 quid ... like half the time you’d go there on your way shopping and of course my money’d go on the fruit machine, you know ... so I stopped doing it. (Wendy, south east London)

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As Parker (1992) also discovered in her study of household budgeting, the women were primarily responsible for financial budgeting and managing. They lived with the constant fear of the blame and disapproval that they believed awaited them if the rent or bills went unpaid or if their children were ‘inadequately’ provided for. Although the women were quick to position themselves as ‘responsible’ money managers, by arguing that purchasing National Lottery tickets never deprived the family of ‘essentials’, they nonetheless frequently suggested that the amount they spent on tickets constituted a significant proportion of the household budget. Barbara’s comment was typical: What it’s costing me over the years, I could be putting that in the bank and have quite a nice little nest egg. (Barbara, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

How then did the women defend themselves against criticisms that gambling was a ‘waste of money’ which could be put to ‘better’ uses? Dixey and Talbot, in their classic study of bingo, suggested that this gambling activity is so popular amongst working class women in part because it is a cheap form of entertainment (Dixey and Talbot, 1982). Part of the popularity of the National Lottery amongst the women was due to the way in which it fitted into the economic constraints of their lives. According to my quantitative data, although the National Lottery was by far the most popular form of gambling amongst the women (89.9 per cent had bought a National Lottery Saturday draw ticket at some point since its launch), it was also the gambling game that the women spent the smallest amounts of money on each time they played. Whereas the average amount spent on a visit to the bingo was £8.50, the average amount spent per National Lottery draw was only £2.66. Thus, the National Lottery bi-weekly draw can be seen as the cheapest gambling game amongst the women who bought tickets. The women stressed that their National Lottery play was regular and routine, and this was an important means for the women of resisting traditional critiques of gambling. By stressing in detail how they organised their National Lottery ticket purchases, they showed how they were able to negotiate a ‘suitable’ gambling space; one which was far removed from traditional interpretations of gambling, such as Rowntree’s (1905) which perceived gambling as a cause of secondary poverty. The women used their routines of ticket purchase to show how they were not ‘addicted’ nor were they spending ‘too much’ on Lottery tickets. The following sections will examine the strategies employed by the women in order to make ‘acceptable’ their National Lottery purchases. They use the National Lottery as an illustration of the women’s everyday experiences of class and gender, within a culture of ‘making the best’ out of their subordinate economic situations. Finding Time to Gamble As the discussion above illustrates, leisure represents one important manifestation of the ways in which women’s lives are constrained within patriarchal capitalism (see

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also Dobash and Dobash, 1976). This chapter has shown how National Lottery play was a highly regulated and structured activity in the lives of the women who played. I have focused on the structure and organisation of money, in terms of the number of tickets to be purchased, and also in terms of spending and organising winnings. The next section focuses on ‘time’ as a means of exploring the National Lottery as an opportunity for women to gamble without interrupting their existing (and often packed) time schedules. Time is conceived as a gendered and classed concept, and as another illustration of the domestic nature of women’s Lottery participation. This is supported by existing research, for example Sullivan (1997), Shaw (1998) and Deem (1986), which has demonstrated ‘time’ to be a gendered concept, and to have particular relevance to women’s leisure experiences. The women used the National Lottery to carve out a suitable occasion for leisure within their existing – often packed – time schedules. The link between leisure and time, and subsequently the thesis that a lack of time inevitably leads to a lack of leisure is an old and well established one.6 Similarly, ‘leisure’ has traditionally been neatly packaged as the time ‘left over’ after work has ended.7 This research reveals that both of these assumptions are inadequate in exploring the leisure lives of working class women. Discussions with the women about their leisure lives during the qualitative interviews, help to explain the popularity of the National Lottery bi-weekly draw amongst this group of women. Some of the most striking similarities between the women interviewed came in response to questions to do with participation in leisure activities. The women were asked what they liked to do in their ‘spare time’, and what leisure activities they pursued when they had a few ‘spare’ moments ‘to themselves’. These questions were almost unanimously met with a long pause, and the women often had great difficulty in listing any of their own leisure activities at all. This hesitation was in sharp contrast to the rest of the interviews in which the women were rarely ‘stuck’ for answers to any of my questions. Certainly, the hesitation was very apparent, and is worth exploring here. Although all of the women had difficulty in describing how they spent their leisure time, there was a notable difference between the responses of those women who had young children living at home and those women who did not. The women who had young children living at home stressed that their childcare responsibilities meant that they had very little or no leisure time to call their own. Most of these women said that their lack of leisure time was due to their ‘spare time’ being taken up with domestic and childcare responsibilities. This supports feminist leisure research which points to a link between having responsibility for young children and a lack of leisure time, for example, Deem (1986) and Shaw (1998). The women with young children were unanimous in their insistence that their domestic and childcare responsibilities led them to sacrifice time for themselves. Diane makes this point by associating her lack of leisure time with the growing number of domestic and 6 The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) for example, makes this link when it defines leisure as ‘free or unoccupied time’. 7 ‘Leisure’ is also defined by the OED as ‘opportunity afforded by freedom from occupations’.

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specifically childcare duties. She argues that these duties do not sit comfortably with a packed social life away from the family: Well, the kids come along and you don’t go out as much and you tend to stay in, especially with working full time, you have this guilt trip that you shouldn’t be working, you should be a proper mum ... I mean it never stops ... I just wanted to be in the house on a night time. Come in, have me tea, once you’ve sorted that out. Then you have to get a babysitter. It just wasn’t worth the effort. And I would rather just chill in the house on a night time. Just spend time with them (her children) ... when you haven’t seen them through the day. So it all dwindled off then. (Diane, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

All of the women interviewed were engaged in paid employment either full- or parttime. Many blamed work commitments for their lack of time available to pursue leisure activities. The women often expressed concern that working full- or part-time meant that they did not spend enough time with their children. Paid work frequently left the women with a sense of guilt that they were not left with enough time to be ‘proper’ mothers. Sandra expresses this guilt: ... I never go to the baths (swimming) or owt by myself. I’ve never been to the baths for two year actually ... I’m too busy at work and then I come in and ... well sometimes me husband’ll come in and say “you’ve never hoovered today” and I’ll think “well I’ve cleaned four old people’s houses today for them, in the community” ... (Sandra, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

That the women had a clear sense of the limited ways in which they could ‘acceptably’ spend their ‘spare time’, was made evident by the frequent expressions of guilt and concern that their paid work left the women unable to run a home, and look after a family in the way that they felt was expected of them. Sandra’s remarks highlight the pressure felt by the women to manage their time in a way which ensured that they did not ever ‘neglect’ their domestic and childcare responsibilities. They also echo Betsy Wearing’s suggestion that women in contemporary society often find themselves caught in a predicament which is fuelled by the fact than many women feel that any free time that they have should be devoted to their children, husband and home, and not ‘squandered’ through pursuing of their own interests (Wearing, 1996). The importance for the women of adhering to the norms of time management considered appropriate for them, was illustrated by the offence caused by any suggestions that they ever failed to manage their time in such a way that they were unable to perform their roles of ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ adequately. Many of the women expressed a desire to give up paid work believing that if they did so, then this would leave them with more time to be ‘proper’ wives and mothers. None of the women said that they would like to leave paid employment so that they would have more leisure time for themselves. Certainly, the women worked to avoid making any suggestions that their domestic and childcare responsibilities were not their main priority. That the women who had young children insisted that any spare

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time that they did have was spent looking after the home or their children, was an important means of presenting an image of themselves which was consistent with norms of time management considered appropriate for women with young children. As demonstrated by other authors, the assumption that leisure represents time away from regulated time structures, is not appropriate for women (Sullivan, 1997) and especially not for those women with young children (Shaw, 1998). The women interviewed felt that the time available to pursue their own leisure activities was extremely limited. They did not appear to believe that they had any ‘right’ to a leisure space of their own, instead, they categorised all of their choices and preferences into ‘appropriate’ and ‘inappropriate’ forms of behaviour. National Lottery play is popular amongst working class women, especially those with young children, because it fits comfortably into the norms of time management which they considered to be appropriate. As Deem (1986) discovered, women are attracted to leisure activities which easily complement rigid time structures and schedules (p. 88). The National Lottery is an activity which can be participated in without challenging these norms of behaviour. Indeed, the National Lottery bi-weekly draw can be seen as an ideal means of gambling without using up any time at all. Consider Judith’s response to my question ‘what do you like to do in your leisure time?’: Decorate! That’s all I seem to do. Cook. Spend as much time as I can with the little un ... I haven’t got time (for leisure activities) ... I work full time, sometimes I’m on call as well and my husband’s on shifts. So it’s a little bit hectic here at times. I mean to be honest, once the little un’s finished all his social activities there’s no time left. (Judith, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; my italics)

Judith articulates the often hectic and fragmented time schedules that were characteristic of the lives of many of the women interviewed. In keeping with the norms of behaviour elaborated above, she associates any ‘spare’ time that she does have with domestic and childcare responsibilities rather than with pursuing her own leisure activities. Interestingly, she mentions her son’s leisure or ‘social activities’ when talking about her own, adding weight to the argument that much of women’s spare time is used to facilitate other people’s leisure lives. Jenny Shaw for example, has argued that the pressures placed on women to be good ‘wives and mothers’ means that they often are left with very little, or no time to do things ‘for themselves’ which do not ‘come under the heading of duty’ (see Shaw, 1998: 389). Bearing in mind the women’s common insistence that they had little or no leisure time, the popularity of the National Lottery in terms of the regularity with which the women played is notable. The women were able to play the National Lottery with a regularity which they were unable to devote to other leisure and gambling activities because of the unique way in which participation did not demand an interruption of existing time schedules. The women employed routines of National Lottery play in order that they could avoid any perceptions of themselves as ‘reckless’ or ‘irresponsible’ gamblers. Taking this argument a step further, it is possible to suggest that by stressing the importance of these routines, the women worked to adhere to the norms of time management

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highlighted above. By saying that they stuck to organised routines of play, the women were simultaneously able to suggest that playing the National Lottery did not demand that they interrupt their existing time schedules, nor subsequently – as we have seen – their domestic and childcare responsibilities. Establishing the routine nature of the National Lottery bi-weekly draw represented a vital means for the women of differentiating between ‘responsible’ gambling (that which ‘fitted’ into the norms of appropriate behaviour) and ‘irresponsible’ gambling (that which did not). There were a number of fundamental ways in which the women’s routines of play minimised interruption to time schedules, and this established the ‘responsible’ nature of their gambling behaviour. These were gambling with partners and gambling at home. I shall consider each of these in turn. Gambling with partners An important part of the women’s routines of play, was in establishing who bought the tickets, and where they were purchased. This ensured that the women were able to play the National Lottery without it interfering with their ability to adequately perform their domestic and childcare roles. Most frequently, the women interviewed, said that they shared the responsibility of purchasing tickets with their husbands or partners.8 Importantly, this had often become a highly organised routine; one which ensured that tickets were purchased every week and which fitted into everyday schedules. Interestingly, all of the women who were married or who lived with their partners discussed the ways in which they had worked with their husbands and partners to establish their routines of ticket purchase. For some of the women (Judith, Irene and Sandra), tickets were always purchased by their husbands or partners, although this was by no means to say that these women were not ‘involved’ in National Lottery play. All were aware of the exact amounts their husbands gambled, where the tickets were bought and all were enthusiastic and excited by the National Lottery. They all suggested that the decision to gamble was a joint one. It seems that although these women took great pleasure from other aspects of National Lottery play, they were keen to distance themselves from the process of actually purchasing tickets. Judith’s response is interesting because her attempts to reinforce the fact that it is never her who buys the tickets are further strengthened by her assertion that on the only occasion that she did have to buy the tickets herself (i.e. when her husband was unable to), she was completely ignorant of the process of play: ... He (Judith’s husband) always buys the tickets ... I mean to be honest, if it was up to me we’d never have a ticket. I haven’t got a clue! I’ve been sent to get it once and I had to ask the lady how to do it! (Judith, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

8 It would be possible to argue that because some of the women did not purchase tickets themselves, then the National Lottery was not necessarily an important part of their leisure lives. I dispute this, pointing instead, especially in the next chapter, to the pleasures that the women gained from playing the National Lottery.

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Judith makes the above comments towards the end of an hour long interview in which she discusses at length the pleasures that she gains from playing the National Lottery. When she remarks that ‘if it was up to me we’d never have a ticket’, Judith is not implying that she does not enjoy playing the Lottery nor that it is something that her husband does which has nothing to do with her. Rather, it is a leisure activity from which she gains pleasure. It was clear that who bought tickets was by no means a spontaneous decision, rather it was structured and systematic so that every week was accounted for. This often meant that for those women who shared responsibility for purchasing tickets with partners (Barbara, Debbie, Tracey, Betty, Sandra and Elsie), ticket purchase had become locked into the women and their partners’ everyday domestic routines. The following remarks to the question ‘who usually goes and buys the tickets?’ were typical: Me or me husband. Like if I’m at work on a Saturday, me husband does it. (Barbara, Newcastle-upon-Tyne) ... it’s between us. It’s about fifty-fifty really. Depends who’s going shopping to do it. We go to Savacentre to do it, so it depends who’s going. (Debbie, south east London)

The three women who did not live with a husband or partner (Helen, Wendy and Diane) said that they always bought their own National Lottery tickets. These women had all established routines of purchasing tickets which fitted into their own everyday schedules. All of these women worked full-time, and it seems that finding and sticking to a routine of purchasing tickets was important if they were to find time to play each week. Thus, one of the women (Helen) always bought her tickets at the newsagent next to her workplace which enabled her to play in her lunch hour or after work. The other two single women said that they always bought National Lottery tickets at the supermarket along with their weekly shopping. Diane’s routine of purchasing Wednesday and Saturday draw tickets together meant that another visit to a National Lottery retailer later on in the week was not necessary: ... I buy them both together. When I do the shopping on a Saturday. I mean for both, for the Wednesday and the Saturday. (Diane, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

By purchasing tickets in supermarkets, the women were able to gamble without making any significant adjustments to their existing routines and rituals. There are two important points to be made regarding this. Firstly, by purchasing tickets at the same time as ‘necessities’ – such as food – these women did not have to interrupt their everyday rituals and routines; they did not have to ‘find time’ to gamble since the National Lottery fitted in with their already packed domestic schedules. Secondly,

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the women did not have to leave any of their everyday, domestic ‘spaces’, or break their routines by entering ‘new’ spaces in order to gamble. Gambling at home The majority of the women did not take time out to regularly watch the National Lottery live draw; certainly it did not represent an important feature of play for the women. Similarly, those women (Barbara, Irene, Sandra and Wendy) who said that that they ‘sometimes’ or ‘occasionally’ watched the television show suggested that doing so was not an important part of their playing routine. These women watched the show only if they happened to be at home or if there was nothing ‘worth watching’ on the other side. Most of these women said that because they knew their choice of numbers so well, there was little point in ‘wasting time’ by watching the draw every week. Nonetheless, it seems that for some of these women, being able to watch the live draw, even occasionally, is part of the ‘excitement’ of playing, which the women described as being shared with the family. By involving the family in this way, the women were able to gamble without being accused of ‘selfishly’ pursuing their own choice of leisure activity. They also helped to provide evidence to support Woodward and Green’s claim that women tend to participate in leisure activities with their family which reinforce romantic ideas of togetherness (Woodward and Green, 1988: 135). Importantly, this enabled the women to portray and protect an image of ‘domestic harmony’ (Woodward and Green, 1988: 134). Sandra for example, describes her children’s involvement: ... the little un’ll say “Dad, I’ll get the Lottery numbers” and he gets the paper ready and ticks them off. Or Saturday ... we went out on Saturday, so yesterday we checked (the winning numbers) on Teletext. (Sandra, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

It seems that for some of these women, watching the live draw can be a source of excitement and pleasure. The fact that it is not always possible to fit it into their usual routines of play, and that any routines of watching the live draw are frequently interrupted – as Sandra goes on to illustrate above – further supports my claim that the women’s choice of leisure activities is constrained by a lack of time available. This is not to say that there were not a minority of women who always watched the television show, and for whom doing so had become part of their routine of play. None of the women who organised their Lottery play in this way (Elsie, Irene and Barbara) had young children living at home – they were also the oldest women in the sample. It is perhaps the case that these women had more time available to watch the television show, and to check their numbers in this way. However, as Jennifer Mason has argued, it is not necessarily true that older women have more leisure time than younger women (1988). She points out that older women tend to prefer home-based activities and that they tend to spend their time structuring and facilitating men’s leisure. Additionally though, she draws attention to the ‘innovative’ and ‘ingenious’ strategies that older women employ in order to negotiate ‘personal’ time and space

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within these constraints. Mason uses the example of older women spending more time at the shops than is perhaps necessary; for the older women of this research, the National Lottery provided a similar type of leisure space within the norms of behaviour considered appropriate. It was a means of gambling at home, and with their husbands and family – thus satisfying prevailing norms of ‘togetherness’ (Mason, 1988: 84). It enabled the women to negotiate a leisure time within often very rigid and complicated time structures. For the older women, this often meant watching the live draw with their husbands and partners to see their numbers being drawn: ... we generally watch the programme so we know exactly when they (the numbers) come on. I write the numbers down as they come up. (Irene, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

For all of the women interviewed, purchasing National Lottery tickets seemed to fit in easily with their existing routines, and with the various demands of domesticity and childcare which they believed their femininity had placed on them. Imperative to its popularity was the fact that it was possible for the women to take part without either buying tickets themselves or watching the live draw. It became clear that part of the National Lottery’s popularity amongst the women interviewed was due to its status as an activity which requires little, or no participation. Traditional theories would not position the National Lottery in these women’s lives as a ‘leisure’ activity; ie. one which requires time away from the everyday. However, I identify the National Lottery as an important part of women’s leisure lives, despite appearing to require no ‘time’ to participate. Such a gendered account of leisure adds to existing feminist analyses of leisure, which argue that women frequently find leisure spaces, and participate in activities which are thoroughly blended into women’s everyday, domestic routines, for example, Deem (1986) Woodward and Green (1988) and Smith (1987). Irresponsible Others The women then, were keen to be seen to be adhering to the norms of time and money management that they perceived to be appropriate for themselves as respectable working class women. Such an analysis offers an alternative view to the idea that individuals participate in leisure activities in order that they can temporarily ‘dislocate’ themselves from social reality, as proposed by, for example Sennett and Cobb (1972), and Cohen and Taylor (1992). If women can be seen to be participating in a leisure activity such as the National Lottery which is so deeply embedded into their ordinary domestic routines of time and money, then such a thesis is not applicable. This chapter has shown that the women of this research have little means of separating themselves (and their leisure) from the reality of their domestic constraints. The women’s leisure activities – including their National Lottery play – were embedded in the social reality of their everyday, domestic routines. Nonetheless, the women were not passive victims of these routines, rather, the women themselves helped to produce, perform and negotiate the parameters of ‘appropriate’ behaviour, in order that it incorporated pleasurable leisure experiences,

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including gambling. In this sense, the domestic routines described above were by no means fixed and unchanging. The women helped to refine the boundaries of domestic spaces, firstly, by re-positioning the National Lottery as a gambling game which never disrupted domestic routines and patterns, and secondly, by legitimating their own gambling by constructing a deviant, uncaring ‘other’ woman who failed to achieve what was necessary to adhere to the ethic of caring. Establishing the concept of a deviant or irresponsible ‘other’ was an important way in which the women worked to make acceptable their own decisions to gamble a proportion of the (limited) household budget. This helped to legitimise their own participation in what the women recognised could easily be seen as an ‘inappropriate’ leisure activity. They did this in two main ways. ‘Wastefulness’ The women tended to associate regular participation in ‘other’ forms of gambling (ie. not the National Lottery bi-weekly draw) as inconsistent with the constraints of ‘time’ and domestic ‘space’ which were placed on their everyday lives. An example of this is provided by Barbara’s response when asked if she ever plays on fruit machines: No. No, no. I don’t like them at all. I’ve seen too many people losing a lot of money on them. I mean me mother-in-law, she would work hard all week, she would get paid on a Friday and, God’s honest truth, she would put her ... go to the bar cos it was at the bar ... and go and get maybe ten pounds worth of change and have a game. She got nothing and I’ve seen her lose her wages. I don’t agree with it ... (Barbara, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. My emphasis)

Barbara acknowledged that her mother-in-law was hardworking, but identifies also her wastefulness. Earning money and then losing it all is not only seen as a devastating consequence of gambling, but also as a needless waste – one which could be avoided through careful money management. As Barbara points out ‘I don’t agree with it’, although she has no problem with sensible and ‘responsible’ gambling. The women helped to define their own ‘acceptable’ and ‘respectable’ gambling by talking of those women who gambled in ‘deviant’ and ‘inappropriate’ ways. The fact that her mother-in-law worked so hard, in Barbara’s eyes only seems to further illustrate the shame and wastefulness of her excessive gambling. The women resisted claims that their National Lottery play was ‘irresponsible’ by comparing their own gambling behaviour with stories of women whose gambling behaviour they defined as irresponsible. Judith talked of an imaginary ‘other’ or ‘they’ who gambled erratically and demonstrated ‘addictive’ tendencies: It’s like any form of gambling isn’t it? If you have an addictive personality it can be inviting for you. Scratchcards are more accessible. They can get their hands on them whenever they want. They’re very addictive.

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Judith thus carefully distinguished her own careful, organised gambling behaviour from the irresponsible and wasteful gambling of ‘others’. Sandra makes a similar point when she compares her own ‘careful’ management of her gambling budget with the reckless and potentially wasteful gambling behaviour of an ‘other’: I don’t know. I mean I’m careful with me money, but when it comes to things like that I’ll say “oh no”. We always put five pound a week on the Lottery. I’m not into scratchcards. I know someone who buys them all the time, a friend of mine and she’s dead lucky but, I still think no, cos she’ll go and buy another one. She’s the same with fruit machines.

By differentiating herself from these ‘wasteful’ others, Sandra is active in positioning herself as a responsible gambler. She thus defends herself against dominant discourses, as discussed earlier, which have positioned gambling as a meaningless and wasteful activity, by deflecting these critiques onto others. The women cited above were particularly critical of scratchcards and fruit machines which they described in very critical terms. These discourses were in contrast to the positioning of their own subjectivities as gamblers. Elsie illustrates this point when she describes her disapproval of the women at bingo who play on fruit machines in the interval: I’ve watched people at the bingo (on fruit machines) and they must put pounds in, honestly … I mean they might win, but I mean when you win you can win, what, twenty, fifteen pound and you might get it again. It depends what sort of bandit, I suppose, you play on, and I’ve seen them get a little bit out, but they’ve stood and put the whole lot back in and they’ve stayed out there the whole interval and I think, well god they must be spending a fortune.

By setting up the concept of an ‘irresponsible’, deviant ‘other’, the women worked to further make ‘acceptable’ their own gambling behaviour. There was a sense in which, through their National Lottery participation, the women produced and enabled their own subjectivities and identities. The concept of the ‘irresponsible other’ was central to the ways in which the women produced themselves as subjects of a particular kind and which furnished them with a particular identity. Failure to ‘care’ These stories often occurred later on in the interviews after the women had spent time arguing that their National Lottery participation did not interfere with their ability to be ‘responsible’ money managers and carers. The representations of ‘other’ women were further reinforced by the women’s illustrations of gambling behaviour which is not respectable and which stands in contrast to their own normative femininity. Interestingly, the ‘irresponsible others’ were always women which provides further weight to my claim that the women perceived responsible money management as an important aspect of their femininity. When talking about their opinions of the ethics of National Lottery play, the majority of women contrasted their own organised, structured and managed gambling behaviour with

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‘other’ women who had failed to use the National Lottery to extend care to their families, and had instead displayed selfishness at the family’s expense through their gambling behaviour. Many of the women made a direct correlation between ‘excessive’ gambling and failure to be a ‘good’ and ‘caring’ mother. June, who did not play the National Lottery, used the concept of irresponsible others in order to explain why she did not see purchasing tickets to be synonymous with ‘responsible’ feminine behaviour. Thus, June believes that the lure of scratchcards lead many women to neglect to care adequately for their children: I’d gone along to the Post Office on the estate and they used to sell (scratchcards), and there was this young girl standing in front of me and ... she had all these children, she had two in a pushchair and these other two, and erm, they were all, you could tell they had no money to spare, no money to manage actually, not spare! And she was buying ten pounds of tickets. You know and she’s frantically opening them, and I looked and I felt quite sick. (June, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

The ‘irresponsible woman’ that the women interviewed talked about, represented not only a means of emphasising their own responsible gambling behaviour but also a means of establishing and negotiating their own norms of appropriate femininity by drawing attention to the terrible fates of those women who, through gambling and a mis-management of the household budget, had lost their status as ‘respectable’ women. Many of the stories stressed the negative impact that ‘irresponsible’ gambling had on the women’s ability to ‘care properly’ for their families. This was an additional means for the women of strengthening their claims that they were able to gamble without ever jeopardising their ability to provide and care for their families via respectable household and money management. Despite these remarks about mothers who fail to gain respectability via caring on a limited budget, the women always felt empathy for these women who they believed had failed as carers. They recognised the anxieties and frustrations of attempting to provide appropriate levels of care on a limited budget. Thus, the women often said that the National Lottery may be dangerous if in the ‘wrong hands’; ie. in the hands of women who will not be able to balance the temptation of gambling with providing care for their children. In this sense, the women worked to define the boundaries of ‘appropriate’ gambling which would not conflict with the norms and values of the caring self. The women then, sought to resist traditional critiques of National Lottery play by stressing their own methods of gambling within the norms of money management and caring consistent with normative working class femininity. They also helped to shape and negotiate these norms of femininity themselves, by establishing the concept of a deviant, irresponsible ‘other’. They thus worked to negotiate the parameters of normative femininity by seeking to establish a ‘suitable’ gambling space within a broader culture which has traditionally been unable to position gambling alongside normative femininity.

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Summary The women of this research constructed alternative, counter-discourses to the dominant middle class critiques of the National Lottery. Their participation did not represent an ‘escape’ from their everyday lives, rather it was embedded in their domestic routines. There was thus no easy separation between the women’s participation in this leisure activity, and their working class, feminine selves. Their participation reflected their desires to demonstrate appropriate money management and budgeting, which contested the popular critiques of Lottery play and gambling behaviour. By constructing counter-discourses of ‘respectable’ gambling behaviour, they were able to resist and defend themselves against dominant middle class knowledges and critiques of their gambling behaviour, and to demand access to this pleasurable leisure space. For the vast majority of the women, playing the National Lottery was a highly organised and routine gambling activity and was rarely ‘spur of the moment’. The women were thus active in producing and re-producing the routines of their everyday lives in order that they encompassed gambling behaviour. This chapter has demonstrated that the women recognised traditional and powerful critiques of gambling behaviour, and employed various strategies to resist them. In particular, the women insisted that they never allowed their gambling to be the cause of more poverty, nor that they ever gambled in ‘irresponsible’ ways. The women were thus not simply powerless victims of capitalist ideology (as traditional accounts of gambling would have us believe), but they themselves played a fundamental role in producing and negotiating representations of themselves. The chapter positions the National Lottery as a ‘leisure’ activity which is embedded in the regular, routine and domestic money management and time structures which constrained the everyday lives of this group of working class women. It has demonstrated, though, that National Lottery play is not consistent with the types of leisure traditionally described by leisure sociologists. The chapter explores how it is that such an activity which appears to be so embedded in domestic routines, and which requires neither time nor space, can possibly be considered ‘leisure’. The next chapter picks up on the themes raised in this chapter by examining in more detail the unique leisure experiences afforded by the National Lottery. It expands on notions of domesticity, routine and everyday leisure, by introducing Wearing’s (1999) concept of ‘metaphorical leisure spaces’, as a means of beginning to explore some of the pleasures afforded by Lottery play.

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Chapter 5

Caring, Class and Pleasure: Metaphorical Leisure Spaces and National Lottery Play Introduction This chapter further considers National Lottery play within the context of leisure studies, and argues that the concept of ‘leisure’ can be further explored and developed through the employment of post-structuralist feminist models of subjectivity (see also Wearing, 1998). It advocates a refining of ‘leisure’ as a sociological concept, in order that what constitutes ‘leisure’ can also include those activities which afford pleasure, without necessarily requiring access to a distinguishable time and space. The chapter adopts Wearing’s notion of ‘metaphorical’ leisure spaces (see also Chapter 3) as a useful means of understanding Lottery play. It explores the ways in which the lives of the women interviewed were ‘lived on the pulse’ (Kuhn, 1995: 101), by examining the National Lottery as an expression of the women’s hopes, dreams, pleasures and frustrations with their everyday lives. The chapter examines the women’s dreams of becoming ‘respectably’ working class. Rather than aspiring to become middle class, this chapter shows how the women wanted to be valued as working class. The chapter highlights ‘caring’ as a classed concept (see also Skeggs, 1997). It explores the various relationships between caring and pleasure. The chapter further argues that the women of this research used the National Lottery as a means of aiding their struggles with the limitations of their class, whilst at the same time defending their class positions. It explores the ways in which the women’s class positions were always intersected by gender. The chapter looks at the impact of class and gender on the women’s various experiences of National Lottery play. It looks at the pleasures afforded by the National Lottery, and considers the Lottery as an important leisure activity in the women’s lives. It considers the National Lottery as one important way in which the women of this research were able to gain pleasure and leisure. Finally, the chapter will move on from the simple documentation of the constraints placed on women’s leisure activities, towards an exploration of the ways in which women shape, resist and (re)produce culture and gender relations via National Lottery play. Following on from the themes of the methodology chapter, I provide a further challenge to certain binary distinctions, which are, I show, inextricably entangled. Of particular importance to this chapter, is the link between fantasy, daydream and reality.

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Good Cause Money In this section I look at the operation of class and gender as they work to inform the women’s subjectivities. Drawing from the discussion of class and culture in Chapter 3, it examines the women’s multiple attitudes to the National Lottery Good Cause projects. This was one important way in which the women revealed the impact of class on their everyday experiences. There was some criticism, but also some sympathy at the ways in which Good Cause money had been spent. In particular, the Millennium Dome was criticised by some of the women in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Sandra expressed frustration at the decision to build a Dome when there were other more ‘deserving’ causes that the money could have been spent on: I never went to the Dome, but it’s a shame because it’s just been a total wipe out. It’s just a shame, all that money spent and it could’ve went to the homeless, do you know what I mean? Or cancer research, National Health, things like that.

June, although later demonstrating some sympathy for Lottery funded projects, was offended by the amount of Lottery funding which went to projects in ‘the South’. June and her husband had a history of trade union activity, and June was also one of the founders of the voluntary organisation ‘Dementia Care Initiative’ which many of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne women worked for. She was perhaps the most politically active woman I interviewed, and had a very strong sense of injustice. The interview with June took place in the same week that 1,100 redundancies were made in the steel industry at the Corus plant in Redcar, Teesside. June spent a long time talking about Good Cause Lottery projects, and related this to the everyday lives of local people in her area: But it’s like everything else, the South and the South East gets more than the North anyway in everything don’t they? If the Lottery could produce some jobs, that would be the thing wouldn’t it? ‘Cos imagine those a thousand people today saying “I’ve got no job” and most of them having to buy houses which is a big thing nowadays isn’t it?

Other women, especially those from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, also resented seeing Lottery money funding projects in the South. In part, this was due to the women’s desire to see more of the effects of Lottery projects on their own doorsteps. In addition though, some of the women were frustrated that they might never get to see many of the arts and cultural projects which were based in the South. Elsie felt spatially excluded by the Millennium Dome, and also pointed out that a visit would be out of her financial means: Elsie: … I think that London gets a lot more than the North gets … I mean they get the Dome, look at the money they’ve spent on that … I’ve heard really mixed views from people I’ve spoke to that’s been but I mean you know the Opera House and things like that, well fair enough but I don’t think the majority of the country, I mean I think more working class people don’t very often go to the opera. I’m not saying they don’t like the opera, I’m just saying they wouldn’t go. But of course the Dome, it’s well without … it’s not … it’s well out of my reach to get there.

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Emma: Is it too expensive? Elsie: That’s right. I mean by the time you’ve paid your bus fare or train fare, I don’t know how much the Dome is, I haven’t got a clue. But it’s expensive, it’s way out of our league isn’t it? But I just think that the North East misses out on a lot from the Lottery.

It is interesting that Elsie articulated her discomfort with the National Lottery arts and cultural projects in quite explicit class terms. She was particularly critical of the political decisions which surrounded the implementation of Good Cause funded projects. Elsie had only been to London once and said that she ‘hated it’. She saw London as a power which affected her everyday life and which had no respect or understanding of her situation. Judith was one of the only women from Newcastleupon-Tyne to have visited the Millennium Dome, and also articulated her anger in class terms. She was keen to see the benefits of the Lottery in her local area, and was angry that Lottery money should be used to fund the activities of ‘the wealthy’: Judith: One of them that really struck me was the Sadler’s Wells Ballet. The Royal Opera House got a few million pounds … Yes, there’s an awful lot of people enjoy the opera and the ballet, but the funds are available and amenable to them. Emma: Have you been to the Dome? Judith: Yes. I thought it was rubbish. I think there’s a lot of things, local things like the Discovery museum1 which you can go for free and the children love it. Things like that could have done with a cash injection. Because they go to places in London and that’s not accessible to everybody, you know a real marathon to get there. I think it could have been used locally and more people would have benefited from it.

However, some of the women from London also disapproved of how Lottery funding was spent. Wendy, a receptionist from south east London, was outraged: Emma: What do you think about the way the Good Cause money is spent? Wendy: I think it’s bollocks. Emma: Why do you think that? Wendy: I don’t actually agree with where the money’s going, that’s one thing. Myself, I actually donate to two or three different charities anyway. I give them like about a fiver a month. That’s standing order from my account. Erm … but they’re charities of my choice … the NSPCC, I strongly believe in them. (PAUSE) And I mean, what about animals? What the Lottery has could be put to good use. Personally I think they should ask the people.

Barbara, a care assistant from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was also disapproving of Lottery funding for the arts. She listed other causes that she saw to be more 1 The ‘International Centre for Life’ or the ‘Discovery Museum’ is a science and technology museum in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In 1996 it gained a £31,422,188 grant from the Millennium Commission.

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deserving of the money, which appeared to reflect her everyday experiences in the caring profession: I think that it’s a good thing (Good Cause money). But I think they put the money to the wrong causes. Erm, I think they could do more to help charity and things like that, than what they do with the arts and that. I’d like it to go to sick children to buy equipment for the hospitals and everything … erm … children that’s in homes to give them a little bit better life. To cancer research, things like that. They don’t do enough for them things.

Barbara was particularly scathing about what she described as the greed of the operators of the National Lottery. It angered her to see her money each week being turned into profit for a minority of powerful people in London, when she had such a clear sense of what ‘deserving’ causes were: … it’s not all going out (to charities) with Camelot. They say it is, but it isn’t. You’ve got your big fat cats getting fatter and richer off the money and like I say, I don’t think they … they give the money to the wrong causes half the time.

The women’s discussions about Good Cause projects were a result of their everyday experiences of class. The women quoted directly above were offended by what they saw as a lack of regard for the struggles and traumas of ordinary, everyday working class life. They appear to contradict those authors who have pointed to Good Cause money as an important factor motivating people to buy Lottery tickets. However, some of the women identified examples of what they did consider to be ‘worthy’ National Lottery funded projects. As with Wendy above, there was an emphasis placed by the women on Good Cause money being used to fund children’s charities. Helen demonstrates her enthusiasm for Lottery funded projects which have benefited her family, such as a local sports centre where her grand-son played football. She combines this with a scepticism of Lottery funded arts projects which she does not feel part of: … some is (spent wisely) like the sports centres for kids. That I don’t mind. I think that art galleries … I’m not keen on the Lottery being spent on them. I’m more for kids.

Sandra, a residential care worker for older people, was thrilled by the Lottery grant awarded to a local community centre. This benefited many of Sandra’s clients who lived in Denton, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: I think it’s good the way that so much has been donated out to different charities. I think that some good’s come out of it. I think … at Denton Bank Over 60s … they’ve just been donated some money and they’re like over the moon. It’s something for them old people to go to their club and (get an) extra bit cash and help.

The women cited immediately above discussed the National Lottery Good Cause money in terms of a set of ethics and morals which were related to their own everyday struggles and experiences. Sandra’s everyday experiences of careful money management and struggle, meant to her that the idea of ‘all that money’ being spent on ‘a dome’ was abhorrent. For her, money would be best spent making people’s

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everyday lives less of a struggle. This ‘ethical basis’ was apparent throughout my discussion with Sandra, as her remarks above demonstrate. It was evident that many of the women interviewed gained the type of pleasure, sociability, love and comfort through caring, as described by DeVault (1991: 191). However, for some of the women, attempts to care on a limited budget were often frustrating and sometimes painful. For Elsie, this frustration was expressed via her views of National Lottery Good Cause money: The Lottery money could be used for more recreational use. When I go to me son’s house now, the kids are just in the street. I think the money would come to better use doing more youth club … there’s nothing for the kids now, no youth clubs that they could go to. And I mean there’s nothing much for the younger ones. I mean my grandchildren are six and nine and they want to do more things. But there’s nowhere to take them apart from where you have to spend money.

Elsie’s attitudes to the Good Cause arts and cultural projects were rooted in the everyday material reality of her life. She believed that the money raised through the National Lottery could make her attempts to care less of a struggle and more pleasurable. Both Elsie and Sandra related their ideas about how best to spend Good Cause money back to their own everyday struggles and experiences. The women cited above expressed guilt at not being able to fund their children and grandchildren’s leisure activities as they would like to, and were touched by the news that an elderly person that they cared for had been given access to a new day care centre. Perhaps understandably given their often painful experiences of poverty, many of the women were often offended by the use of National Lottery money for projects from which they felt excluded. Bourdieu argues that this method of decoding cultural goods is specific to the working-class: … working class people expect every image to explicitly perform a function, if only that of a sign, and their judgements make reference, often explicitly, to the norms of morality and agreeableness. Whether rejecting or praising, their appreciation always has an ethical basis (1984: 5).

However, not all of the women were entirely critical of the Lottery funding of arts and cultural projects. I argue that Bourdieu’s ‘economy of cultural goods’ scale is a useful tool with which examine the diverse nature of the women’s attitudes to Good Cause funding. In a similar way to the upper working class people of Bourdieu’s research, some of the women reported higher levels of sympathy for arts projects, although significantly still with some moral and ethical hostility. In response to my question about how Good Cause money is spent, Ros, a project manager at the south east London community centre, displayed some sympathy with the distribution of funds, but concluded with a moral and ethical hostility very similar to that expressed by the women cited above: I thought that people who go to the opera probably didn’t actually need help as much as people who couldn’t afford to go to the opera, and we really should be putting it into poor areas or something. I just think … I mean … I’m sure there is an argument that it was appropriate but for me it wasn’t (My emphasis).

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June displayed a similar sympathy, combined with some moral and ethical criticism: Well that’s wonderful that. I think that’s good, erm, except that they spend it on peculiar things like, erm, an enormous amount of money on those, er, Churchill letters. I mean that, I know they should be National treasures, they’re part of the history of England but all that money … it’s terrible, and everyone’s applying (for National Lottery grants). (My emphasis).

Unlike any of the other women from the south east London sample, Ros had visited the Tate Modern gallery in London, and June remarked that she was a ‘big fan’ of the Angel of the North sculpture. Indeed, June was the only woman to suggest at any point that art projects were deserving of Lottery funding: I don’t think the Angel of the North was bad at all. And it sort of raises the profile of the North even if it does it with a laugh. It’s giving something back to the people who gave the money. It’s what I said before, people who lived round there helped to pay for the Angel of the North. And you can be quite proud of it because it stands out doesn’t it?

Paradoxically, it was those women with more sympathy for the ways in which Good Cause money was spent who chose not to play the National Lottery. June felt very much as if participating in the National Lottery was something that other people did, and that it was not something that she wanted to be a part of. The women were active in producing and re-producing working class feminine identities through this discourse of Good Cause money. In order to understand why those women choose not to play, despite their enthusiasm for some of the Lottery funded projects, I turn now to another central theme of the interviews. Caring on the Jackpot I believe in luck and to a certain extent I am a lucky person. But I don’t think I’ll ever be lucky enough to win the Lottery. It’s more realistic that I won’t win, but I live in hope. (Barbara, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

This section examines the responses to my interview question ‘Would you like to win the National Lottery jackpot?’ This question was also included in the questionnaire, and as I demonstrate in Chapter 2, winning the jackpot has often been cited as the main factor motivating people to buy Lottery tickets (Criegh-Tyte and Farrell, 1998; Griffiths, 1997c). During the interviews, it was this question without a doubt, which elicited the most excited and opinionated responses. This part of the interview was also often very lengthy. Many of the women had lots to say about their dreams, hopes and fears of the National Lottery jackpot. Barbara’s quote above, for example, points to the centrality of ‘hope’ as an important factor motivating her to play the National Lottery. Cohen and Taylor argue that it is not so much gambling per se that is pleasurable, but the possible ‘rewards’ that gambling offers individuals

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(1992: 122). This is particularly true for National Lottery play. Most of the women said that they got little pleasure from actually ‘playing’ the National Lottery. Rather, I argue that the pleasure lay in dreaming and hoping for the financial rewards and experiences that the National Lottery may offer. Conflicting pressures One important part of the struggles and frustrations that the women’s everyday material limitations placed on them, was illustrated by their attempts to aspire to a specific set of gendered norms and values. In order to unpack the notion of a ‘feminine self’ to which the women attempted to adhere, we need to look at the ways in which the women measured their own standards and status. According to Barrett and McIntosh, ‘femininity’ is analogous with the implication that women ‘represent’ the household (1982). Many of the women interviewed for this research, believed that the state of their homes and their children directly reflected their own status and respectability. They carried with them a heavy burden of responsibilities, and expressed feelings of guilt when they felt unable to adequately perform these responsibilities. Sandra spoke of her feelings of guilt: … well sometimes me husband’ll come in and say “you’ve never hoovered today” and I’ll think “eh, well I’ve cleaned four old people’s houses today for them in the community”. But it’s because I used to be like … what we’ve got we’ve worked for. We’re nowt flash … but I was always panicking and tidying up and if he used to come in with his boots on I used to go mad at him. But I think it was because I wasn’t working at the time and I knew I couldn’t just go and get a new carpet, you know what I mean?

Sandra’s quote above encapsulates the conflicting pressures that the women faced, which were a direct consequence of their gender and of their class. I argue that women may feel that their status and respectability are displayed by the state of their household, but for many women of this research, this problem was exacerbated by economic limitations. Sandra clearly highlights her dilemma – either she works and can afford to replace anything that is damaged and runs the risk of being accused of neglecting her household ‘duties’, or she can stay at home and maintain high standards of housework whilst worrying about the state of carpets etc. that she cannot afford to replace. Sandra felt that she was expected to do both – to engage in paid work and to maintain the same standards in the home as if she were there all day. Barrett and McIntosh refer to this dilemma as the ‘tyranny of motherhood’, and argue that women who are also paid workers end up working a ‘double-day’ in order to ensure that they achieve the high standards that are expected of them (1982: 62). I argue that the women of this research measured their ‘success’, status and respectability in terms of the extent to which they felt they had successfully adhered to these standards. The toys, unwashed dishes and un-swept floors were all symbols of the women’s everyday lives and responsibilities, but did not correlate to popular images of the clutter-free ‘spotless’ home. Ros Coward speaks of the ideal of neatness, and women’s subsequent feelings of ‘failure’ at being unable to attain this:

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Women, Pleasure and the Gambling Experience Because the ideal is so much of absence of clutter and mess, of emphasis on visual impact, any sign of mess is a sign of failure (1984: 70).

The women feared the responses of other women – including me – and constantly apologised for the ‘state’ of their homes. Beverley Skeggs suggests that working class women use their homes and bodies as a means of displaying their respectability and of protecting themselves from some of the negative connotations associated with being working class: The working class are never free from the judgements of imaginary and real others that position them, not just as different, but as inferior, as inadequate. Homes and bodies are where respectability is displayed but where class is lived out as the most omnipresent form, engendering surveillance and constant assessment of themselves (1997: 90).

I argue that the women’s everyday lives constituted a careful, often impossible balancing act, between the demands of the home and paid work. This was made more complex by the fear of surrveillant others, including me. The women also faced the problem of combining these demands with providing care for their children. The women of this research frequently worked a double-day in terms of their paid and unpaid work. In addition it is worth noting the repetitive nature of much of this work. This included cooking, cleaning and looking after children. The women who worked in Newcastle-upon-Tyne for Dementia Care Initiative also facilitated leisure activities for their clients. I suggest then, that the women’s ‘caring’ and facilitating of others’ leisure activities simply did not end with the paid working day. Once the women had finished caring at work, they came home and cared for their families. As DeVault has argued, the women developed an ‘ethic of caring’ which they could never easily ‘turn off’ (DeVault, 1991: 229). They adhered to a set of ‘caring’ morals and duties which were classed and gendered and which could not easily be separated from the women’s sense of self. The women were not simply paid care assistants, rather they were carers; they adopted a ‘caring self’ (Skeggs, 1997: 64). The next section considers how the women gained pleasure and leisure bearing in mind the demands of the double day described above. Dreaming of the jackpot All of the women expressed some form of dissatisfaction with their current financial situations. The most common expressions of this dissatisfaction were a ‘nagging anxiety’ about debt and financial security (see also Rubin, 1976), and feelings of guilt and concern that they were not providing their children with the same life chances that they could if they had the money to do so. One way in which this dissatisfaction was revealed in the questionnaire data, was in response to the openended question ‘If you won the jackpot, how do you imagine you would spend the money?’ The absence of luxury goods such as cars, clothes and holidays in the women’s responses was notable. Rather, the most common responses were to ‘pay off debts’, to ‘pay bills’, to ‘buy property’ (29.2 per cent) and to ‘invest in children’s and grandchildren’s futures’ (45.8 per cent), through for example, private schools and savings accounts.

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This type of financial concern was also visible in the qualitative data. Debbie, for example, talked about her concerns that the estate in south east London that she and her children lived on was ‘rough’ and run-down. Debbie had grown up there and her adult daughter and grandson lived on a similar estate nearby. She dreamed of winning enough money to privately educate her children, and to enable her daughter and grandson to leave the estate: Debbie: … put them through private education … that would be an answer to a lot of prayers at the moment. Emma: So is this how you would spend the jackpot? Debbie: Yes, and I’d buy my daughter a house ‘cos she lives in a really poor, rundown estate, so that would be my dream. Cos we own our house outright so it’s not like… erm I mean I’d like a big house but if we had more money it would be for that. To invest in their future.

In discussing her ideas about how she would spend the National Lottery jackpot, Debbie put the future of her children before her own. For Debbie, the National Lottery seemed to offer the only possibility of offering her children an alternative lifestyle. Achieving this any other way seemed impossible: I suppose it’s the hype and the chance that you could win. I suppose that’s what everybody’s in it for, it’s just that … somebody’s got to win it haven’t they? At the end of the day (LAUGHS). And you’ve got to be in it.

Other women dreamed of winning the Lottery jackpot, but did not have the same everyday financial worries as described by Debbie. Judith described to me how she had ‘worked her way up’ in the caring profession so that she and her husband could afford what she described as her ‘dream home’. This was a three bedroomed, modern semi-detached house on an estate of identical-looking houses. It was also the type of home that Debbie dreamed of being able to afford. Both Debbie and Judith associated status with moving away from council estates. They both believed that moving to a different (less ‘rough’) area would provide their children with better opportunities in life. The difference was that Judith had achieved this, whilst Debbie had not. Although Judith was pleased that she could afford a house ‘in a nice area’ and did not seem to have any everyday struggles with money, this was not to say that money was not an issue for her. On the contrary, Judith expressed guilt that she had to ‘neglect’ her son and go out to work full-time, and regret that she could not find the time to have another child. Judith’s discussion of how she would spend the jackpot illustrates the conflict between paid work and motherhood: … I think that I would just love to pay the mortgage off so I wouldn’t have to go to work, and be a proper mum, and I’d be quite happy.

Judith demonstrates the anxiety of attempting to achieve material status, and easing the everyday struggles to get by, whilst at the same time conforming to the ideals of motherhood. One such ideal is to be at home all day with the children.

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For the women cited above, I argue that ‘caring’ was one important way in which they gained status and respectability. This is supported by other research discussed in Chapter 3, such as Skeggs (1997) and DeVault (1991), which has demonstrated the classed nature of caring. For the women of this research, there was no easy ‘escape’ from caring, since it was so closely bound up with the women’s notions of value and respectability. In their study of income support claimants, Cohen et al. found that: (w)omen were more likely than men to associate their own sense of self-worth with how they provided for and brought up the children (1992: 73).

Like the women of Cohen et al’s research, many of the women whom I interviewed had little disposable income, and surviving the week was often a struggle. Although all of the women were in paid employment (with the exceptions of Irene and June who were both retired), this tended to be low paid. Most of the women received the minimum wage and some had husbands or partners who were also in low paid employment. However, some of the women (Wendy, Barbara, Diane and Helen) were the only paid workers in the family, and others said that their partners were often ‘in and out of work’ or unemployed and claiming income support. Occasionally, the women also financially supported their adult children. Money was always an ‘issue’ for the women, even, as in the case of Judith discussed above, when spare money was not always so scarce. Participating in the National Lottery offered the women a terrain upon which to imagine an alternative and ‘better’ future for their families. Mica Nava suggests that throughout the twentieth century, department stores offered women a ‘visual and fantasy experience’, the pleasures of which lay in soothing the ‘injuries and wants’ of everyday life (1996: 53). I argue that here too, dreaming of the National Lottery jackpot helped to resolve some of the struggles and dilemmas of the women’s everyday lives. In particular, these struggles and frustrations were exacerbated by a desire to care for their children in a certain way. Being denied the pleasure of providing ‘proper’ levels of care for their children was frequently a source of frustration and concern amongst the women. The next section looks at Premium Bonds2 as one important way in which, historically, women have addressed these feelings of frustration, and have struggled to gain self-worth and status through displays of ‘care’ for their children. Premium Bonds The questionnaire did not include any question relating to the women’s purchasing of Premium Bonds. However, the qualitative data revealed that for some of the women, Premium Bonds represented an important means of investment, and had served this purpose for far longer than the National Lottery. June described Premium Bonds as an opportunity to occasionally provide extra money for her family:

2 Premium Savings Bonds are part of a monthly lottery for dividends. They are operated by the UK Treasury and National Savings and Investments. Prices went up from £10 to £100 in 1994.

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Emma: So how long have you had Premium Bonds for then? June: Oh, since they first came out the Premium Bonds. They were, just one, you could buy just one for a pound … later on I had a little bit of money left me and for the Christmas box I bought all the children Premium Bonds, so you know, they had them for a long time as well. And just lately we’ve won, well the family anyway have won, you know, not big amounts but fifty pounds. Four fifty pounds. Before that we never won a penny.

Both Judith and Diane said that they had high hopes that their children would not ‘pack in their education at sixteen’. Nether Judith nor Diane had attended higher education, and both spent time discussing their children’s educational achievements. Diane had framed her son’s certificate for high achievement at GCSE and mounted it in a prominent position in her living room. In a situation where there was little spare money, Premium Bonds had offered Diane and Judith an opportunity to invest in their children’s futures. The price increase in Premium Bonds from £10 to £100 in 1994 had left Diane furious: I used to buy Premium Bonds for the kids when they were born. They used to be ten pound. So you get yer ten pound Premium Bond. And every birthday I used to buy them a Premium Bond. Then … they put the limit, the minimum up to a hundred. Well that was stupid. I wrote and told them how stupid they were … Ten pound was a nice amount, even if they’d put it up to twenty it would have been within people’s reach, but a hundred?! So they’ve got them, him (Diane’s son) for about fourteen years of his life and her (Diane’s daughter) for about twelve I think. But that’s what I wanted it to do … then they’ve got the chance of it coming around.

Premium Bonds represented for some of the women, an important (and cheap) way in which the women could invest money. They could do this without risking the money spent, as Irene pointed out: You get used to it. Get used to not winning! I keep hoping every month I’ll get the Premium Bonds now. I was bought ten pound from my mother when it first started. And I’ve still got them. We won about a hundred pounds, erm, four months ago … No, I don’t think (they are a form of gambling). You can always get your money back, your money’s always there.

Judith said that she had bought Premium Bonds as a means of investment should her son decide to go to college. Interestingly, although Judith relies on Premium Bonds as a form of investment, she was simultaneously very critical of gambling, and tried to shield her son from its ‘dangers’: They’re a good investment ‘cos he can always cash them in later on in life. We did it like as a savings scheme for him. It’s there when he wants it when he’s older. He can’t touch it till he’s eighteen, so if he goes to college there’s a little bit there for him. But we’ve been trying to keep him away from gambling, ‘cos the National Lottery is gambling whichever way you look at it.

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Alternative Discourses of Femininity However, it was certainly not always the case that the women dreamed only of enhancing the caring self. During the interviews, some of the women talked excitedly about the range of possibilities that the National Lottery might offer. Often these appeared to flaunt the usual rules of femininity. Ideas of money management and caring for others were temporarily abandoned as the women explored the possibilities of other selves and other lives. Wendy, for example, talked quickly and animatedly about her dreams of discarding the usual norms of money management which constrained her, and positioned herself as a frivolous and ‘wealthy’ woman: I’d chuck my job in and then go shopping! … Definitely I’d buy my own house. Buy my own house, erm, I’d treat my family as well. And erm, I’ve always wanted a jeep. Always wanted a jeep so that’s where my money would go… I’d head straight down to Park Lane and buy my mother a Merc. Cash in hand. Then I’d go off for my jeep. I mean look at me now, I’m just waiting to pick up a mobile. But if I’d won the Lottery, I’d have bought the 350 pound mobile that I saw. It’s gorgeous. And it’s got the internet. (Wendy, south east London)

Barbara also, describes her dreams of a glamorous lifestyle, where concerns over money are replaced with shopping trips to designer clothes stores, and with ‘exotic’ holidays abroad: Emma: How do you imagine you would spend the jackpot? Barbara: Er, go abroad to live. Buy a big house, not have to worry about bills or nothing. Go to Australia for a holiday and that. You know, just generally things like that. Being able to buy nice designer suits and not have to worry about the money.

I argue that the women’s National Lottery participation was more than simply a means of investing in a caring self. Certainly the quotations above point to the National Lottery as a means of enabling women to imagine and search for new experiences which may exist aside from caring for others. This appears to correlate with Ang’s definition of a ‘fantasy’ as: … an imagined scene in which the fantasising subject is the protagonist, and in which alternative scenarios for the subject’s real life are evoked … the pleasure of fantasy lies in its offering the subject an opportunity to take up positions which she could not do in real life: through fantasy she can move beyond the structural constraints of everyday life and explore other situations, other identities, other lives (1990: 83–84).

Ang’s analysis positions fantasy and the ensuing images of alternative lives and experiences as a separate space away from the constraints of the everyday. It is reminiscent of traditional writers, such as Sennett and Cobb (1972) and Cohen and Taylor (1992), who argue that in fantasy experiences, either the self is split, or the place in which the fantasy takes place has to be changed (Cohen and Taylor give the example of casinos). I argue, however, that for the women cited above, there was

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no easy split between their fantasy and their real experiences. Rather than the self being split between an imaginary and a real self, I suggest that the women occupied multiple selves simultaneously. The previous chapter showed that participating in the National Lottery did not require a split from everyday, domestic places. Rather, emphasis was placed on participation in the Lottery in mundane, everyday places, such as Post Offices, newsagents and supermarkets. I argue that the National Lottery offers fantasy spaces which are deeply rooted in women’s everyday experiences. Ang’s analysis is more useful for understanding women’s leisure spaces, such as soap opera, romantic fiction or magazines – those leisure activities which require a clear split or separation from the ordinary, the everyday and the mundane. In contrast to this, the fantasy experiences afforded by the National Lottery are not so easily distinguishable. They are embedded in the women’s domestic spaces and they do not necessarily require entry into a physical fantasy space. Rather, I argue that these leisure and fantasy experiences are ‘metaphorical’. Let us return to Wendy’s excited description of her dreams of the National Lottery jackpot. The self that she imagines here is carefree, frivolous and has enough economic capital to afford to be liberal with her money. However, what is especially interesting about Wendy’s interview is the way in which she so quickly slips between her imaginary and her real self. Traditional theorists leave no room to understand the complexities of the National Lottery as an activity which enables fantasy experiences, but which simultaneously serves as a continuous reminder of the women’s everyday struggles and responsibilities. Thus, throughout her interview, Wendy constantly slipped between her imaginary and her real selves. She discussed on the one hand, her pride in her careful money management, then her care for her children, but then went on to reveal an alternative fantasy self where she is not so ‘sensible’. Wendy said that she spent a lot of time at work day-dreaming about winning the jackpot. She saw day-dreaming as a means of surviving what she described as her ‘dead-end, under-paid’ job as a receptionist. For Wendy, buying Lottery tickets facilitated the type of day-dreaming that helped her to get through the week: Well, I mean, it’s something to look forward to … With the Lottery, it’s like, I’ll put it on, say the Monday, and then I’ll look forward to it until the Wednesday. Because it’s like “this is my last day of work!”. That’s it you know. And then of course you don’t win on the Wednesday and you think “well Saturday’s coming, I’ll win on the Saturday”. Something to look forward to. It’s definitely something to look forward to. Of course everyone dreams. Everyone dreams because of course you work and it’s like, you can’t just exactly say, this month “right I’m going to go and buy a house now” cash in hand, you know. But with the Lottery you can do it. It’s something to look forward to.

I argue then, that the National Lottery did not offer any split from the caring self which, as we have seen, often offered a source of pleasure to the women. The women were excited by the wonderful possibilities offered by the National Lottery, but were also acutely and painfully aware of their rootedness in reality. I suggest that Wearing’s concept of ‘metaphorical’ leisure spaces (1998: 146) provides a useful way of exploring the fantasy experiences offered by the National Lottery. This offered a mental space which was packed between the complex range of women’s everyday routines and rituals of domestic and paid work. Wearing takes Foucault’s

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work as her inspiration for these ideas, which offer the possibility of multiplicity and contradiction – of the self occupying multiple spaces simultaneously (Foucault, 1986). Wearing expands upon Foucault’s work in order that it encompasses the everyday construction of space by women, for whom access to physical (male, public) space is often problematic. One of the central aims of this book is to begin to de-construct the work / leisure dichotomy by adopting post-structural theory which allows for far more multiple and diverse accounts of women’s lives. In particular, I want to stress that the women’s real and fantasy lives were never in ‘conflict’ as traditional theories have often assumed. There were no two separate real and imagined selves for the women of this research. They existed simultaneously and were dependent upon one another. Through day-dreaming of the jackpot, the women were able to fantasise, imagine and dream by seeing themselves in an imaginary place. Imagining these alternative places helped the women to ‘come back towards (themselves)’ (Foucault, 1986: 24), and to recognise the reality of their everyday situations. The quotes above indicate the women’s recognition of the conflicts between reality and their imagined ideal. The next section explores this conflict and ambivalence further. Fear of the Jackpot An important illustration of this ambivalence can be seen in the fears that the thought of winning the Lottery jackpot posed to the women. The women frequently discussed both the exciting and the terrifying possibilities of the National Lottery jackpot. A good example of this juxtaposition was Elsie, who on the one hand was wildly excited at the prospect of winning the jackpot, but on the other hand, was cautious about the prospect of winning very large amounts of money:3 Emma: Would you like to win the National Lottery jackpot? Elsie: Oh I’d love it! I’d love it! I don’t want to win millions, I honestly don’t. I mean one million, two million would be quite ample for me. I don’t want to win twenty million and all that. I mean I’m saying that would be enough, I’d like to see me family so that they’ve got a house and they’re not worried and as long as I knew they were all right, that’s all I want, I don’t want, I mean, I know it sounds stupid, but you know the other week when the jackpot was twenty million? I didn’t want to win it. I didn’t want to win it.

Judith, in particular, was absolutely terrified by the thought of winning the jackpot: Emma: So if you and your family won, say ten million, how would that make you feel? Judith: That scares the hell out of me. I would hate it. I don’t know how I’d cope with it to be honest. They give too much to one person. That’s just my view.

3 To date, the largest jackpot given to a person in receipt of a single winning ticket is £42 million.

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In addition, many women were frightened by the effect that winning excessively large sums of money would have on their everyday lives. Sandra’s response illustrates the extent to which the women’s fantasies of winning the jackpot were always rooted in the reality of their everyday experiences: I’d like to win, but I’m not sure about the amount. I think everybody would like to win but I’d be scared. Cos I’m not a greedy person and I wouldn’t want all these people saying “can I have this, can I have that?”. I’d love to win it, but I don’t think I could cope with all those people sponging. I’d only give to like close family and then like me own, take the kids on holiday and things like that … but money’s not everything is it? You’ve got to have your love and your happiness and money can’t always bring that can it? It can bring happiness but it can’t bring love with it. Do you know what I mean?

Diane also was afraid of the changes that she imagined winning the jackpot would have on her life: Well it’d so much change yer. I mean it’s got to. I mean you would stop working for a start wouldn’t you? And you’d move house. You’d have a bigger car, flasher car. It would change you, I wouldn’t want that amount. I wouldn’t mind one-point-something, I could handle that. Ideally it would be five plus a bonus and it would be just a nice amount. But it wouldn’t change you that much. I mean you would have a change. Maybe a new house.

Barbara begins by remarking that she would like to win the National Lottery jackpot but goes on to stress that there is a limit to the amount of money that she would like to win: I would love to win the jackpot. Well I’ve always said I would like just enough to make us comfortable. I don’t know if I would want to win a vast amount like that (£20 million). To be honest I don’t think I would like that much money. ‘Cos I’ve even complained to me husband … you know winning three million on the Lottery and I say “that’s far too much”. Why couldn’t they’ve put it between other prizes instead of three million to one person? I mean to me it’s … it’s not necessary.

Some of the women expressed concern that suddenly becoming ‘wealthy’ would take from them the very things that gave them status and value. In particular, they were concerned that suddenly gaining power would lead them to fail to adhere to the norms which gave them value as working class women. Sandra, for example, associated money with ‘wastefulness’: I knew someone who won a lot of money. And he just blew it. What did he buy now? Not a lot. I think he just put some into shares, but the rest he just drunk; went on drink.

Tracey made a link between money and ‘greed’: They say it but they don’t think they’re going to win it some people do they? They think, you know, that it’s never going to happen. But it happens and then money changes people as well doesn’t it? It turns some people greedy.

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For the women cited immediately above, the thought of being ‘wealthy’ and having spare money was barely conceivable. Their everyday lives were so entwined with the processes and routines of careful money management and budgeting that it was difficult to imagine their lives without them. Although Elsie could see that winning money on the Lottery would ease some of her everyday financial struggles, she believed that winning ‘too much’ money might actually interfere with her ability to care: … one of my friends did win a million. She bought her daughter a house … and then her daughter got married and had two children. They went to Spain for a holiday and she met someone else and he had to look after the kids. And she wanted the house so he’s left in a flat with two kids on his own.

For Kate, it was her fear of winning the jackpot that persuaded her not to play: Not really the jackpot. Not by myself. I wouldn’t mind sharing it with people, but not yer seven million, it’s a bit … it’d change you so much. I mean it really would. I mean you would stop working for a start wouldn’t you? And you’d move house. You’d have a bigger car, flasher car. It would change you, I wouldn’t want that amount. I wouldn’t mind one point something, I could handle that. Ideally it would be five plus a bonus and it would be just a nice amount. But it wouldn’t change you that much. I mean you would have a change, maybe a new house.

Ros also said that her panic at being ‘close’ to winning a large sum of money on the National Lottery had convinced her not to buy any more tickets: … there was one occasion, erm, I think there was something significant about this particular draw, it was on my birthday definitely, I remember that. I think it was something like the third draw. And three’s my lucky number. And actually we had, it was one of the occasions when we won ten pounds, but the first three numbers came out together, and I can remember being absolutely horrified thinking we were going to win (LAUGHS). Not horrified, but really sort of feeling quite sick. Maybe in some ways that’s what put me off it.

The women’s class positions were central and crucial to their own definitions of themselves. They were conscious of their class positions, but they were also acutely aware that gaining economic power would not necessarily lead to cultural power. The women were painfully aware that they could never ‘pass’ as middle class and that their class was not something that they could simply ‘shake off’. As Wendy pointed out: It’s just like there are some places … that you can’t even, erm, buy property … they don’t let you buy a property because they look into your background and they would go, “oh she’s just a receptionist, how can she afford the property?” and they won’t give it to you. (Wendy, south east London. My emphasis)

Kate made a similar point: … It’d be difficult (if I won the Lottery jackpot). I mean I’d like to think that if a friend of mine won that I’d be fine, but I mean there’s no way you could possibly be the same is

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there? And you couldn’t really fit in with the people who do have that money could you? They’ve been born into it or they’ve worked hard for it possibly, and you’ve just sort of won it. So I think it comes between two lifestyles really. You lose your old one and your old friends and you can’t really fit into anyone else’s … I think it could get quite lonely really. (My emphasis).

Here, I argue that when Kate speaks of ‘two lifestyles’, she is talking about class. The women cited above were aware of the negative connotations associated with being working class, and they saw the National Lottery as a potential means of ‘improving’ the judgements of others. According to Annette Kuhn (1995), there are always limits placed on ‘becoming middle class’. She argues that class is not something which can be purchased, or even acquired, since it is as much part of the subjectivities of individuals as their gender or their ethnicity. According to Kuhn: Class is something beneath your clothes, under your skin in your reflexes, in your psyche, at the very core of your being. In the all-encompassing English class system, if you know that you are in the “wrong” class, you know that therefore you are a valueless person (1995: 98).

The interview extracts above reveal an awareness that these women could never ‘pass’ as middle class, and that winning the National Lottery jackpot would not turn them into middle class women overnight. Instead, I argue that the women above wanted enough to be valued as working class women, but didn’t want to ‘rock the boat’ of their everyday lives. The change they desired and dreamed of was structured and limited. They wanted to continue to occupy the same positions of class, but to be able to do so without so much of an everyday struggle. The women gained pleasure from satisfying the needs and preferences of their families, and through providing for their children. Annette Kuhn believes that for working class women, ‘loving’ is synonymous with ‘good’ caring; with having ‘enough to eat and decent clothes to wear’, and with being a ‘good’ mother (1995: 45). I argue that the women cited above demonstrated their respectability and status through their displays of ‘caring’. They believed that winning money would enable them to transcend the often dissatisfying, disappointing and frustrating attempts to care in everyday life. As Skeggs has noted in her study of young working class women: What the women desire is to be valued, not pathologized (1997: 94).

Summary In this chapter I have argued that the National Lottery connects women to fantasy environments, and have demonstrated how the practice of National Lottery play is linked to exploring ‘other’ selves. I suggest that these are refracted selves, in the sense that they are rooted in the women’s everyday material experiences, which offer a connection to an imaginary and fantasy place of pleasure and leisure. Further, I have argued in this chapter that a continued dialectical relationship exists between participation in the Lottery and the process of securing a sense of pleasure and leisure.

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The chapter thus identifies the pleasures afforded by the National Lottery in terms of the daydreams and fantasies afforded by play. By identifying these pleasures, it positions National Lottery play as a ‘metaphorical’ leisure space which enables participation without requiring access to an easily distinguishable time and space. The next chapter complements these ideas, by examining the role of the National Lottery as a ‘physical’ leisure space, which occasionally enables a time and space away from the everyday and the domestic.

Chapter 6

‘A Space to Be’: Physical Leisure Spaces and National Lottery Play Introduction The previous chapter explored the idea that the National Lottery enables a metaphorical leisure space. This chapter looks at the women’s occasional access to physical gambling, leisure spaces. The chapter firstly considers the women’s participation in those gambling activities which fit quite neatly into traditional definitions of leisure. It positions bingo and betting on the dogs and horses as ‘physical’ leisure spaces, by arguing that participation in these activities requires a distinguishable time and space away from the everyday. It considers how traditionally, many leisure and gambling spaces have been reserved for men, but examines also the ways in which some of the women negotiated their right to occasionally demand access to these spaces. In particular, it pursues the example of bingo as one very important way in which working class women have enabled a pleasurable physical leisure space within the ideological and material constraints (Woodward and Green, 1988: 131) of their everyday lives. In the chapter I further break down some of the traditional barriers which haunt much leisure sociology. In particular, I challenge the traditional work / leisure dichotomy by arguing that women’s paid work often offered the women access to pleasurable leisure spaces. Adopting Foucauldian concepts of the operation of power, I also consider the ways in which the women were active in creating their own class and gender positions through their participation in these gambling activities. Participation in ‘Other’ Forms of Gambling As previous chapters have demonstrated, the National Lottery bi-weekly draw is far more popular amongst women living in the UK than any other form of gambling. This was also true for the women of this research, and the differences in the women’s attitudes to the National Lottery compared with other forms of gambling were notable. Certainly, the quantitative questionnaire data revealed a lack of participation in other gambling activities for the women of this research. The most popular form of gambling apart from the National Lottery bi-weekly draw and purchasing scratchcards was betting on horses; 21.2 per cent of the women had bet on horses in the previous twelve months. This was followed by bingo; 20.2 per cent of the women had played in the previous twelve months. Smaller, but significant numbers of the women responding to the questionnaire had bet on football (11.1 per cent) and

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on slot machines (11.1 per cent) in the previous twelve months, and some women (6.1 per cent) had placed bets on dogs. Only one woman responding to the questionnaire had bet in a casino in the previous twelve months. Although the questionnaire did not ask the women how often they participated in ‘other’ gambling forms (only if they had done so in the previous twelve months), the qualitative data revealed that unlike the bi-weekly draw, participation in these gambling activities was ‘occasional’ and ‘rare’. Seventy-five per cent of the women completing the questionnaire said that they played the National Lottery Wednesday or Saturday draw once or twice a week. It was a regular and routine rather than an infrequent or spontaneous gambling activity. In contrast to this, the qualitative interviews revealed that gambling in ways other than on the National Lottery was something which was done infrequently, and only when the women had a reasonable ‘excuse’ to do so. The ways in which the women justified their occasional participation into other gambling activities provided a useful means through which I was able to begin to understand the specific features of the National Lottery which made it an activity which the women participated in regularly. I have argued that the National Lottery offers metaphorical leisure spaces which are rooted in women’s domestic routines and rituals. The following sections looks at those gambling activities which, unlike the National Lottery, require entry into a physical place away from the domestic and the everyday. Bingo Many of the women interviewed who played bingo said that they preferred playing bingo to the National Lottery. Wendy, for example remarked that she enjoyed her weekly trips to the bingo more than she enjoyed playing the National Lottery. She described the excitement that she experienced in the bingo hall, and hinted at the pleasure that she gained from participating in a leisure activity with a group of other people: (I enjoy) bingo more. That’s my night out, that’s my treat. Mainly because you’re in a small capacity. When I say that I mean … I find it’s just more fun. Because, because everyone knows why they’re there, you know, and it’s like, you know … everyone’s going “just one more for a line, one more for a line” and then it’s not you and you go “oh god” and you know, as soon as you say “oh god” there’s like about four or five others going “flippin’ hell I was waiting for one other number for I don’t know how long”. It’s more exciting, definitely, definitely. And you know, you’ve got more chance of winning at bingo.

Wendy’s description of bingo play were very different to those of National Lottery participation. Other women who played bingo discussed bingo in terms of a ‘leisure activity’, often listing it as something that they did in their spare time. Helen notes bingo as something that she does in her spare time, and like Wendy, says that she prefers to play bingo rather than the National Lottery: … Go to the club. Maybe play a bit bingo at the club. Just like once a week … I’d rather play the bingo than the National Lottery.

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Bingo participation tended to be structured around notions of ‘sociability’. Elsie, for example, described how bingo represented an important leisure activity and form of social interaction with men and women members of her family: Once a week I go. But I’ve been going for about forty years and I’ve never ever won a full house or anything. Me mam keeps saying “oh your day’ll come”. I think well forty years, I think I’ve had it now like. I mean I can go with me son and me daughter in law, the four of us went the other week and he can wait for one and it always comes out! He won 210 pound, but we shared, you know, it’s like we got 50 pound each … but I mean he’s shouted for two thousand pound houses. I’ve never had that in forty years!

This supports Dixey and Talbot (1982) who argued that bingo offered women an important source of companionship. Elsie’s trips to the bingo with her family appear to further support Woodward and Green’s finding that for women, emphasis is often placed on family activities, rather than on outings alone or with friends (1988: 135). Some of the women remarked that trips to the bingo with their women friends was something that they had done in their youth. Barbara, for example, said that bingo was one leisure activity that she participated in frequently with friends when she was younger. Now, though, she said that she played bingo at the local social club with her husband, rather than visiting a bingo hall: I used to go two nights a week with me friends when I was a lot younger. And when I started working and everything I just didn’t have time. But if I go to the social club I have a game of bingo there … I usually go twice a week with me husband … As I say, social clubs work out cheaper.

Leisure activities changed according to age and family circumstances. Barbara’s children had left home. This left her with some spare time in the evenings that other women with children did not have. Diane for example, described how she used to regularly go to play bingo with her friends, but now associates playing bingo with something she did in her youth. Now a mother, Diane had changed her mind about bingo, and described it as ‘sad’ and ‘boring’: Bingo, now I’ve … when I was much, much younger, you know like the club scene, and you go and there’s big bingo nights. I mean I’ve done that and I’ve been there. I used to go with friends. I mean you’re talking before I was married or just after I was married which was, what twenty odd years ago? So I used to do it then. But when I was that age, everybody used to go to the club, but now I will not set foot in a club again because they just bore me now. ‘Cos I think I had so much of it I was sick. But then if you didn’t go to the club, you just didn’t go out! How boring can you get?!

It is worth noting the type of bingo that the women participated in. Visits to the big, commercial bingo halls (such as Gala and Mecca) were rare. Instead, bingo play appeared to be structured around local, working class communities. Some of the women said that their regular bingo play took place at local social clubs and community centres. Stakes were low (often only £1) and prizes rarely exceeded £200. Sometimes prizes other than money were on offer, such as food hampers and alcohol. Helen worked long shifts and was paid the minimum wage. She described

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bingo as an important, cheap leisure activity where she could gain pleasure and excitement and a release from the demands of her paid work: Helen: I haven’t got any (spare time) at the moment. I’m working most of the time. Twelve and a half hour shifts. And like on a weekend I go out. Emma: What do you normally do at weekends? Helen: Just go out drinking. Go to the club. Maybe play a bit bingo at the club. Just like once a week … I’d rather play bingo than the National Lottery.

It was interesting that the women saw bingo play as something very different to their experiences of the National Lottery. As Irene pointed out, ‘Bingo hasn’t got anything to do with the Lottery. It’s completely different’. Whereas bingo appeared to offer the women access to what Dixey and Talbot have described as a ‘safe’ leisure space, and a ‘source of companionship’ (1982: 170), National Lottery play did not appear to offer the same type of distinguishable access to pleasurable leisure places. Some of the women expressed regret that they did not go to the bingo. Sandra, for example says that she would like to go, but could not justify gambling any more money than she does already: Sandra: Bingo, I would love to, erm, be able to go … erm, Gary and his mam Maureen go to the bingo twice a week and they spend like twenty quid each, oh God! Emma: Is Gary your husband? Sandra: No, he’s a friend. He’s a single lad. He’s got two kids, but still likes to gamble. Twenty quid! There’s just no way I could waste that much money on the bingo when it could buy something else. It’s not that I’m a scrooge or anything like that, it’s just that I’d rather spend it on food and the kids.

Sandra recognised that bingo could offer her access to a pleasurable leisure place where she could socialise with others. It was clear from the interview that she often felt isolated and lonely, and would have welcomed the opportunity to spend more time with her friends. I argue that Sandra sacrificed the opportunity to participate in bingo, because of the feelings of guilt that would ensue from spending scarce money on herself rather than on her children. She reports an interesting conversation that she had recently had with a friend: We were talking about this a couple of weeks ago, me and me friend, and she says ‘you’ll not go to the bingo and you’re getting a right hermit in the house’ she says, ‘but you’ll put money on the Lottery’.

I argue that for some of the women, bingo represented one way in which these women have enabled access to a pleasurable leisure place within the ideological and material constraints of their everyday lives (Woodward and Green, 1988: 131). Sandra’s friend recognised Sandra’s right to these leisure places, but Sandra could not justify spending money on what she sees as an expensive leisure activity away from her family. Sandra preferred to invest her money on the National Lottery which,

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as we have seen, offered different types of pleasure which tended to be metaphorical and imaginative rather than physical. A small number of the women interviewed described how they had, on occasion visited the bingo, but had never felt ‘part of it’. Ros, for example, said that she had occasionally gone to play bingo with her mother in law out of a sense of duty: … my partner’s mother loves the bingo and she would come and stay for a week or so and every night we would have to go out to the bingo … that sort of organised bingo, I found it quite threatening. Cos everybody kind of knew what to do, and you have all these books, hundreds of books, and you know I didn’t know what to do … what I’m supposed to be doing (LAUGHS). These ladies would show you, but, erm, not in a very pleasant way, it was like “idiot!”. So I have spent time at the bingo and I did win a couple of times. Which erm, was quite exciting, but I found that if I didn’t have three numbers down or something I would lose the ability to concentrate … so I mean I may well have won more often in there and I just didn’t realise (LAUGHS).

Ros indicates above that she is threatened by the atmosphere in bingo halls. I argue that whereas some of the women described bingo halls as places to relax and socialise, other women felt almost entirely ostracised by them. Judith for instance, said that she hated bingo and was quite vehement in her critique of it: I hate bingo. It’s mind-numbing … I’ve been before, once. Never again. It’s not my idea of entertainment.

The quotes immediately above demonstrate the complex and multiple class positions which the women occupied. Bingo play, as we have seen was frequently structured around local, working class communities and took place at social clubs and community centres. Both Ros and Judith lived in modern out of town housing developments and did not have the same access to social clubs as other women did. Dixey and Talbot found that: The most vehement anti-bingo stance came from the “respectable working class” and those sections of it which were upwardly mobile (1982: 92).

I showed in the previous chapter how Judith had worked to remove herself and her family from the rough, run-down estates that she had been brought up on as a child. I argue here that Judith is sensitive to interpretations of herself as ‘rough’ working class. She associated bingo with the entertainment of the working class people and communities which she believed she had left behind. The way in which Judith occupied her classed femininity did not include regular trips to the bingo. Betting on dogs and horses The attitudes of the women interviewed to bingo play helped to illuminate the operations of class and gender in their lives. Similarly, their multiple discussions of betting on dogs and horses, illustrated further the women’s representations of their various class and gender positions.

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Most of the women responding to the questionnaire said that they either ‘never’ or ‘very rarely’ participated in betting shop gambling. Debbie, for example, began by remarking that it had never occurred to her to bet on dogs or horses: Emma: Could you explain why you don’t bet on the dogs, horses or football? Debbie: I can’t explain that, no. No, not at all. I suppose it’s not for me. I think you’re brought up with it. And I’ve never been brought up with it. So no, not at all.

However when pressed by me on the topic, it became clear that Debbie associated betting on dogs and horses with male, private gambling activities, within which she had no place: Emma: How would you feel if someone asked you to put a bet on for them in a betting shop? Debbie: I wouldn’t know what to do! Erm, I think they’re becoming more … well traditionally they’ve always been a bit men orientated, all like, you know, couldn’t see in. And they look a bit more women friendly I think … but … no I wouldn’t go in.

Other women reported similar feelings of dislocation and separateness from this particular form of gambling. Judith, for example, described betting on the dogs and horses as gambling activities which were completely alien to her: I don’t know (why I don’t bet on the dogs or horses). I just can’t make sense of it to be honest, I really can’t. It’s never appealed to me.

However, this is not to say that none of the women ever bet on dogs or horses. A small number of the women interviewed said that they ‘occasionally’ or ‘rarely’ participated in these forms of gambling. Some of the women said that they did bet on dogs or horses, but only on special occasions. The Grand National was the most common event that the women placed bets on. Diane, said that in addition to betting on the Grand National, she also bet on her nephew who was a jockey: I occasionally bet on a horse. Like the Grand National. Always like the Grand National. Or, erm, me nephew’s a jockey so if it’s something that sticks out or if it’s about time he had a winner or that.

Elsie, however, was shocked by the suggestion that she might bet on dogs or horses: Emma: Do you ever bet on the dogs, football or horses? Elsie: Oh no! No no no … I wouldn’t even go into a betting shop, you wouldn’t even get us near a betting shop. I just think when you see all these blokes in and they’re shouting and screaming. Oh, I couldn’t go in there. The man next door to us used to go quite a lot and no, no. I think the only bet I’ve ever had is when I’ve drew a horse out a hat for the Grand National and me son’s went to put the bet on for us, the horse I’ve picked out the hat. But other than that, I haven’t got a clue about horses, wouldn’t have a clue about dogs either.

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Elsie’s remarks make some interesting points about the way in which she positions herself within public and private spaces. Many of the women talked about occasionally placing bets on horses, but generally they did this from home, and a male relative went into the betting shop to place the bet. Betting shops were frequently seen as male, private places. They were often defined in terms of ‘men’s spaces’, and words such as ‘seedy’ and ‘unsavoury’ helped to demonstrate and hint at the fear that prevented the women from entering these spaces. Frequently the women reported their fears about what goes on inside betting shops. Often these were imagined fears, such as Elsie’s above who said that she had never actually been into a betting shop. However, for some of the women, their fear of betting shops was based on their own experiences inside betting shops. Some of the women had worked in betting shops and cited their experiences in order to explain why they did not gamble in betting shops. Ros had worked in a betting shop as a student: I used to work in a betting shop! (LAUGHS). When I was a student I worked in Ladbrokes and, erm, I mean I did feel safe in there because I was behind the glass! But no, there’s some very unsavoury people go in there … Mainly men, very few women you ever got in there. Erm, it wasn’t a particularly threatening atmosphere, although there were lots of men shouting, but maybe that’s because I got to know them over a period of time. But, erm … so I’d say I’d feel more comfortable in a betting shop than perhaps other women would because of that, but no, I don’t think they’re very nice places, to be honest.

Ros makes direct correlation between betting shops and ‘men’s places’. Bev also worked as a cashier in a betting shop in south London. During the interview, she made much of the reluctance of women to participate in betting shop gambling, and drew attention to an interesting paradox – that although she works in a betting shop every day, to enter as a customer would not be so easy: I would never go into a betting shop … the regulars can be really hostile … I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of the glass. Even on the (Grand) National, I had to talk my sister through what to do. She didn’t even know how to walk into a betting shop.

Clearly, for Bev, being on the ‘other side of the glass’ would be to risk the sanctions that the women imagined would be imposed on them should they enter a betting shop as a punter rather than as a paid worker. Not knowing ‘how’ to enter a betting shop indicates the difficulties that women have in entering certain male, public spaces when they do not believe they have the right to do so. The women cited above feared the real and imagined intimidating behaviour from male punters. The effectiveness of male violence and the threat of male violence in public places has been well documented (for example Dobash and Dobash, 1979 and Green, 1987). I argue that frequently the women interviewed for this research feared the hostility of male others if they attempted to ‘invade’ their gambling spaces. This supports other feminist research which has drawn attention to the gendered nature of public places (such as Imray and Middleton, 1983). I argue that within betting shops, boundaries are drawn and informal codes of conduct can work to make women feel unwelcome. Neal’s ethnography of betting shops reaches similar conclusions, namely that as

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male social spaces, betting shops are informally controlled and monitored by an interplay of boundaries, concealment and display (1999). However, a small number of the women frequently placed bets on dogs and horses and said that they felt entirely comfortable going into betting shops alone and doing so. Wendy, for example fitted into very few of the norms of betting shop gambling as highlighted above. She defended her right to gamble in this way, and insisted that she never had any problem with going into a betting shop and placing a bet: Emma: Do you ever bet on the dogs or horses? Wendy: (LAUGHS) God you know me too well. Erm, horses. I usually do the dogs. And, er, I also do football. Emma: And do you play every week? Wendy: Every other week for the Littlewoods (football pools) and every week for the horses. Emma: And do you go into betting shops to place bets yourself? Wendy: Yep. I’ve got no shame in that. I know what I’m doing anyway. I know my jockeys.

Wendy demanded a right to this physical leisure space which other women had perceived to be ‘out of bounds’. Wendy’s case demonstrates the possibilities of expanding and experimenting with the parameters of what constitutes appropriate womanly behaviour. Barbara also challenged the idea that betting shops are male spaces and ‘out of bounds’ to women. Although she points out that she only places bets occasionally, and on ‘big’ races, such as the Grand National, Barbara differs from other women interviewed in that she places the bets herself. She also talks about her regular visits to greyhound stadiums: Barbara: I don’t bet on the football, but like, every two months we go to Sunderland Dogs. I do enjoy a gamble on the dogs. Erm … horse racing in the Grand National I have a bet. Erm … the Scottish Grand National I have a bet. Not much really, just on the really big races like the Derby or something like that. I wouldn’t say I’m a horse gambler at all. Emma: Do you place the bets yourself? Barbara: Oh yes. Yes, I go in (to the betting shop) on me own. Emma: And is that OK? Barbara: Yes, fine, I know the people in there (LAUGHS).

The women cited immediately above, rather than being an exception to a rule, stand as a reminder of the nuances and multiple class and gender positions adopted by the women. The women’s attitudes to betting shop gambling were various and there was certainly not one single attitude towards betting shop gambling. As I have

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demonstrated, some women refused to have anything to do with it, others participated from home with husbands, brothers and sons, and others either occasionally or frequently went into betting shops alone. Indeed, some of the women were actually part of the ‘male’, private gambling cultures of betting shops. As Betty pointed out; ‘everyone knows me in there’. It is perhaps easier to see how bingo and betting shop gambling constitute ‘leisure’ in the traditional way that leisure is described and contextualised. These gambling activities take place in physical spaces ‘marked out’ for leisure, i.e. the bingo hall and betting shop. This is in contrast to the National Lottery which, as I demonstrated in Chapter 6, appears to constitute a leisure activity which is ‘metaphorical’ because it is so rooted in the women’s everyday lives. We have seen that the Lottery constitutes a metaphorical leisure space which affords pleasures of day-dream and fantasy. Here though, I examine the possibility that occasionally the National Lottery too enabled access to a physical leisure place. Lottery Syndicates This section examines the strategies used by the women of this research to negotiate physical leisure spaces. It shows how the metaphorical leisure spaces described in the previous chapter were complemented by the carving out of a real physical leisure space. In particular, I argue that such a space was made available through the women’s membership of National Lottery syndicates. In response to the questionnaire, 30.7 per cent of women said that they were members of Lottery syndicates. None of the women only played in a National Lottery syndicate, rather all of these women also bought Lottery tickets once or twice a week independently of the syndicate. The vast majority of the syndicates were work-based (73.1 per cent). Only 11.5 per cent and 15.4 per cent belonged to syndicates with friends and family respectively. The syndicates tended to play the National Lottery either once or twice a week. Only 3.7 per cent of syndicates played less than once a month. The average amount that the syndicates spent each time they played was £10, and the qualitative data revealed that for most, participation in a syndicate means paying about £1 each time the syndicate played. The work-based Lottery syndicates represented many of the women’s first experiences of gambling syndicates. After the launch of the National Lottery, many people stopped participating in work-based football pools syndicates, and instead set up National Lottery syndicates (see Lewis, 1997). However, as recent studies into gambling behaviour have pointed out, men are, and have always been far more likely than women to gamble on football pools and to participate in football pools syndicates (see for example, Sproston et al., 2000: 18). Indeed, as the qualitative interviews of this research revealed, those women who were members of National Lottery syndicates all said that they had never been part of any gambling syndicate before the launch of the National Lottery. Previous chapters have explored the specific appeal of National Lottery participation for women over other types of gambling. The following sections expand upon these arguments by examining the particular appeal of National Lottery syndicates as pleasurable ‘physical’ leisure spaces.

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Syndicate etiquette The fact that the women who were members of National Lottery syndicates took part in work-based syndicates was very significant. The women all reported very packed and hectic time schedules which left little or no time to participate in leisure activities aside from their domestic responsibilities. We have seen that as a metaphorical leisure space, the National Lottery represents a pleasurable activity which is embedded in everyday domestic routines and rituals. I argue here that because National Lottery syndicates were work-based, the women could combine the necessities of their paid work with the pleasures of National Lottery play. There were certain norms and rules of syndicate etiquette reported by the women. Diane, for example, described the routine if someone leaves the syndicate: Emma: Are you in a syndicate? Diane: Yes. One at work. It’s one-twenty at the moment. It’s usually a pound but it’s because someone left and there was a gap, so to keep our numbers the same we decided to put the twenty pence in more. But it’s like twice a week, Wednesday and Saturday.

There was also potential conflict existing between informal and formal arrangements within syndicates. Wendy and Tracey were the only women interviewed together. They were interviewed at work (at the south east London community centre) and talked about issues of friendship, greed and the potential problems associated with syndicates, as the following excerpt demonstrates: Emma: Do you have the same numbers every week? Wendy: Yes, yes we do. And when you put them down there’s no changing them. Because I can just imagine someone changing theirs and it’ll come up … there’s been a couple of people that’s dropped out as well, and when they dropped out it was like the next week we won … I thought no, they’re not getting nothing! They shouldn’t even bother coming asking me for it! Tracey: I think there have been legal cases where similar things have happened. Wendy: Yeah. Especially when it’s a verbal agreement … Tracey: It depends if you’re best friends with someone and you have a verbal agreement, you would have to keep to that … Wendy: Some people, they lose friendships over it don’t they? … It (money) turns some people greedy.

The syndicates which I encountered during the research were all governed by specific rules and norms of ‘proper’ syndicate etiquette. In particular, Wendy and Tracey considered it potentially problematic for people to leave the syndicate. They were very clear that any money won would only be shared out amongst the syndicate members, but were also wary that the syndicate winning a large amount of money might be problematic.

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The previous chapter pointed out the women’s fear of winning the National Lottery jackpot. In particular, it showed how many of the women expressed a fear that their new lifestyle would alienate them from their friends and family who would continue to live without this economic capital. One important motivation for taking part in Lottery syndicates, was that they offered the opportunity to win money, but for other members of the syndicate to win money at the same time. Many of the women seemed far more comfortable with the idea of winning the same amount of money and at the same time as their syndicate colleagues. Diane, for example, remarked: There’s ten people in our syndicate. I mean if you’ve got eleven million between ten, oh lovely, smashing, ideal. So I don’t mind sharing it with them really. But eleven million pounds on me own? Too much. Far too much.

As Diane above indicates, for some of the women, syndicates performed the role of a forum within which they could share their dreams, hopes and fears of the National Lottery and especially the jackpot with their work colleagues. Some of the women said that they gambled on the result of the National Lottery in syndicates, but without buying Lottery tickets. These women had formed their own gambling syndicates at work but had decided not to use the syndicate money to buy Lottery tickets. Kate for example, never played the National Lottery at home, and also said that she was not prepared to play it at work. The syndicate of which Kate was a member had designed its own method of gambling so that it offered an easier, less time consuming gambling space. Kate’s syndicate avoided the risk of winning ‘millions of pounds’ which, as the previous chapter showed, Kate found terrifying. Nonetheless, as a syndicate, it offered the same sociability, friendship and pleasure which other women described. According to Kate: Well we used to have a syndicate in the playgroup (Kate’s work place) … but it used to get a bit difficult, monotonous, it was a chore to have to collect the money and things like that. But now they’ve set up a thing where it’s 49 of us in for the bonus ball on a Saturday … So every time the Lottery is drawn on a Saturday, whoever’s number is the bonus ball wins 49 pounds … so it’s not as addictive I suppose … It’s just interesting really to see who wins the 49 pound … and 49 pound is quite nice! (LAUGHS).

Paid work, leisure and syndicates It is very important to distinguish between the pleasures offered by playing the National Lottery at home and playing with a group of other women in syndicates. I have argued in Chapter 6, that buying Lottery tickets enabled the women to identify a domestic, metaphorical leisure space within which they could daydream and fantasise. Syndicate participation, on the other hand, can be interpreted as a ‘physical’ leisure space, since a time and space is found within the confines of paid work, where some of the women meet to play and discuss the National Lottery. In terms of the sociability that syndicate participation offers, I argue that there is more scope for the women of this research to create a space for female solidarity at work

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than at home. Participation in syndicates was an important source of companionship and sociability for many of the women. Importantly, by participating in Lottery syndicates, the women were taking part in a leisure activity which existed separately from the family. This was often the only leisure activity mentioned by the women which they participated in with friends and work colleagues, rather than with their family. In the case of syndicates, the women had facilitated a leisure space of their own, away from the family, within the confines of their paid work. I argue that this has extremely important implications for the traditional work / leisure dichotomy often employed by sociologists. For these women, their paid work was often the only space available to them which facilitated a pleasurable leisure space of their own. I suggest that the women’s paid work could be seen as liberating the women from the constraints of their unpaid work by offering an opportunity to socialise with other women. Thus, for many of the women of this research, paid work enabled a physical leisure space which was frequently not available at home. This contradicts traditional assumptions about the divide between work and leisure. Feminist leisure sociologists have pointed to the ways in which women’s leisure activities are often those which can easily fit into a hectic and fragmented time schedule (see for example, Deem, 1986). I add to these claims by arguing that work based Lottery syndicates offered women a space for sociability and friendship, which was often absent from the metaphorical, home based leisure spaces discussed in the previous chapter. For those women quoted above, syndicate participation offered a very important access to a physical leisure space. This was further illustrated by the comments made by those women who tended to work alone, and did not have the same opportunities to participate in syndicates. Sandra, for example, who worked as a care assistant in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, said that she missed the company of other women. She saw her paid work as draining any energy that she may have to participate in leisure activities, rather than providing access to a leisure activity. Sandra believed, though, that seeing more of her work colleagues might help to facilitate a leisure space away from her family: Emma: Are all these (leisure activities) things that you do with your family? Sandra: Yeah. I never go to the baths or owt by myself. I’ve never been to the baths for two years actually. Last year when I was on holiday I went swimming but er, I’m too busy at work … There’s not a syndicate at work. It’s not often the lasses get together, only for training days and what have you.

Traditionally, gambling syndicates have been the preserve of men at work (Sproston, 2000), and for many of the women whom I interviewed, the National Lottery represented their first experiences of syndicates. Judith for example, described how her husband had always traditionally been a member of a work-based pools syndicate, but then had switched this to a National Lottery syndicate. She goes on to describe her own Lottery syndicate at work which she is now a member of: My husband was in a pools syndicate at work and I think they did that and the Lottery, and they just thought it’s not worth doing both anymore. And I think they had more success

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with the Lottery so they continued with that … Then we got a syndicate at work. We put in one-twenty a week because somebody left and we wanted to keep the lines up. So it’s a silly amount, one-twenty.

The women had claimed their right to gain pleasure from a work based gambling syndicate in the same way as their husbands and partners. As other authors have also revealed, the women constantly struggled over their right to leisure and their entitlement to space (for example, Skeggs, 1997). The women had moulded the National Lottery into a pleasurable leisure space for themselves. Wendy and Tracey for example, reported the ways in which they managed their syndicate. According to Wendy: Wendy: So far we’ve won 30 quid in total. Then it all goes in the kitty till the next one. Emma: So you usually use your winnings to buy the next lot of tickets? Tracey: Yeah, it all just goes in here (drawer for Lottery kitty). Wendy: And then when we get the big one … (LAUGHS) … No, but it’s quite fun. Because it’s again like a bonding thing, because we’re all involved in something. And we’re all going for a certain goal, we want the big one. So you know, I wanna go on TV and say “we won!”. How many years have we been doing it for? Oh for a couple of years. And how many of us would chuck our jobs in? I think all of us would right?

The syndicate described above facilitated access to a leisure space for friendship and sociability. ‘A night out with the girls’ This section explores further the ways in which the women re-worked the space of work in order that it includes the notion of leisure. Participation in syndicates not only offers a leisure space within the work place, it also offered access to physical leisure spaces away from work. The majority of syndicates which were discussed in the interviews, saved up the money won during the year, and used it to fund a night out with other syndicate members. Diane describes how her syndicate managed the money won: Emma: Has the syndicate ever won anything? Diane: Apart from ten pounds. But not a big amount, no. But when they win ten pound, they keep it and let it mount up. Then we go out for a night out, like at Christmas.

Judith describes a similar routine: We all put in our money, and the winnings are put away … for like our Christmas do.

The women cited above had located a time, which paradoxically was facilitated through their work space, and they organised their weekly finances by adopting this gambling so that they invested money which could be spent on a pleasurable leisure

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activity. The complex saving strategies that the women adopted in order to enable them to participate in these annual events are consistent with DeVault’s (1991) discussion of the complex saving and survival strategies employed by poorer women in order to gain occasional pleasurable treats for the family. Here it is demonstrated that similar strategies of money management are employed by women in order to negotiate a physical leisure space away from the family, and perhaps contrary to the norms of caring and working class femininity. These norms dictate that, for poorer families, any ‘spare’ money is set aside for the family (Pahl, 1984). I argue that what is interesting here is that the women cited above also looked to ways of occasionally spending money on themselves. National Lottery syndicates represented a very useful way of ensuring that at least some money was set aside for a physical leisure activity away from the family. Miller points out that investing and saving, or ‘thrift’, can often be very pleasurable (1998). This was certainly the case for these women, for whom saving and investing in their weekly National Lottery syndicates enabled them not only regular contact with other women, but also annual access to a night out with other women. The women had negotiated a physical leisure space through their paid work and money management and demanded access to this regular, if often only annual ‘money space created by money kept aside from necessities’ (Wearing, 1998: 149). The ‘nights out’ mentioned above often involved visiting public gambling spaces such as the bingo, or more usually greyhound race courses (or ‘the dogs’). This was interesting bearing in mind the feminist leisure research which has pointed to women’s fear of entering male, public spaces (for example, Green, Hebron and Woodward, 1987). Many of the women had used their syndicates to negotiate access to a pleasurable, social leisure space, and had made it ‘safe’. I argue that the women made these spaces safe through attending with a group of other women. Elsie articulates the enjoyment and pleasure that women gain from taking part in these ‘all women’ leisure spaces: … I’ve been out on parties for work where we’ve (the syndicate) all went and had a meal when I’m getting cheap tickets and we’ve all went. We haven’t got a clue what we’re doing! All we do is look at … we all pick a number and put the money in the kitty and we’ve never actually come out with nothing … I mean not a lot into pocket but we’ve had a great laugh and we haven’t got a clue what we’re doing! (LAUGHS).

I have demonstrated in the previous chapter that self-expression, even in the private sphere is made visible through a display of social and cultural goods, and through the pursuing of familial leisure activities. However, as the above quotes begin to suggest, this was not always the case. I argue that the women of this research continuously experimented with normative femininity and their perception of the social gaze and a definition of the self. Visits to physical, public and male gambling spaces were an example of this. Class and gender were thus formed and re-formed through the women’s participation in Lottery syndicates. This supports other research which has demonstrated the ways in which class and gender are refined and re-defined by cultural behaviour (see for example, Slater, 1997: 162; Walkerdine, 1997: 21). In this sense, gambling in these occasional physical leisure spaces can be seen as a

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means of producing, performing and negotiating the self (see also Skeggs, 1997). This finding echoes in McRobbie’s work (1991) which has pointed out that by participating in popular culture, women are able to expand some of the parameters of what constitutes appropriate, normative, working class femininity. For the women who were members of National Lottery syndicates, these physical leisure spaces enabled a means of occasionally gaining some power, pleasure and satisfaction. What I have sought to demonstrate above, are the very multiple and various experiences and pleasures offered via syndicate participation. This supports Wearing’s discussion of women’s many different leisure needs and experiences (Wearing, 1998). Through my examination of women’s experiences and motivations of Lottery syndicates, I have highlighted some of the many possibilities that these leisure spaces can offer women. For some of the women, syndicates enabled a gambling space at work, for others, they facilitated access to physical leisure spaces. For all syndicate members, syndicates offered a pleasurable leisure space which enabled sociability and companionship with other women. This may have been through conversations and discussions at work, through to the occasional ‘big night out’ with other syndicate members. Through their syndicate participation, the women were able to expand the parameters of normative working class femininity and the constraints of their paid work, in order that they could create pleasurable leisure spaces. We have seen how many of the women regretted their paid work, often because of the guilt and the stress of working the double day that ensued. I argue that gambling in syndicates offered a space within which counter-discourses emerged. When Wendy remarks to Tracey ‘How many of us would pack our jobs in? I think all of us would, right?’, she is articulating a counter-discourse to the necessities of paid work and imagining an alternative. In this sense, dreaming of the jackpot in syndicates offered a means of sharing dreams, hopes and longings with others. I argue that this helped to counteract the fears that many of the women expressed in terms of the possible isolating implications of winning the jackpot alone. The rules and norms of appropriate syndicate etiquette also facilitated an important shared sense of identity with other women. I suggest that the women of this research constantly experimented with different presentations of self. They were very clear that they were not simply caring and domestic selves, rather they were also fun, exciting and sociable selves. Wearing suggests that as public selves, women are not always dominated, but they also are continuously negotiating and re-affirming their senses of self (1998: 146). I argue that the women’s class and gender positions were negotiated through their syndicate participation. Considering the range of feminist literature pointing to the constraint and control of women in public leisure spaces (see for example, Deem, 1986; Imray and Middleton, 1983; Shaw, 1998; Woodward and Green, 1988 among others) and the popular discourses which have tended to be critical of gambling, it is fascinating that the women were able to re-constitute gambling spaces as fun and pleasurable rather than dangerous, addictive and inappropriate. It was certainly the case that the women used the syndicates in order to perform and re-produce their femininity. Here I return to Foucault’s notion of ‘power from below’ (1980) by arguing that the women were not so much dominated by their class and gender positions, rather they helped to manipulate and experiment with various different subject positions.

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It was very clear that the norms of gambling behaviour are never rigid, fixed and unchanging. Rather, I argue that as ‘subjects formed in the complexities of everyday practices’ (Walkerdine, 1997: 21), the women identified and re-identified themselves through their various uses of Lottery syndicates. Summary In this chapter I have argued that ‘leisure’ needs to be refined (even, perhaps redefined) in order that it encompasses the multiple ways in which the women of this research experience pleasure. In particular, it argues alongside other feminist researchers (such as Deem, 1988 and Smith, 1987) that definitions need to move beyond simple work / leisure dichotomies, and reiterates the idea that the traditional understandings of the categories ‘time’ and ‘space’ cannot adequately interpret women’s leisure lives. The chapter insists that a shift towards an understanding of leisure which encompasses pleasure, desire and fantasy and subjective explorations of the self is imperative. Noting the limitations of feminist leisure research, which tends to focus on domestic spaces as the focus for women’s leisure, I have shown how syndicates are an example of how women use their paid work places to facilitate access to ‘real’, physical leisure spaces. This allows for a space for companionship and friendship with other women, firstly through the syndicate discussions and organisation at work, and secondly through their access to a night out. Whilst this chapter does not provide an ethnographic account of women’s visits to bingo halls and racetracks, it demonstrates some of the highly complex strategies adopted by women in negotiating access to physical leisure spaces.

Chapter 7

Concluding Remarks Introduction This chapter summarises the main findings of the book. It demonstrates how the research complements, and contributes to, existing feminist leisure and consumption research. It also discusses the methodological innovations that the research offers, and shows how this research develops a suitable methodological and epistemological framework, with which to explore the complexities of the gambling behaviour of the women of the research. It returns to the original aims of the book as set out in the introduction, draws out the success of the research in relation to these, and assesses the theoretical implications of the research. The chapter concludes by suggesting ‘ways forward’ for leisure sociology, and argues that feminist accounts of leisure have much to benefit from in considering the everyday and subjective experiences of pleasure. Gambling ‘Respectably’ Underpinning the key themes of this book, has been my suggestion that being ‘just normal’ is not an option for the British working classes who are relentlessly satirised, vilified and romanticised in equal measure. Working class women especially, are routinely represented as bad parents, violent, anti-social, lacking in ‘taste’ and culture, as hopeless with money and reckless in their consumption habits. This book has shown how the National Lottery has come to symbolise in the popular consciousness some of the most potent stereotypes associated with working class femininity. However, the book has also demonstrated that working class women do not consume cultural products generally, nor do they gamble without a profound awareness and consciousness both of the social hierarchies which underpin their everyday lives, and of the popular discourses which seek to categorise and reproduce class and gendered identities. More than three decades ago, Sennett and Cobb made a similar point about the ‘hidden injuries of class’, arguing that alienation is most often related to conscious rather than sub-conscious fears and feelings, and that for most, class is played out via mundane, ‘everyday’ actions and ways of living: Dignity is as compelling a human need as food or sex, and yet here is a society which casts the mass of its people into limbo, never satisfying their hunger for dignity, nor yet so explicitly depriving them that the task of proving dignity seems an unreasonable burden, and revolt against the society the only reasonable alternative. However, most of the people who appear in the pages of this book are not on the edge of nervous collapse, nor at the point of despair where revolt is kindled. On the contrary, they get by from day to day with

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Certainly, the women of this study trod a careful, rational and self-conscious path through a myriad of complex expectations, defences and day-dreams. Like the women in Skeggs’s pioneering study (1997) or like the people striving for ‘dignity’ in Sennett and Cobb’s work, they are painfully aware that respectability is hard work. Rather, respectability is something which is fought over, lost and won. This book has shown that the struggle for respectability is also made easier where financial limitations are not so rigid. The Lottery, then, represented a strive towards respectability, but also, ironically, put respectability at risk. One of the major contributions of this book, is to explore both aspects of the relationship between gambling and respectability; to consider the complexities of women’s decisions to gamble within the everyday limitations of class and gender. Throughout this book I have argued that women are especially adept at realising and dealing with the many various contradictions and complexities of modernity. For example, the women of this research dealt with the problem of having a low and often frequent income on a daily basis. Engaging in paid work helped to alleviate this burden to an extent, but contradictorily, meant that the women experienced an increased sense of guilt and frustration that they were not doing ‘enough’ for their families and were unable to find time ‘for themselves’. Lottery play was one means of easing these contradictory demands and at least made the pain and anxiety, which accompanied them, easier to bear. Other contradictions included the dream of winning the jackpot, which is always offset against the fear that is associated with having too much money; of becoming ‘too wealthy’. Gaps in Existing Gambling Research This book set out to examine in detail, the experiences and motivations of a group of working class women who play the National Lottery. In doing so, it begins to provide an understanding of the huge success of the Lottery in terms of the number of working class women who purchase tickets, who, prior to the launch of the Lottery in November 1994, had not gambled their money so regularly and routinely. Gambling is one of the least theorised areas of popular culture, and has traditionally been subject to little scrutiny from social critics (Douglas, 1995). This is despite the gendered and classed nature of gambling participation which has been highlighted by a small number of early social commentators (such as Bell, 1911 and Rowntree, 1905), and more recently by sociologists (for example Reith, 1999). However analyses of gambling in social history, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, and studies of leisure and consumption, rarely add up to more than a few lines. Specifically, there is a notable absence of socio-cultural accounts of gambling. This book has located and problematised this poverty of analysis, by highlighting the disproportionate amount of research which locates gambling as a deviant, dangerous, and an anti-social activity (such as Griffiths, 1998). These theories of gambling behaviour, as discussed in Chapter 2, present specific difficulties in attempting to understand the experiences and motivations of working

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class women who buy Lottery tickets, and can be criticised from a feminist and sociological viewpoint. Particularly problematic is the tendency in mainstream gambling research to examine only the individual who gambles, and the ensuing analysis of gambling as a psychological ‘problem’ of irrationality and addiction. This research shows that for a group of working class women, participating in the Lottery offered pleasure, satisfaction, and facilitated hope, dreams and fantasies in a way that is not acknowledged by existing research, which has been quick to demonise and pathologise Lottery participation. Re-conceptualising the National Lottery as a social and cultural leisure product enabled an understanding to be gained of the experiences and motivations of play which is currently missing from the majority of existing gambling literature. In asking the women how, when, and why they buy National Lottery tickets, it became clear that understanding their experiences and motivations of play could not be explained in terms of addictive behaviour or a misunderstanding of the odds. In particular, it became clear that, despite the similarities in many of the women’s responses, there were many differences in their decisions to buy or not to buy tickets. Thus, the book documents and explores the women’s different experiences of National Lottery play. This approach challenges traditional theories of gambling which tend to produce homogeneous accounts of ‘the gambler’. The book has produced an empirical database of the multiple gambling experiences of a group of working class women. It has explored the multiple ways in which women play the Lottery, how frequently they do so, and how much they spend on tickets. Moreover, the book also demonstrates the classed and gendered nature of gambling and National Lottery participation. It shows how the women discussed their National Lottery participation in parallel with their patterns of everyday consumption. They positioned their domesticity, ‘duty’, and norms of family life alongside their National Lottery play. There was no clear distinction between the National Lottery as a pleasurable leisure activity, and as a monetary investment or consumer purchase, because the women’s leisure time was so closely blended into familial and domestic routines and rituals. Contribution to Feminist Leisure Sociology Domestic gambling Primarily, this book sought to fill some of the gaps in existing gambling research by exploring the types of National Lottery games that women play, how frequently and how much they spend on tickets. The questionnaire and the interviews provide the first empirical database of working class women who play the National Lottery, and add to the very small number of existing sociological and feminist accounts of gambling (such as Reith, 1999: Dixey and Talbot, 1982). To begin with, the research revealed in Chapter 4, the regular and routine nature of National Lottery ticket purchase. I demonstrated the often routine and ‘systematic’ systems of gambling employed by the women. The women’s descriptions of the various ways in which they managed, monitored and budgeted the money to be spent on tickets, contradicts

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existing scholarship which has depicted National Lottery play as spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment (Creigh-Tyte and Farrell, 1998; Hill and Williamson, 1998). I thus position the National Lottery as a ‘domestic’ leisure activity which is embedded into women’s ordinary, everyday routines and rituals. The research produced in this book also adds to the sociology of consumption. Drawing from sociological accounts of shopping and money management (such as Lunt and Livingstone, 1992 and Miller, 1998) and from feminist research into household budgeting (such as Pahl, 1989; Graham, 1992; Parker, 1992; DeVault, 1991), in Chapter 4, I point to the women’s various strategies and ways of organising Lottery spending and winnings. This shifts emphasis away from the traditional ‘entrapment’ model of Lottery play, towards an understanding of National Lottery participation as a subjective choice, rather than as a cultural product forced upon the women. In addition, I draw attention to the particular structural constraints placed upon the women’s everyday lives and experiences, and argue that the National Lottery represents a suitable space for leisure within these constraints. I argued that the women adapted the National Lottery in order that it ‘fitted into’ the material and ideological constraints placed on women’s lives. Chapter 5 focuses on time and space as two such fundamental constraints. The emphasis on ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ throughout the interviews demonstrates the ways in which the women’s leisure activities were very much bound up with the lives (leisure or otherwise) of their children. This contradicts early sociological accounts of leisure, such as Parker (1976), which have emphasised the importance of leisure as a time and space where the self is free from obligations to others, and free to do as it wishes. Such a rigid dichotomy of work and leisure is not appropriate for understanding the Lottery play of the women of this research. Chapter 4 shows how the women’s often rigid demands of the home and family were entwined with their participation in the National Lottery. It supports the work of feminist leisure sociologists who have identified a lack of time and space available for women’s pursuit of leisure activities (for example, Sullivan, 1997; Shaw, 1998). The women of this research often found it impossible to recall any leisure time that they had which was ‘unambiguously pleasurable and not work related’ (Deem, 1984: 3–4). One important theme emerging in Chapter 4, and developed throughout Chapters 5 and 6, is the nature of the operation of power for women Lottery players. I argue that the structural constraints of, for example time and space highlighted above, existed simultaneously to the subjective agency of the women’s experiences of National Lottery play. An exploration of how class and gender intersected and informed the women’s experiences of National Lottery play helped to illuminate this. Class played a central role in the women’s lives, and their class positions were constantly refined, re-defined and reproduced as they performed their everyday cultural activities. Chapter 4 presents some of the ideological aspects of class and examines the productive power of Lottery play. Firstly, I lay out the different ways in which the women distinguish themselves from ‘other’ (‘non-respectable’) types of working class women. Secondly, I show how the women constructed alternative discourses to dominant anti-gambling ideologies, which they see to be held by those whose critiques they are sensitive to, but at the same time seek to reject. The women worked to construct alternative discourses to the dominant middle class critiques of

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the National Lottery as a meaningless and wasteful form of spending, as highlighted particularly in the broadsheet press (for example by Bleasdale, 1995 and Williams, 2002). This research adds to a tradition of cultural studies which contests middle class critiques of popular culture, and instead examines the pleasures afforded by popular culture. This also supports sociological accounts of culture which have argued that class is formed and reformed through everyday participation in cultural activities (such as Slater, 1997). It also adds to feminist accounts of popular culture, which have pointed to the ways in which the boundaries of ‘appropriate’ femininity are constantly challenged and manipulated by women’s consumption of popular culture (for example, McRobbie, 1991). The book has examined the ways in which the women’s class and gender identities were formed, reproduced and developed through their National Lottery play. Adopting Foucauldian concepts, I argue that the women’s counter-discourses represented a refusal to allow their Lottery play to be packaged into categories of meaningless and wasteful spending. However, in arguing as I have done above, that structure and agency exist simultaneously in the women’s lives, I suggest that for the women of this research, Lottery play, and subsequently the right to pleasure, leisure and desire are constructed within complex discourses of money management, respectability and caring. This adds Lottery play to other work which has adopted similar approaches to structure and agency as postulated, for example by Skeggs (1997) and Wearing (1998). Metaphorical leisure spaces One of the most perplexing questions which often dominates gambling research, is why individuals, and especially women, in their common role as gatekeeper of the household budget, should choose to spend their limited financial resources on National Lottery tickets. Throughout this book, I have been keen to avoid making accusations of wastefulness or irrationality which have so often dominated gambling scholarship and broader debate. Instead, I have sought to examine the intersection of class and gender as it informs women’s experiences of power and powerlessness, and how this is reflected in their National Lottery play. I have positioned the National Lottery as a pleasurable leisure product located and operating within working class women’s everyday struggles and dilemmas. I have argued that contemporary capitalist society has contradictorily made life very difficult for working class women whilst exalting certain unattainable ideals of motherhood and domesticity (Rowbotham, 1983: 156). The range of conflicting pressures experienced by the women is set out in Chapter 5, and was a key theme throughout the interviews. In particular, many of the women described the guilt and pressure felt as a consequence of being unable to provide ‘care’ as they would like. Demonstrating ‘good’ care took two main forms. Firstly an important consideration for the women was in attempting to attain a certain ‘standard’ within their homes. A second important means of demonstrating care, was through their abilities to care for their children. The responses of the women to these pressures ranged from guilt at not being a ‘full-time’ mother due to the demands of paid work, through to a sense of exhaustion at the demanding combination of paid work and unpaid housework.

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The women’s expressions of anxiety described above, and in Chapter 5, were further manifested within the women’s discussions of the National Lottery jackpot. Thus, one central theme of Chapter 5, was to explore the complex range of factors motivating participation in the National Lottery, through an analysis of the dreampleasures afforded by National Lottery play. I argue throughout that the women’s daydream and fantasy experiences regarding the National Lottery jackpot were informed by the women’s various experiences of class and gender. Thus, Chapter 6 sought to develop further the importance of classed and gendered accounts of National Lottery play. To begin with, I show how the women’s class positions were multiple, and look at the effects that money (either dreaming of it or having it) alters the women’s experiences of class. One particularly important theme running through the interviews which illustrates this was Good Cause funded projects. I show in Chapter 6 how the women’s attitudes to the ways in which Good Cause money is spent helped to illustrate their everyday experiences of ‘power’ and ‘powerlessness’. The interviews revealed a multitude of different opinions of Good Cause projects. I argue that the ways in which Good Cause money was spent was an important factor motivating the women to buy tickets. Although some of the women expressed anger at the amounts of money spent on high profile Good Cause projects, such as the Millennium Dome and the Royal Opera House, there was still a recognition of smaller grants received in the women’s local areas. Adopting Bourdieu’s ‘economy of cultural goods’ model (1984), I argue that the women’s attitudes to Good Cause funding constituted a blending of moral and ethical approval and hostility. This was a consequence of the women’s everyday experiences of class and gender. In Chapter 5, I argued that dreaming of the jackpot involved a complex combination of hope, desire and fear. On one level, the women’s dreams of winning the jackpot appeared to ease the everyday attempts to care on a limited budget and to ease the conflicting pressures of paid and unpaid domestic work. The interviews revealed a broad range of ways in which the women imagined that winning the jackpot could help to achieve this. These ranged from purchasing property and providing children with housing in a ‘less rough’ area, to paying off the mortgage in order to be able to stay at home with their children, to providing their children and grand-children with savings accounts. I argued that these findings complement the work of feminist scholars who have unveiled the linkage between providing ‘care’ and achieving a sense of self-worth (for example, Cohen et al., 1992; Nava, 1996; Skeggs, 1997; DeVault, 1991). A particularly poignant link can be made to Cohen et al.’s study which provides a record of a similar type of frustration and anxiety surrounding money – or lack of it – to the women of this study: I dream about finding the back door of Marks and Spencers open and going in and just picking up all the things I want … this will do for Jenny and that for Darren … I’d like to be able to give them what other children have without having to juggle and make them plod on, but there’s no choice (cited in Cohen et al. 1992, 43).

However, I argue that it was certainly not always the case that the women dreamed only of winning the jackpot as a potential means of enhancing a ‘caring self’. Rather, the daydreaming and fantasy experiences afforded through dreaming of the jackpot

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frequently involved the women exploring other possibilities aside from the caring self. These included dreaming of temporarily suspending the usual constraining norms of ‘care’ and replacing this with dreams of being frivolous and forgetting the everyday necessities of careful money management, budgeting and providing for others. I went on to point out in Chapter 5, that the women’s experiences of Lottery play were far from homogenous and straightforward. Contrary to this, the women’s descriptions of how they imagined spending the Lottery jackpot were frequently very complex and highly ambiguous. Challenging traditional theorists, such as Sennett and Cobb (1972) and Cohen and Taylor (1992), I have pointed to the impossibility for these women of splitting their selves (however temporarily) in order to incorporate an ‘alternative’ fantasy self. Instead, I show how for the women of this research, multiple selves were occupied simultaneously. Using Wearing’s interpretation of Foucault (1998), I suggest that as an ‘imaginary’ or ‘metaphorical’ space, the National Lottery offered an opportunity for the exploration of often contradictory subject positions. As a final, important means of illustrating this ambivalence, the women frequently juxtaposed their dreams with expressions of fear at the thought of winning the jackpot. Using extracts from the qualitative interviews, I pointed out that class is so entrenched in the women’s everyday lives, ideas and behaviour, that to abandon their class identities would be not only terrifying, but also virtually impossible. The women contrasted their dreams of winning the jackpot with a fear of the consequences that this would have on their everyday lives. In particular, one important aspect of this fear lay in the feeling that winning money and ‘becoming rich’ would damage relationships with friends and family. Physical leisure spaces Chapter 6 moves on to consider the various types of gambling activities that the women participated in, aside from the National Lottery. This helped to explore the precise factors which made the Lottery so appealing to women. It adds to existing gambling scholarship by comparing the factors motivating the women’s participation in a variety of gambling activities, with participation in the National Lottery. Drawing from other studies (such as Sproston et al., 2000) which have revealed the lack of women’s participation in gambling activities other than the National Lottery, I work to identify the specific features of Lottery play which motivate participation amongst this group of women. In Chapters 4 and 5, I positioned the National Lottery as a private, domestic, metaphorical leisure activity rather than a public activity in the way that other gambling activities can be perceived. Chapter 6 develops these themes by exploring the extent to which the women’s gambling participation (National Lottery or otherwise) can possibly be considered ‘physical’ leisure activities, in other words, those activities which require access to real, physical, public spaces designated for leisure. This book has recognised the importance of these ideological constraints on women’s choice of gambling activities. However, I add to feminist leisure sociology by adopting further a Foucauldian understanding of the ways in which women are active in shaping, reproducing and negotiating their class and gender subject positions

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both through their participation in the National Lottery, and in other gambling games. To begin with, I show the variety of attitudes to bingo, and the various reasons given for both playing and not playing. One the one hand, this research supports the earlier work of Dixey and Talbot (1982) who, two decades ago, noted the importance of bingo as a ‘safe’ and ‘acceptable’ leisure space for working class women: To the players, bingo is an unremarkable fact of life, a home from home, an invaluable source of companionship, a refuge which offers excitement (1982: 170).

For some of the women, bingo offered a ‘suitable’ and ‘safe’ leisure space, which offered companionship and a pleasurable leisure space with their (male and female) families and friends. However, it interesting to note that some of the women felt excluded from bingo, or had no desire to take part in the game. I argue that one important illustration of the complexity of the women’s class positions is illustrated by the range of responses to bingo play set out in Chapter 6. These ranged from a safe, social space, to a complete rejection, and sometimes expressions of hatred of the game. Chapter 6 also reveals the extent of participation amongst the women in betting shop gambling. By doing so, I add to feminist literature which has examined the construction of women’s fear of certain public places (for example, Dobash and Dobash, 1979; Green, 1987) and which also has defined the rituals and mechanisms which often work to exclude women from public places (Imray and Middleton, 1983). As with attitudes to bingo, the women expressed a wide variety of ideas and opinions about betting shop gambling. A number of responses appeared to provide evidence to support the feminist literature highlighted immediately above. Thus, one important theme emerging from the interviews was a disgust of the betting shop industry and an expression of disapproval at those who entered betting shops. As I describe in Chapter 6, these women often said that they were afraid of the reprimands and intimidation of the other punters should they enter a betting shop. They described the male ‘others’ who frequented betting shops, and were fearful of these male, public spaces. However, I argue that these findings must be viewed in association with other women’s attitudes to betting shop gambling. Thus, other women regularly placed bets in betting shops and said that not only did they feel comfortable there, but that they were recognised as ‘regulars’ and ‘locals’. It was clearly the case that these women were aware of the disapproval and negative attitudes towards betting shop gambling, and it was possible that my own assumptions that women would be fearful of betting shops may have been evident. Despite this, these women were adept at demanding and defending their right to these leisure spaces without experiencing disapproval from surveillant other women (including myself) and from the male punters. One very important theme of Chapter 6 is thus that the women of this research were not passive victims of oppressive, structural constraints. This was crucial when exploring the ways in which National Lottery participation ‘fitted into’ the material and ideological constraints placed on the women’s lives. It was the case that there were certain structural factors which clearly played a part in dissuading the women from participation in certain gambling activities, particularly betting shop gambling,

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as highlighted above. However, I argue that the women were active in constantly working with the facilities available to them in order to carve out pleasurable gambling and leisure spaces. Chapter 6 highlights National Lottery syndicates as one very important illustration of the ways in which the women achieved this. I show in Chapter 6 how the women had adopted the National Lottery to enable access to ‘physical’ leisure spaces. This is in accordance with the final research question, which asks how the National Lottery constituted a pleasurable leisure space in the women’s everyday lives. Through their participation in work based Lottery syndicates, the women were able to use their paid work in order to facilitate a leisure space of their own, with other women, and away from their families. This finding offers significant advances for leisure sociology. Leisure is traditionally positioned as separate from paid work (Parker, 1976), and where it is not, for example by feminist leisure sociologists (notably Deem, 1986), women’s leisure spaces are observed within women’s domestic work. In this sense, the finding that the women of this research used their paid work as a means of carving out a physical leisure space is of particular importance. Paid work provided an ideal opportunity to facilitate an occasional pleasurable leisure space away from domestic spheres. Syndicates were used so that they provided a space within which to experiment with different subject positions and to socialise and form friendships with other women. As Chapter 6 demonstrates, this was achieved both through syndicate discussions at work, and also through the use of syndicate money saved throughout the year to fund a night out with work at Christmas. Feminist research into women and money management and household budgeting has drawn attention to the ways in which working class women are rarely able to set aside money for themselves (for example DeVault, 1991). Syndicates offered women a fund set aside from household necessities, which was intended for the sole use of funding a night out with work colleagues. It is interesting that those women who were not members of Lottery syndicates expressed regret that they were not. Women who tended to work alone, rather than in a team reported feelings of loneliness and a longing for a space away from the home where they could pursue friendships with other women. These women were clear that work based syndicates offered such a space. Ways Forward: Feminist Accounts of Gambling This research paves the way for more feminist accounts of gambling behaviour. It draws attention to the gaps in traditional gambling research, and demonstrates a need for an exploration of gambling as a social and cultural product. In particular, it argues for an increased recognition of the classed and gendered nature of gambling. It suggests that as a hugely important, popular and pleasurable leisure activity for the women of this research, the Lottery and other gambling activities could be used in feminist leisure sociology as a tool with which to further examine the everyday experiences of women. Although this research does not enable me to make claims about the complex relationship between class and gender, it provides an understanding of the various ways in which class and gender impact on this group of working class women’s

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experiences and motivations of Lottery play. The book has demonstrated the National Lottery to be a useful tool with which to consider the everyday operation of class and gender. I add gambling to the range of substantive themes within what currently stands for the sociology of consumption and the sociology of leisure. This book opens up fascinating opportunities for feminist leisure sociology. By producing an account of Lottery play which draws from a range of sociological perspectives, the book works to challenge some of the theoretical underpinnings within sociology. In particular, the book advances Wearing’s claim that: (t)he future project for feminist leisure theory is to continue to open up spaces which … provide the potential for personal and political growth (1998: 188).

The book has identified National Lottery participation as one such leisure space, within which women have room to imagine, hope, dream, and which facilitates physical leisure spaces. It queries the binary opposition between work and leisure that is operative in much mainstream work on leisure theory, and develops the possibility that paid work offers an important access to leisure spaces for women. The book paves the way for more research into the everyday, ordinary and metaphorical nature of women’s leisure activities. By differentiating between ‘physical’ and ‘metaphorical’ leisure spaces, and thus the complexities of women’s leisure lives, it is possible to further understand the subjective intricacies of women’s everyday lives. This book emphasises the importance of the domestic as an important space facilitating women’s consumption and leisure, and adds this to the body of feminist sociology which has traditionally paid little attention to women’s domestic consumption and leisure patterns. Future feminist research into gambling needs to continue these themes, in order to understand more fully the subjective pleasures of women’s lives. The book suggests that understandings of women’s leisure lives would benefit, not only from an inclusion of women’s gambling behaviour, but also from engaging with post-structuralist accounts of leisure. Such accounts are especially useful in considering how, through their leisure lives, women enable, and to some extent, are enabled by, the reproduction of ‘appropriate femininity’, as well as being constrained by it. They can thus help to reveal the operation of power in women’s lives. To date, the subjective experiences of National Lottery play, and gambling more generally, are almost entirely un-researched areas. This book points the way towards more research which explores the experiences of those who play the National Lottery through routine and choice, and for whom Lottery play represents an everyday, ordinary activity. To date regulatory bodies such as Camelot and the National Lottery Commission have tended to commission research into the extraordinary, deviant and dangerous aspects of play, particularly underage and addictive gambling. Voluntary organisations such as GamCare have also focused their attentions on these areas. My claim in this book is that as a cultural product which has attracted public support and interest as no other gambling game ever has, it is vital that the subjective motivations and experiences of those who choose to spend their limited resources on Lottery tickets are thoroughly researched and considered. There are a great many possibilities here. With the increased publicity given to the ways in which Good Cause money is spent, and particularly public attitudes

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to high profile projects, many have argued in favour of new ways of spending this money. This book has examined the attitudes of one group of working class women to the ways in which their money is spent. Further research is needed to explore the extent to which class identities are formed and developed through Lottery arts and cultural projects, which at times, have transformed local areas. In addition, there currently exists a gap in terms of the National Lottery experiences and motivations of people from a range of ethnic backgrounds. This book has considered Lottery play in terms of class and gender, but work needs to be done to examine the extent to which race and ethnicity function as important factors influencing people’s decisions to play or not to play, and their various experiences of play. Finally, this research paves the way for more research into the subjective experiences of women who gamble in a broad range of different ways. Current attempts to entice women into betting shops, such as opening up windows, do not appear to be working (Hennessay, 1996). Future research could help to establish the extent to which gambling spaces are perceived as ‘male’, public spaces and out of bounds to women. Whatever the particular focus of future work, it is imperative that the complexities of gambling behaviour are acknowledged and explored with rigour. By focusing on those who gamble out of choice and pleasure rather than through addiction or foolishness, this book represents a change in direction for traditional gambling scholarship. It has added Lottery play as one important theme within both the sociology of consumption, and leisure sociology. By doing so, it has drawn attention to the huge significance of the National Lottery in the lives of a group of working class women.

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Index addiction 3, 9, 24–5, 52, 59, 65, 67, 125, 133 Beauvoir, S. de 11 betting on dogs 20, 22, 107, 111–14 on horses 7, 20, 22, 107, 111–14 bingo 18, 20–22, 37, 47–8, 76, 85, 107–11, 120, 122, 130 Bourdieu, P. 10, 14, 42–3, 93, 128 budgeting 14, 32, 34–5, 43, 63, 71, 75–6, 126, 129, 131 Camelot 19–20, 25–8, 59, 92, 132 Campbell, C. 6, 30, 31, 40 capitalism 31, 41, 54, 76 Casey, E. 3, 10, 13, 25 casinos 18, 44, 49, 53, 101, 108 ‘classless society’ 1 Conservative Party 1 consumption and domesticity 10, 32–3, 132 emulation and 30–31, 40 as status 40, 52, 58, 86, 95, 97–8, 103, 105 cultural capital 14, 42–3 daydream 8, 14, 52–6, 59, 89, 106, 117, 128 debt 2, 34–5, 72, 75, 96 Department for Culture, Media and Sport 2 deregulation of gambling 2, 17 deviance 13–14, 27, 35, 63, 67, 70, 84–6, 124, 132 domestic life 33–7, 53, 63, 67, 74, 77, 80–85, 102, 116–17, 121–2, 125–9

and epistemology 10–13 as political project 10, 12, 15 and working class women 11, 45, 50–51 football pools 20–22, 25, 114–15, 118 Foucault, M. 56–8, 102, 121, 129 friendship 8, 15, 116–19, 122, 131 fruit machines 75, 84–5 gambling history of 17, 124 motivations for play 20, 23, 26, 30, 32 scandals 17 Gambling Bill 2, 49 Gambling Review 4 Good Cause money 8–9, 19, 23, 28, 60, 90–94, 128, 132 guilt 37, 46, 49, 52, 78, 93–7, 110, 121, 124, 127 Haraway, D. 11 hope 28–9, 42, 55, 58, 64, 94, 117, 121, 125, 132 ideology 44, 54, 87 jackpot 19, 26, 30, 52–4, 66, 69–70, 94, 96–8, 100–105, 117, 128 Labour Party 2 leisure spaces physical 7–8, 14–15, 57–9, 101–102, 106–11, 114–15, 117–22, 129, 131–2 metaphorical 8, 14, 57–9, 87, 89, 101, 106, 111, 127, 132 luck 53, 71, 85, 94 Lury, C. 5, 31

entrapment 24, 63, 65–7, 126 feminism at BCCCS 5

McRobbie, A. 8, 54–5, 61, 121, 127 Martens, L. 10, 13 Marxism 27, 28, 41, 64

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middle classes 3, 9, 28, 31, 39–42, 51, 56, 60, 104–105, 126–7 money management 72, 74, 83–7, 92, 100–101, 104, 120, 126–9, 131 mothering 32, 36, 51–2, 54, 76, 78, 86, 95, 97–8, 109, 127 National Anti-Gambling League 28 National Lottery and criticism of 1–2, 17–18, 28, 64 the launch of 59, 65, 70, 115 and social demographics 27, 50, 63, 115, 118 and trends in play 19–21, 27

routine 3, 14, 65–6, 68–70, 132 Rowntree, S. 27–8, 76, 124 scratchcards 50, 65, 73–4, 84–6, 107 Skeggs, B. 8, 11, 14–15, 39, 43–8, 51, 89, 96, 105, 124, 127–8 sub-cultures 41, 55 subjectivity 89 syndicates 8, 15, 50, 115–22, 131 taxation 5, 6, 8–9, 18, 28, 56 time 7–8, 14, 35–6, 52, 57–8, 64–5, 68, 76–89, 107–14 Veblen, T. 30–31, 40

objectivity 12–13 odds of winning 6, 26, 53, 66, 125 patriarchy 5, 32, 41, 54, 76 popular culture 3, 5, 14, 27–9, 41, 54–6, 64–5, 70, 121, 124, 127 post-modernism 12–15, 43 poverty 28–9, 44, 72–6, 87, 93, 124 Premium Bonds 98–9 public spaces 37, 58, 102, 113, 120, 129–30, 133 Reith, G. 3, 8, 12, 28–9, 54, 73, 124–5 research diaries 60 respectability 8, 14, 30, 39, 44–7, 51, 67, 86, 95–8, 124, 127 risk 4, 12, 24–5, 49–50, 55, 75, 99 romance 33, 41, 45, 82

Wearing, B. 7–8, 14, 57–8, 64, 78, 87, 89, 101–2, 120–1, 127, 129, 132 Willis, P. 8, 39–40, 56 Woolf, V. 10–11 work consumption as 32 housework 32, 95–6, 102, 118, 127 paid work 95–8, 102, 107, 110, 113, 116–27, 131–2 working classes and exploitation of 2, 8, 28 as mass 3, 19, 28, 44, 123 and popular culture 12, 27, 30 and protest 13, 31, 38, 41, 54 romanticising of 123 surveillance of 9, 96