Labor of Luck: Casino Capitalism in the United States and South Africa

by Jeff Sallaz

In this gripping ethnography, Jeffrey J. Sallaz goes behind the scenes of the global casino industry to investigate the radically different worlds of work and leisure he found in identically designed casinos in the United States and South Africa. Seamlessly weaving political and economic history with his own personal experience, Sallaz provides a riveting account of two years spent working among both countries' casino dealers, pit bosses, and politicians. While the popular imagination sees the Nevada casino as a hedonistic world of consumption, The Labor of Luck shows that the “Vegas experience” is made possible only through a variety of systems regulating labor, capital, and consumers, and that because of these complex dynamics, the Vegas casino cannot be seamlessly picked up and replicated elsewhere. Sallaz's fresh and path-breaking approach reveals how neo-liberal versus post-colonial forms of governance produce divergent worlds at the tables, and how politics, profits, and pleasure have come together to shape everyday life in the new economy.

344 pages, Paperback

First published September 2, 2009

Reviews

[Amerson Wale]

Not only in America but Online Casino South Africa are also very popular and many people use it to become rich. After reading this book I would also recommend reading some casino players' tips and casino websites reviews. Knowledge is power, remember.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book combining two participant observations of the casino business by the same researcher - one in Las Vegas and the other in South Africa. Sallaz does a great job of linking macro-level processes with micro-level decisions to show how structure and context influence individual decisions that lead to broader issues of inequality.