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Domesticating Gambling: Gender, Caring and the UK National Lottery

Abstract The issue of gambling as a form of leisure practice has, to date, received very little attention from sociologists. This is despite the enormous range of consideration recently invested in gambling by policy makers, politicians, journalists, psychologists and economists. In particular, the role that gambling plays as an important part of women’s leisure patterns has been virtually ignored. In this paper, the impact of UK National Lottery play on women’s everyday leisure experiences is examined. A questionnaire was administered to a diverse group of 150 women, and 15 women from this sample volunteered to take part in in‐depth interviews. The questionnaires sought to produce a database of the frequency of lottery play, the types of games played and the amounts of money gambled. The interviews focused on individual experiences, meanings and perceptions of lottery play as a form of leisure. The quantitative and qualitative findings of the research are discussed in terms of the material and ideological constraints shaping women’s everyday experiences of leisure, and also in terms of the ways in which gender and ‘caring’ are reproduced through women’s National Lottery play. It examines the ways in which the lottery addresses a lack of time and space for women’s pursuit of leisure.