Luck, Leisure, and the Casino in Nineteenth-Century Europe

Gambling was central to the cultural, social, and intellectual history of nineteenth-century Europe. By tracing the evolution of gambling and investigating the spatial qualities of the casino, this book reveals how Europeans used gambling to understand their changing world. The development of resorts and the architectural qualities of casinos demonstrate how new leisure practices, combined with revolutions in transportation and communication, fashioned resort gambling in the Rhineland and Riviera. Jared Poley explores the importance of casino gambling in people's lives, probing how gambling and fate intersected. The casino impacted understandings of the body, excited emotions, and drove the 'psychology' of the gambler, as well as affecting ideas about probability, chance, and luck. Ultimately, this book addresses the fundamental question of what gambling was for, and how it opened up opportunities to understand theories about aggression, play, and human development.

• Provides a social and cultural history of European resort casinos in the 19th century
• Gambling transcends neat conceptual borders, providing a powerful way to see change over time in multiple domains
• Traces the development of forms of mass leisure and the creation of modern tourism