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.