It's Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 7

7 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich

7.1 The Proverb The proverb that this chapter orients to is unusual. The proposition that it is better to be born lucky than rich is one that can be mathematically tested (Rosenthal n.d. ). But on the face of it, its meaning is straightforward. It claims that it is better to begin life as a lucky person than a person of wealth. The rea- soning behind the proverb is that if one is lucky, one will be able to earn or otherwise accumulate wealth, but that if one is simply born wealthy, such riches may be eroded in some way. A 1926 citation of the proverb in the Oxford Book of Proverbs articulates this understanding in one of the citations given

1926 D. H. Lawrence in Harper’s Bazaar July 97 ‘Then what is luck, mother?’ ‘It’s what causes you to have money. If you are lucky you have money. That’s why it’s better to be born lucky than rich. If you’re rich you may lose your money. But if you’re lucky, you will always get more money’. ( Speake 2015 , 22)

The proverb thus links luck and money; being lucky means that wealth can repeatedly be generated. Leaving aside for the moment whether this is a robust or appropriate definition of ‘luck’, it is still necessary to find an appropriate data set with which the proverb can be investigated. In relation to the proverb, Vogel remarks, “Perhaps nowhere is the preced- ing sentiment [of the proverb] more appropriately expressed than in gaming and wagering, in which kings and queens play amid snake eyes and wild jok- ers, and horses run for roses”. He continues, “It has been said that ‘Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of the earth’s citizens needs to understand gambling’” (Vogel 2016, 185). In this chapter, therefore, I explore the practice of gambling, how people define it and whether they see it as connected to luck.

7.2 Gambling Before one can understand gambling in a social context, one needs to know what gambling is. ‘Gambling’ may refer to any number of activities. As Vogel’s lines suggest, people may play card games or bet money on horse It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 165 races or the throwing of dice. Perhaps the most prototypical of gambling spaces is the casino. Indeed, the chapter from which Vogel’s remarks come considers the history and economics of casinos. Corpora tell a similar story. Among the top 20 collocates for ‘gambling’ in the British National Corpus (BNC),1 one finds ‘casino(s)’, ‘dens’, ‘tables’ and ‘Vegas’ alongside ‘horses’ and ‘forms’. The top two collocates, ‘debts’ and ‘money’, make clear that gambling is an ideal site for the examination of the language of money and debt. But the activities indicated in the BNC by no means exhaust what people actually understand ‘gambling’ to mean. Moreover, in choosing a focus for this chapter, attention also had to be given to whether it was possible to gather linguistic data for analysis. Casinos and online gambling sites clearly have linguistic dimensions. The vocabulary surrounding the playing of and wagering on card games, for example, is a specialised one, completely opaque to the novice (see Bjerg 2011 , 38 ff.). Other activities in casinos involve much less language, and some may include none at all. Of particular note here is Schüll’s work on how casino spaces and betting (or ‘poker’) machines in particular are designed to encourage play (2014; see also Statman 2002, 17). 2 Schüll’s work helps explain the ‘compulsive’ (BNC collocate rank number 3) nature of gambling.3 Indeed, it also suggests that for those who gamble on machines the goal seems to be not about winning money but rather about entering (and remaining in) a pleasurable zone. This can also be applied to gambling more generally, as Reith argues “gamblers do not play to win, but play with money instead of for money” (1999 , 147 cited in Hedenus 2014 , 228; see also Bjerg 2011, 142). In short, gambling often involves money but this may not be the primary motivation of the players. While some gambling activities involve very little language by players (see Sypniewski 2004), linguistic questions still arise. Ponsford, Hollman and Siewierska (2013) for example, explore the origins of the word ‘bet’, while Butters (2004) explores the (ambiguous) semantics and pragmatics of an instant lottery game. And while some gambling practices take place in rela- tive silence, they may generate language in other ways. Advertising, instruc- tion forms, tickets, coverage of gambling events (lotteries, sporting events, professional poker tournaments) and the linguistic and semiotic landscapes of gambling establishments all produce a rich collection of semiotic material that can be analysed (see Gottdeiner 2011). Discourses about gambling are also rich areas of enquiry. For example, specific attention has been paid to the discourse around the legalisation of casinos in Singapore (Wee 2012) and to the identity construction of social and problem gamblers in the same nation ( Leung and Kong 2013). In the case of regulation, the stigmatisation of ‘gambling’ and the boundary between ‘gambling’ and ‘gaming’ are particularly important (see Yoong, Hooi Kong and Choung Min 2013). Stigma and play appear to be the Janus faces of gambling and even lotteries are not immune to this. Gambling is stigmatised because it is seen as irrational, immoral, wasteful and potentially addictive but it is also enjoyable at 166 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich least in part because of the possibility of winning a prize and the dreams this may inspire. The stigma and disapproval that attaches to gambling activity is managed linguistically, especially through the use of language play and the deployment of playful interactional frames (Haakana and Sorjonen 2011 ; Xiang 2012 ). In relation to the former, Xiang (2012 ) shows that talk about the lottery in a rural town in Southern China involves “mockery, verbal duelling, metaphor, rhetorical questions, parallelism, hyperbole, and hypothetical conditionals” (2012 , 287). The interactions show that lottery players are aware of and orient to the negative associations of the lottery ( Xiang 2012 , 287–8). The analysis also reveals idiomatic humour. One speaker, for example, concludes a gossiping evaluation of a suspected jackpot winner as follows

If he’s got ten thousand dollars or so in his pocket, he won’t share it (the money would) all be gone like a fart. ( Xiang 2012 , 282)

Playful frames are also invoked during the purchase of lottery tickets. Haakana and Sorjonen (2011) show Finnish customers referring to their tickets as ‘investments’ or ‘applications’ invoking discourses and practices very different from those one might associate with gambling (though see Section 7.4.1 below). Purchasers may even invoke a food frame—one of the Finnish examples shows a customer asking for a lottery ticket ‘with all the spice’, using a formulation more usually associated with hot dog stands in Finland (where the phrase indicates the customer wants all the toppings available). This strategy, they argue, is a way of defeasing the negative moral associations that gambling has, even though lotteries are not often considered ‘serious’ gambling ( Haakana and Sorjonen 2011 , 1299). Because they constitute gambling that many people participate in, the mundane gambling of lotteries offers an excellent site for the examination of the complexities of gambling. “Lotteries are by far the most popular games of chance, both in terms of participating frequency and expenditure” ( Beckert and Lutter 2012, 1165). Lottery play is both common and socially acceptable (Casey 2003, 246). As the data examined below show, many people do not consider them gambling at all. But lotteries nevertheless allow us to explore themes of control, agency, chance and hope in a domesticated and accessible way. Further, unlike some other forms of gambling, playing the lottery requires no particular skill. In the case of ‘instant’ lotteries, it can be played by simply asking for a ticket. Indeed, when purchasing instant lottery tickets in Spain in the summer of 2016, I managed to do so simply by greeting the vendor in Spanish, saying ‘lottery’ with a rising into- nation and miming the activity of scratching such a card. This does pose a problem, however, in terms of linguistic data. Live lottery draws (broadcast on television in the UK) would make for an interesting study, even though there is little participation from individual lottery players (as opposed to It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 167 contestants in the competitions that surround the draw).4 Likewise, the purchase of lottery tickets might provide some linguistic data, but as Haakan and Sorjonen observe, there may be no language at all (2011 , 1290; see also Sypniewski 2004). Thus, rather than consider the point at which people play (either ticket purchase or draw), in this chapter I rely on data from the Mass Observation Archive. Specifically, I use a Directive (a kind of questionnaire) developed in 2011 by Dr Emma Casey and the Mass Observation Project which asked a range of British residents about gambling.

7.3 Mass Observation The Mass Observation Project (MOP) collects material relating to the everyday lives of British people (see Hubble 2006 ; Jeffrey 1999 ). This material is held in the Mass Observation Archive (MOA). Started in 1937 and still collecting responses, the MOP elicits responses by sending out Directives to a number of individuals across the UK. The MOP has the goal of “recording hitherto hidden thoughts and dreams of the masses and believed that doing so, might help unlock their revolutionary potential” ( Casey 2014, 2.2). The Directives are a kind of questionnaire on a particular topic. Questions are general, designed to elicit personal accounts, narratives and opinions on the topics. Given that respondents are anonymous and free to reply as they see fit, replies may be rather long and at first glance may seem to be off topic. It is widely reported that respondents seem to have a trusting view of the MOP (Moor 2017), as exemplified by Smart’s work on ‘family secrets’ responses to the Project ( Smart 2011 ). While efforts are made to ensure geo- graphical and age diversity, the sampling does not aim to be statistically representative. Nevertheless, the Directive responses offer a fascinating insight to the lives, experiences and opinions of members of the public.5 The 2011 Directive that includes questions on gambling covers other topics as well.6 The gambling questions are contained in Part 2 of the Directive and ask informants to provide their earliest memories of gambling and to comment on their own gambling behaviour (this is prompted by a list of activities, see Section 7.4.1). Informants are also asked about gambling in relation to budgeting, the use of the internet for gambling, winning money and their views of gambling and families. There were 217 responses. The responses were returned to the MOP by post and email. All were accessed at The Keep in Brighton, UK (www.thekeep.info/) where hard copies are held.7 The files were digitally copied (at The Keep), printed and read. All responses were read and notes taken both in summary and verbatim form (with the assistance of Dragon Naturally Speaking software). Attention was paid to definitions of gambling, discussions of luck or superstition, emotional experiences connected with gambling, and justifications for gambling behaviour. It was immediately apparent that lottery play was common and commonly discussed. Focus thus shifted to consider lottery play in particular and the characterisations of and justifications for gambling more generally. 168 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 7.4 Gambling in the Archive Casey argues that the MOA is “ideally placed to offer novel insights into gambling” especially as it “offers a shift of emphasis from problem to ordi- nary and everyday gambling routines” (2014 , 1.2). 8 I can only concur. As someone who was not brought up in the UK, reading the responses was a cultural education. When asked about their earliest memories of gambling, respondents discussed the ‘gee gees’ (horse races), the cultural importance of the annual Grand National and Derby horse races, ERNIE (the Premium Bonds Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment, see Section 7.4.1) and ‘spot the ball’ competitions is newspapers (F3641: Female, 70, Leicester).9 Various football pools10 providers featured prominently (Vernons, Littlewoods, local churches), as did details about how these were experienced by respondents. A common narrative was one of children being “shushed into silence when the results [of the pools] were being read out” on the radio or television (F3409: Female, 63, near Nottingham; see also R1025: Female, 68, Milton Keynes). As might be expected, early memories of gambling were closely linked to family life, with parents facilitating an annual ‘flutter’ on the Grand Nation or an Uncle who would visit the ‘Turf Accountants’11 to lay his bets. Casey’s key findings provide a succinct summary of the contents of Directive responses. She reports that “gambling is a strongly relational activity” firmly connected to interpersonal relationships rather than taking place in a separate sphere distinct from daily life ( 2013 ; emphasis in original). In fact, the presence of other people while one is gambling is widely understood to act as a protective measure, preventing the gambler from going ‘too far’. Indeed, the solitary nature of online gambling is a recurring rationale for informants’ disapproval of it (see Section 7.4.3). Nevertheless, some gambling activities were reportedly hidden, especially from children. This was explained as helping to prevent gambling from being seen as either normal or glamorous. The gambling that did take place, even if routine, was mostly in the domain of leisure.12 There were three notable exceptions. There was one account of a professional gambler, although this was second hand. A twenty-year-old student reported that a friend of hers “gambles on the Internet as a way of supplementing his income” (V4661: Female, 20, London/Porthmadog). She remarks that it doesn’t “seem like a very bad vice compared to if he was selling porn or drugs to make money”. Another informant described his son- in-law’s stockbroking profession as gambling with other people’s money (W3394: Male, 78, Stockport; see also Holborow 2015, 40). Finally, there was also a response from a woman who had worked for a bookmaker and as a croupier (W3994: Female, 38, Bolsover). Her mother had also worked for a bookmaker. The woman recounted her mother’s favourite story:

on a quiet morning, one of the cashiers announced that she was bored and wanted something interesting to happen. One of a pair of old ladies, It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 169 sat watching race re-runs on the television screen, called back ‘ooh don’t say that dear! Last time I said that World War Two broke out!’ (W3994: Female, 38, Bolsover)

In this chapter, quotations of the original responses are given as much as possible in order to convey the flavour of this data. As might already be clear, respondents are frank, often disclose personal information and are fre- quently amusing. The responses come from a wide age range (of those who gave ages, 17 to 92) and reflect a range of views of what constitutes gambling and whether it is an appropriate activity. Rationales for these views are given in the form of opinions and personal narratives. As has been noted elsewhere (e.g. Moor 2017), informants respond to the directives in different ways. Some reproduce the questions asked and answer them in turn, other responses are more discursive. In response to the gambling Directive, for example, one informant enclosed a newspaper article about the National Lottery (D4736: Male, 44, Southampton) another returned a set of drawings (C4371: Male, 43, Bristol), while yet another says nothing about his own gambling behaviour, instead providing his opinions on the current state of regulation and lack of education around the risks of gambling (P4287: Male, 54, Wigan). While the respondents are not representative in a strict sense (Moor and Uprichard 2014, 1.1; Pollen 2013), they do represent a range of views. This can be seen in the idioms and proverbs cited by informants in recounting their experiences, memories and opinions. Some expressions relate to the (bad) odds in gambling.

“The House Always Wins”. (B4290: Female, 41, Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

“you’ll never meet a poor bookmaker”. (D 3906: Male, 45, Biggleswade; see also S2083: Male, 80, Kingston, Lewes)

gambling is “a mugs game”. (P2138: Female Chorley born in 1920s; P2957: Female, 41, Chorley; R470: Male, 76, Basildon; R1760: Female, 80, SW Essex; T3686: Male, 73, London; M4502: Male, 34, Edinburgh)

Other phrases are more positive:

“Time and chance have their place—as it says in Ecclesiastics”. (E4111: Male, 71, Fleetwood)

“it’s worth a half a crown to dream”. (E4111: Male, 71, Fleetwood) 170 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich “Money may not be ‘the root of all evil’ and can be v. v. useful but dis- cretion is needed”. (P2138: Female, Chorley, born in 1920s)

“the old saying about moderation in all things has a lot to be said for it”. (R4625: Male, 50, Belfast)

“You DO have to be in it to win it”. (S4326: Male, 46, London)

Finally, some general proverbial expressions are used in relation to gambling in particular.

“Is there anything such as a free lunch?” (L1991: Female, 74, Brighton)

“A fool and his/her money are soon parted”. (M4819: Male, 68, Rustington)

“you have to look after your own pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves”. (O4706: Female, 36, Halesowen)

“‘Never borrow to bet or invest’”. (Z4682: Male, 57, Harrogate)

“Like my grandfather used to say—you don’t get anything in this life for nothing”. (W4092: Male, 36, Kettering)

The relational nature of gambling (Casey 2013) can be seen here in the citing of specific familial relations (“Like my grandfather used to say”) and the referencing of other cultural values and norms in the expressions themselves. As is always the case with proverbs, while they draw on cultural values these are variously encoded and inflected according to the stance and values of the speaker (see Chapter 1 ). Because of the diversity of views in the responses and because of the nature of the MOA itself, Bloome, Sheridan and Street (1993 ) suggest a range of ways in which material can be used. Scholars may treat examples as a ‘representative case’ (either of views present in the population or of a group they are a member of, or of everyday life); an ‘illustrative case’; a ‘reported case’ (as respondents are observers of events); the ‘rhetorical case’ (or social commentary); or as a ‘telling case’. It is as a telling case that I want to treat this material, and while I will discuss portions of particular It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 171 responses, I will treat the responses as a single text, indicative of British experiences of and attitudes to gambling. The telling case is the counterweight to the typical case. As Moor observes, “the ‘telling case’ or unusual/unprompted response can help identify hitherto unexplored themes and principles that underlie people’s talk” ( 2017, 87–8). But as the diversity of opinion already seen in the idioms and proverbs show, there are a range of what could be called typical cases with respect to gambling and the lottery. The telling case I want to work towards here is the silent case, the response to a question which was not asked but which can be reconstructed from the responses that are given. That is, while respondents were not specifically asked whether it is better to be born lucky than rich, they nevertheless answer this question. To arrive at that answer, I first consider how ‘gambling’ is defined by respondents. I then provide their accounts of the UK National Lottery before exploring criticisms made of both gambling in general and the lottery in particular. Finally, what respondents say about their dreams of winning money and their plans for such money is documented. Together, this shows that in many ways the diverse accounts converge. But this convergence can only be seen if the hidden ideology to which all informants orient is excavated.

7.4.1 What Is Gambling? How writers respond to the Directive obviously depends on the text found in the Directive itself. The list of activities presented as ‘gambling’ thus primes the responses (though not in a straightforward way). The Directive provides a list of different kinds of gambling as follows:

Are there any sorts of gambling that you would always avoid? Please specify which ones and explain why you would avoid them. National Lottery bi-weekly draw Casinos Betting shops Bingo Dog/horse tracks Football pools Poker or other card games Fruit machines Scratchcards Premium Bonds Are there any other forms of gambling that you have previously taken part in? ( Mass Observation Archive 2011 )

This list clearly served to direct attention to activities not usually thought of as gambling by respondents. As one woman writes:

Having looked at the list of what is perceived as gambling, it would appear that I gamble rather more than I thought. (P1796: Female, 64, Dorset) 172 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich The list also leads to queries of why other activities were not included. An eighty-year-old woman from Essex asks why ‘raffles’ were not included, as they are “one of the most insidious forms of gambling” (R1760: Female, 80, SW Essex). One item on the list caused a deal of discussion about how gambling requires an explanation: Premium Bonds. Premium Bonds are issued by the UK government’s National Savings and Investment Agency (NS&I). It is a savings product, but ‘interest’ is allocated through a prize draw and ‘winnings’ are tax free. While it was included on the Directive’s list of gambling activities, many respondents took issue with this, querying whether Premium Bonds constitute ‘proper’ gambling (H643: Female, 86, Norwich; R4625: Male, 50, Belfast; R4604: Female, 46, Birmingham). One remarked that if it is indeed gambling, it is “surely the most boring form of gambling known to man” (W4792: Male, 34, Oxford). The unusual position of Premium Bonds can be seen in the language respondents use to describe the money used to buy them. As one example of many, an eighty-nine-year-old male (B2240) writes, “I suppose they are gambling, but unique as one can get one’s stake back at any time”, using the language of gambling to describe the money paid for the bonds (emphasis added; see also J3346: Male, 49, Liverpool). This terminology is not universal, however. The ‘stake’ is also described as an “initial outlay” (P3209: Male, 71, Welton) and as an ‘investment’, although the fifty-three- year-old woman who describes it as such encloses the word in scare quotes (G3042: Hove; see also P1282: Female, 73, Lichfield and I1610: Female, 67, Ducklington, for a straightforward use of ‘investment’). The same woman from Hove recounts that she “reinvested the winnings” from her Premium Bonds, fusing the domains of investment and gambling. And while ‘wins’ is generally used to describe the prizes, these, and the odds of getting them, are compared favourably with current interest rates (C3513: Female, 51, Finchingfield) again fusing gambling and investment. Finally, the money put in Premium Bonds is sometimes just expressed as ‘money’ (H2637, Female, 71, NE Surrey). While not quite as stark, there is also some variation in the language used to describe lottery play. Placing the lottery firmly in the domain of gambling, an eighty-five-year-old man from Woking describes money spent on the lottery as a ‘wager’ (H1806: Male, 85, Woking). But this was unusual. More common is for people to simply describe ‘buying’ a lottery ticket, whether this is done in person or online. One woman recounts that she and her husband “invested in the lottery when it first came out but soon decided it was better to put aside one pound each week which goes into a souvenir Greek pot and is changed into euros when we go on holiday” (G226: Female, 70, Fylde Coast; see also P4375: Female, 46, Stockport; F1227: Female, 66, near Exeter). Whether her understanding of the lottery as an ‘investment’ led to this action can only be speculative. It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 173 As well as discussion around particular practices and whether they constitute gambling ‘proper’, a number of respondents directly engage with the question of what gambling is. A thirty-seven-year-old woman from near Thirsk focuses on how chance is associated with gambling and writes:

The word gamble means to chance, risk, to hazard, speculate, endeav- our, to suppose, every single one of which means to guess with no guarantee of outcome. (H4611)

Chance, as opposed to skill, is a common distinction. A sixty-year-old woman from London defines gambling as being situations “in which chance alone determines the outcome” (H1745). Thus, anything that involves any skill (including horse racing and dog races) does not constitute ‘pure’ gambling from her perspective. Gambling is also distinguished from play and recreation. Thus, bingo is not seen as gambling but rather as “a bit of fun” if done in moderation and especially if the play supports good causes (H260: Female, 81, Brentwood). A similar distinction is made between “soft” and “serious” gambling. Soft gambling “is okay, but . . . serious gambling is risky and should not be encouraged” (MT4715: Female, 39, West Bridgford). But perhaps the most important distinction is that between hope and expectation. This is obviously related to chance but is also about the mental and psychological state of the player. A twenty-nine-year-old from Birmingham writes:

I doubt I’m a real gambler as I never believe I will [win], I just hope I will and never pin everything on one race. (D3644)

Another respondent writes

Gambling has never been an issue in my life I don’t gamble and really haven’t been tempted to I’ve done the lottery a handful of times but not particularly expecting to win it. (F4605: Female, 59, Leeds)

A sixty-year-old woman also draws a distinction between hope and expectation:

When I was young, my grandparents and parents did the football pools every week, which I suppose is gambling, but it was more in hope than expectation and only very small amounts of money were involved. (W1813: Female, 60, Stone, Staffs)

This distinction is also made later in her response when she explains that she doesn’t see her gambling as ‘really’ gambling as this would mean “you have 174 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich to want or expect to win something”. In a similar vein, a retired physicist from Wigan writes that he does not see the raffle tickets he does buy (in support of charities) as gambling but rather as “making a donation”; moreover, when he did buy such tickets he “did not expect to win” (M3231: Male, 61). Generally, it seems that games of chance that don’t cost a great deal (like national lotteries and raffles), played with no real expectation of winning and for the purpose of enjoyment (or in support of good causes) do not constitute ‘real’ gambling for the informants. As a woman from Leeds puts it:

So it’s about having a “flutter” with a few £1s we can loose [sic] really but not seriously expecting to win anything—it’s not dependable is it? (F4605: Female, 59, Leeds)

Further, the enjoyment derived from gambling is judged in relation to other contextual facts. For example, one informant characterised their father’s betting on horses and pools as a social or recreational activity. The informant explained (and perhaps defended) their father’s gambling activity in relation to the father’s working life and social position.

Also, my father, who worked terribly hard in a wartime steelworks, had limited social outlets. One of these was “the pools” the other was betting on the horses. We did not look upon these as “domestic gambling practices”, but as a “flutter” on the nags. The odd few pounds that came my father’s way from the each way bets he made no doubt had minimal effects on household finances. However, in those days there was no one who would condemn a working man for his weekly gamble. (H4123; no personal information included)

This stance is echoed by a man from Holmfirth who spent some time in his youth working in a dye works:

In this environment, it was easy to see the appeal of placing a bet or two on the horses. Groups of men would discuss the merits of various runners as they ate, fork in right hand, racing page of the newspaper in their left, through the 30 minutes lunch break. This activity brought a measure of excitement and uncertainty into their lives. (H4553: Male, 63)

He continues:

For these men, the gambling was not about the money or about power, it was an attempt to introduce a bit of harmless chance into bleakly repetitive lives. (H4553: Male, 63) It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 175 While some gambling practices are defended because of the pleasure they bring (see Bjerg 2011, 170 on poker) or their general lack of harm, other practices are named as being worthy of condemnation even though they were not included on the list provided by the Directive. This is associated with two different stances. On the one hand, respondents may accept the negative associations of gambling and argue that they should be applied to other activities not listed in the Directive. In this vein, one man queries why stock markets are not included on the list of gambling activities as this, together with banks, “are the two biggest gambling syndicates and we have little option but to belong to” them (H3821: Male, 58, Malvern). Indeed,

The big gamble that has affected all the families in every nation is the banker’s mad property bubble and they are being let off the hook, they have got to be made to pay for ruining our services. Every gambler has to lose their chips. (W632: Female, 69, Southwick)

In a similar vein, another respondent, in considering whether gambling can be condemned, writes:

Our whole economic system is based on bankers gambling on the stock market (although that clearly hasn’t gone too well in the last few years) so it’s pretty difficult to condemn it entirely. (C4131: Female, 29, Edinburgh)

On the other hand, respondents can be understood as normalising gambling activity by observing that other practices (not negatively evaluated) also constitute gambling. A forty-seven-year-old woman from Jersey writes:

I would like to define what I think of as gambling—I define gambling as risking something in the hope of gaining something better. We all do it, in non monetary ways. We gamble with information, we do it when we invite someone for dinner hoping to get into their circle. (B3010)

This broader perspective is shared by a seventy-nine-year-old woman from Staffs (F1589) who remarks that “it is pretty obvious that life itself is a gamble” (see also T1843: Female, 61, Cheshire) while later in her response describes international political activities as gambling too:

Today NATO is gambling on Gadaffi [sic] succumbing to armed pressure and we see the results of the Bush/Blair gamble in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mortgage mis-selling coupled with greedy stock exchange gambling, started the economic meltdown we are currently experiencing. 176 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich Risk, chance and the prospect of something better underpin these accounts of gambling (see Goffman 1969 for a discussion of different kinds of risk). We see also a concern with other activities and practices and how they are evaluated. Informants are thus deeply engaged in the complex work of defining, understanding and evaluating gambling practices. These informants thus suggest that for my purposes in evaluating the proverb, a general definition of gambling is less useful than the consideration of particular practices. Because of this I now consider the UK National Lottery.

7.4.2 Lottery It is well known, generally and by the informants, that lotteries are exactly that, a lottery. The odds of winning vary, but for the odds of winning (even small amounts of money) are negligible. The choice to play the lottery is, then, strictly speaking, irrational. If higher-than-normal prizes are available (through ‘rollovers’), this can make the lottery a slightly better bet (Bellos 2016 ), although these larger jackpots do not seem to motivate ticket purchases ( Matheson and Grote 2004 ). The exception to this is in very rare cases when it is profitable to purchase all possible combinations, thus guar- anteeing a win, as Stefan Mandel has done (winning the lottery fourteen times in various countries; NPR 2016 ). Nevertheless, despite knowledge of the terrible odds, many people still play (Griffiths 1997). According to The Telegraph :

70 per cent of UK adults, more than 32 million people, play the lottery on a regular basis. On January 6 1996, the first double rollover, 86 per cent of the adult population bought tickets. ( Kelly 2014 )

As the modern British lottery started in 1994 (after a long period of absence) (see Munting 1998), it featured in many Directive responses. Unlike other places (states in the USA, for example), the lottery in the UK is not state run. Rather, it is run by Camelot (which is now owned by a Canadian teacher’s pension fund, BBC 2010 ) which was granted a licence to run it for (limited) private profit (Munting 1998). Nevertheless, given that the lottery was approved of by the state (if not run by it), it may be viewed as an acceptable activity for this reason ( Griffiths 1997 ; Munting 1998 , 640). Many Directive respondents remember the start of the lottery and the flurry of interest it provoked. A common narrative is that tickets were bought in the certain belief that one would win, only for purchases to stop when this did not happen within the first year or so. As a twenty-nine-year- old Scottish woman puts it “Of course we were all convinced that our families were going to win” (C4131; see also K4417: Female, 44, Tottington). For some it remains a “ritual” (in the words of a non-habitual player: N3181 F 36 Leeds) with tickets bought every week, whether online or in a It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 177 store. Playing the same numbers is reasonably common and seems to com- mit people to this weekly ritual (G4296: Male, 34, Cardiff; G4530: Male, 22, London; H1745: Female, 60, London) as to not play them would be “tempting fate” (W3967: Female, 43, Liverpool). Moreover, even though it is an irrational investment, there is some logic to play:

When the National Lottery started I did buy a weekly ticket, and still do. I used to buy one for my mother when she was alive, and one for my husband, and we still buy three each week; have never won more than the odd £10. I know full well what the odds are of winning; on the other hand not buying a ticket guarantees not winning . (F3409: Female, 63, near Nottingham; emphasis added)

Some informants, however, do describe lottery play as ‘gambling’: “At the moment I gamble every week—we have a direct debit for the lottery on a Saturday” (C3210: Female, 31, Watford). But using the language of gambling in relation to the lottery is not consistent and demonstrates the diffi- culty of defining gambling, as discussed above (Section 7.4.1). One informant writes: “I do not gamble—but we do buy a lottery ticket—so perhaps we do” (A4820: no information given). A Quaker who generally disapproves of gambling reports: “My family and I are big lottery players though—we have had a monthly lottery in Jersey all my life, and my Mum played it every time” (B3010: Female, 47, Jersey). Another, who begins her response being very negative about gambling, continues “Having said all this, I do partake with the national lottery. We had a couple of wins, only small but continue to spend only £1 per week” (F3178: Female, 49, Sheffield). Seeing the lottery as unlike other forms of gambling is not uncommon. The following response recounts the dangers of gambling in rather strong terms, before exempting the “odd lottery ticket” from this disapproval.

I think gambling could take over a person’s life and family. It has been proved millions of times that it doesn’t work. But then an odd lottery ticket doesn’t count, does it? I mean I’m not watching the results and then getting depressed. In fact, I sometimes wait a couple of weeks to look at the results just so that I can keep the dream going. So I’m not a real gambler am I? I don’t take it seriously enough do I? I could live without it, but I love the dream that just one day, I might win a million on the lottery or premium bonds. (F4322: Female, 45, Hawarden)

The informant’s use of question marks does, however, suggest that she is aware of the apparent contradictions in her response. Staying within reasonable bounds in terms of income and outlay is also a common argument for not classifying the lottery as serious or serious gambling. “I view my lottery expenditure as just money I can afford to lose 178 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich in the self-interested hope of striking it rich” (H4813: Female, 40, Catterick Village). Nevertheless, some informants recount having played the lottery in the past but then stopping, because they decided it was a waste of time and money (S3035: Male, 64, South Sussex), due to worry about having an addictive personality (P2957: Female, 41, Colchester; G3988: Female, 27, London) or simply because it is considered “dangerous”. In relation to the latter, one woman writes: “I have never bought lottery tickets. My husband bought one once though as an experiment. He had all these fantasies about what he might do with the winnings and decided to never buy one again. It was too dangerous” (S2207: Female, 59, Brighton). I come back to fantasies of winning below (Section 7.5.1), but for this respondent it seems to be the fantasies (rather than the money spent) that are construed as the danger. More generally, lottery play is explained in three ways. It is enjoyable, it is not financially demanding and it supports good causes. For example, a woman from Cheltenham provides an account of the cheap enjoyment that the lottery provides drawing on the distinction between hope and expectation described above.

I only gamble as part of an organised activity that’s setup for fun and the chance to win just a few pounds (office sweepstakes), plus the lottery, which is just to sustain the dream of winning. I don’t gamble with any serious expectation of making money. I’ve never gambled when I was low on money, as I just don’t see it as a way to make money. (F3137: Female, 42, Cheltenham)

The social nature of syndicate play is also significant in terms of enjoyment, as one syndicate player notes: “I’m a member of a work National Lottery Syndicate but we’ve never won much and it’s more of a social thing really, the lady comes and collects every week and we have a little chat” (B3631: Female, 39, Birmingham; see also R4518: Female, 39, Chesterfield). This is a careful enjoyment, however, involving modest amounts of money and bringing other benefits. The respondent spends four pounds a week on the lottery (two pounds in a syndicate and two pounds on her own) and writes: “I’m careful with my money and wouldn’t risk it. I play National Lottery for a laugh and at least the money goes to good causes” (B3631; see also B4318: Male, 68, Howden-le-Wear). While the lottery now costs two pounds, at the time of the Directive it was only one pound for a game. This small wager means that even those who object to gambling may play the lottery, as a non-gambling lottery player from Oldham explains:

The exception [to not gambling], I suppose, is the National Lottery, where I have heard that if you sellotape a pound coin to a piece of card, write your name and address on it and flush it down the toilet, you’ve got more chance of getting the pound coin back than you have of winning the lottery. But again, a pound a week doesn’t cause many It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 179 problems, and I have won £10 several times now, and I suppose the compensation there is that if you do win a big prize, it is likely to be very big! (I think I may be trying to pretend there is logic to this, and in reality, there isn’t much). (D4361: Female, 41. Oldham)

As these lines show, players know that the odds are against them. They know it is irrational. There are no expectations of winning, and for many respondents lottery play is not considered to be ‘proper gambling’, rather, playing the lottery is “buying into the dream” (J4505: Female, 28, Liverpool). I return to this dream below.

7.4.3 Critical Views As mentioned above, there is no ‘typical’ case in these responses and some informants are very clear about and consistent in their anti-gambling views. Objections may be ‘rational’, in that some take the view that gambling is a waste of resources leading to economic hardship and emotional distress. Other critical positions are more complex. One informant objects to the ‘sanitisation’ of gambling either through “altruism” in the support the national lottery gives to charity, or the representation of the “bravery” of professional gamblers; this, he opines, is linked to “deep-seated view of gambling as inherently antisocial and selfish” (M3190: Male, 52, Bolton). There is one topic on which nearly every informant agrees. Online gambling is subject to nearly universal condemnation. Informants report that as it lacks the social nature of other kinds of gambling (betting shops, casinos), and as it is so heavily advertised, it is thought to be difficult to exercise appropriate self-control. Even online bingo is subject to criticism, with one informant (A4820: no information) suggesting that National Lottery profits be used to counsel those “lured into addiction by the tawdry advertisements and that sleazy Fox”.13 Playing the National Lottery online does not appear to be subject to the same negative attitudes as online gambling more generally. This may be because draws happen at particular times (and thus does not involve constant play) and because buying tickets online is simply a matter of convenience (see V3773: Female, 49, Solihull). The lottery itself, however, is also the subject of some critique. In line with a long-standing argument (see Borg and Stranahan 2005 , 26; Congdon 1996 ; Jackson 1994; Heberling 2002; Wisman 2006, 959), it is described by informants as a regressive tax. As Gehring explains, “The lottery tax system extracts what little money the poor do possess and, through ever-decreasing direct taxation, also allows the social sphere to abrogate its responsibility for providing basic services” (2000 , 16). Despite the fact that lottery in the UK is not run by the state (and so the revenues do not directly accrue to the state), the same criticisms are made by Directive respondents, that is, that the lottery is a regressive tax (D4736: Male, 44, Southampton; G4560: 180 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich Female, 41, St Margaret’s Hope; H1543: Male, 81, Sussex; V3767: Male, 73, Cambridgeshire) whose fund allocation is suspect, especially in its support of elite activities (like opera; see M2164: Female, 84, Essex and W633: Female, 68, Darlington). As the accusation of the lottery as a regressive tax suggests, the poor are generally pitied by respondents. Nevertheless, there are some negative assessments of low-income people who play the lottery. This is sometimes discussed in class terms that are rather less politically progressive than one might expect, given the criticisms of the lottery as a regressive tax. The starkest example involves instant lottery scratch cards (which respondents seem to distinguish from the lottery).14

As for scratchcards, any appeal they might have had for me was destroyed the day I was waiting to buy cigarettes at the kiosk in Sainsbury’s and got stuck behind two foul chav women who casually bought 20 pounds worth of scratchcards each, scratched them and dumped the remains on the floor before shuffling off into the store. Ugh. (M3190: Male, 52, East Bolton)

This is not only a portrayal of class (“chav”) but an extremely negative one ( Hayward and Yar 2006; Tyler 2008). It is notable that the informant’s purchase of cigarettes is apparently unremarkable, but the purchasing of instant lotteries is derided. 15 The association between the working classes and the lottery is one that is made in other responses, but usually in rather more sympathetic terms. The more common targets of criticism are the state and the gambling industry. A sixty-three-year-old Brighton woman does think that the lottery is a “tax on the poor” but she doesn’t “begrudge people having a little hope”. Her concern is that “most of the various gambling industries are making some people very rich” (S4743: Female, 63, Brighton). A female writer from Watford, however, describes the lottery in moral terms:

With regard to the National Lottery in general, I think it is immoral. Most participants seem to be poor, working-class people who can ill afford to gamble, so the whole system is exploiting their gullibility and their false sense of hope, and it is a way of making those poor, working- class people pay disproportionately for ‘good causes’, which actually ought to be supported out of taxation paid by the rich, if we were living in a fair society. (A2122: Female, 54, Watford)

Responses like this make clear that gambling, even on the national lottery, takes place in an economic and moral social context. It is this context that needs to be considered when trying to understand why people gamble. It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 181 7.5 Why? Because so many people participate in lotteries in the face of irrational odds, economists and psychologists have long sought an answer to the question of why people gamble. As Casey observes, “Gambling has long been cited as an example of mass exploitation; as a popular pastime of working class people which distracts from the real causes of the tough realities of poverty and which feeds on hopelessness” ( 2014 , par. 2.1). This view is echoed by one of the informants:

I do not approve of the fact that our governors see gambling, such as the Lottery, as an acceptable way to pacify the masses. It is no more ethical than bread and circuses, creating as it does with the more foolish the notion that there is an easy way out of poverty. (R2143: Male, 88, Hythe)

While this is an important issue, I leave aside the ethics of state support of gambling to return to the reasons people give for their own gambling activity (whether or not they call this ‘gambling’). As seen above, hope, sociability, enjoyment and ritual have all been cited as reasons for engaging in lottery play. Maintaining social networks is also reported and is related to both the sociability and enjoyment of gambling. A woman from Hove draws explicit attention to the importance of both sociability and staying in line with one’s peer group:

I am into lottery syndicates (£1 per week each) but I knew from the start that was money down the drain—it’s more a communal activity— a chance to have a moan when week after week we don’t win. I enjoy the interactions around it, seeing how other people react to it etc. And if we did win, I would want to be part of that group still—it’s more about that for me—if everyone else was suddenly a millionaire I would want to be also. Not that I want the money really—I don’t think would it make us happier and indeed probably the opposite—but if all my friends or colleagues were in that I would want to be part of it so I didn’t lose my peer group. (G3042: Female, 53, Hove)

While such accounts make sense in narrative form and in relation to lived experience, they are still not particularly rational and thus not amenable to economic explanation. As McCaffery notes, “Most economic theory presumes that individuals are rational, in the rather weak sense that they act consistently with their own perceived self-interest, and risk averse” (1994 , 72–3). As seen above, there are respondents who behave ‘rationally’ in this respect, seeing gambling of whatever kind as a waste of money; but this is by no means the majority. Here, I want to consider some 182 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich of the explanations of gambling that have been given to move toward a more social account. That is, rather than seeing people as rational isolated individuals, I want to consider the full social and socio-economic context in which people live to understand why people gamble and what it tells us about society. As is already apparent, the obvious problem with the rational economic actor is that this does not explain why people would participate in “actuari- ally fair gambles” like state run or approved lotteries (McCaffery 1994 , 73). While fair, rationally speaking the lottery is not a good ‘investment’ (Perez and Humphreys 2013, 918). Indeed, Congdon goes so far as to describe the UK National Lottery as “legalised fraud” (1996 , 47). Nevertheless, attempts have been made to explain why people gamble. McCaffery, in his summary of the existing economic explanations, lists three: “ignorance or cognitive error, irrationality, and the consumption value of play” (1994 , 73; see also Perez and Humphreys 2013). Exploring Economic Utility Theory (EUT, which assumes an individual will maximise the benefit of all possible outcomes) and Cognitive Decision Theory (CT, which argues that people make mistakes in calculating the odds of winning), McCaffery finds that these theories are inadequate to explain gambling behaviour. Irrationality, a seemingly rational way to explain why people play, is found also to be wanting as it appears to assume that otherwise ‘normal’ people are in some way “delusional” (McCaffery 1994, 87). Finally, the consumption value of play theory holds that “people play lotteries for fun” (McCaffery 1994, 89) or that it is a social act, or a purchasing of “hope” (1994 , 88). Evidence for this view has already been seen above. But to argue that this saves the ‘rationality’ of play (as some do), McCaffery suggests, is tautologous as this would simply interpret observed behaviour as ‘rational’ in order to preserve the centrality of this axiom about economic behaviour. In the end, McCaffery endorses as an explanation for play the “idea of indivisibilities in expenditures—that is, that consumers desire large amounts of sudden wealth, and lotteries offer a unique opportunity to satisfy such desires” (1994 , 74). 16 A similar theory is the ‘jackpot model’ according to which “bettors are buying hope (or a dream) each time they buy a ticket and that hope increases with the amount of jackpot” (Perez and Humphreys 2013, 936). This desire for sudden wealth is directly connected to a wish to change one’s life, to escape from the “heart-attack-inducing drudgery” that is work (Wisman 2006, 962 citing a Massachusetts lottery advertisement in Heberling 2002 , 599). The Mass Observation data provide examples of exactly such desires and wishes.

Recently, my partner and I have begun to do the national lottery out of sheer desperation—we’re stuck and I am not working so we’re just ticking by. What if, what if, what if??? A favourite topic of conversation It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 183 is what we would do with the money. We know what house we would buy, what car we would drive, etc. For a few fleeting hours on Saturday we allow ourselves to dream. We only put on one or two lines.17 I don’t mind the national lottery so much because you are, in effect, giving to good causes and if I won a huge amount I think I would set up a couple of charitable trusts. (C4431: no information)

As the lines from this informant suggest, the escape from drudgery may only be momentary (“a few fleeting hours”), but it is an escape nonetheless ( Spanier 1995 , 36). In a similar vein, a recurring comment in the data is that people report being more likely to buy a lottery ticket after “a bad day at work” (J4505: Female, 28, Liverpool; see also H4553: Male, 63, Holmfirth; P4375: Female, 46, Stockport) or because the dream of winning keeps them ‘going’ in a life they hate (G310: Female, 82, Burgess Hill; see also T4409: Female, 31, Sale). This can be understood in relation to Beckert and Lutter’s argument that gambling can act as a safety valve for “frustra- tions and tensions resulting from contradictory or unattainable demands imposed on the individual in modern society” (2012 , 1155). In short, lottery tickets are “not a monetary investment but rather a trigger for day- dreams, a vehicle for the momentary escape from reality” ( Beckert and Lutter 2012, 1155). McCaffery’s argument, that people play the lottery as it is the only way of securing a life-changing amount of money, is compelling. It makes explicable (if not rational) what is otherwise difficult to understand. It also aligns with some of the other semiotics and messages around lottery and instant lottery play. The advertising slogans of ‘it could be you’ (see also Gehring 2000 , 12; Griffiths 1997 ), the truism ‘you have to be in it to win it’ and the images of winners with large bottles of champagne and even larger cheques re-enforce the idea that the lottery is a ticket to an entirely different life. All this, perhaps, makes it easy for people to imag- ine winning, especially if past winners are presented for consideration.18 Indeed, the semiotics of instant scratch cards combine exactly the dream of riches with the pleasurable escapism of play. Casino imagery, bags of money, beaches, jewels and ‘lucky numbers’ feature on instant lottery cards that demand at least some activity and thus a longer period of escape.19 McCaffery’s argument is compelling. But it seems to me that it does not go far enough. If, however, we examine respondents’ accounts of what they would do with winnings, and also consider what winners actually do with prizes, the desire can be described in more detail. That is, I want to suggest that the motivation for gambling in something like a lottery appears to be less a desire for enormous amounts of wealth and more related to securing a good standard of living. 184 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 7.5.1 Fantasies of Winning Larsson (citing Falk and Mäenpää 1999 ) reports that fantasies of winning the lottery tend to focus on two themes: (1) adventure and experience of a new and exotic life and (2) the transformation of the self ( 2011 , 189). In contrast (and in line with Casey’s research (2013 )), in his research in Sweden, Larsson finds that actual “winners in general try to stay the same by hold- ing on to their identity, their world, and their social relations” (2011 , 196). Thus, Swedish lottery winners tend to manage winnings well and ‘tame’ their monies by saving or investing “in order to stay the same” (Larsson 2011 , 200). “In short, it seems that the power of identity for many is stron- ger than the power of large money windfalls to acquire excessive goods, to climb the status ladder, and to decrease dependence on other people” ( Larsson 2011 , 205). And while it is tempting to connect this tame behaviour to the national Swedish habitus of egalitarianism, similar results have been found in the USA, the UK, Finland, Norway and Belgium (Larsson 2011 ). Many of the MOP informants have also imagined in detail what they would spend their winnings on. In line with Larsson’s results from Swedish winners, common desires are to secure housing and living expenses for one self, family and close friends. Donating to charities is also a frequent part of plans, as is doing good works generally. 20 But apart from those who describe making life “more interesting” by taking chauffeur driven cars on holiday (B2240: Male, 89, South) or having fresh bed linen provided every day (H4005: Female, 71, South Wales) there is a distinct lack of very lavish desires. The following extract is an outlier in this regard.

And all this bollox that lottery winners come out with “oh winning a couple of million isn’t going to change my life. Im [sic] not going to give up my job as a toilet cleaner” etc. It would bloody well change mine. I would go into work and tell them what I think and then turn. they [sic] wouldn’t see my arse for dust. After dropping a lump sum to both sets of parents, making sure the kids have a trust fund, I would be off to Ibiza for a month to kick back and look for a villa to buy as a second home and make plans. It would change my life trust me. I wouldn’t get bored being at home. (P3373: Female, 37, Cwmbran)

Accounts of a life of tropical leisure are, however, rare. What is surprising is that even those who don’t play the lottery still fantasise about winning it:

But here’s the weird thing—I have a sort of belief that I will win the lottery—I mean I know I won’t but I still kind of think it could happen. It’s that invidious ‘It could be you’ thing—not if you don’t buy a ticket and yet still . . . Hilarious!!! It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 185 Surely everyone day dreams of winning a life changing amount of money—I have my other life all worked out—it’s amazing but not real! (G4566: Female, 46, Huddersfield)

There is a fantasy at work here that goes beyond a defence of actual play. If people who don’t even buy tickets think about what they would do if they won, this suggests that something else is happening. Nevertheless, despite the informant just quoted referring to “a life changing amount of money”, what respondents think would actually change has little to do with conspicuous consumption and luxurious leisure. This is not a new finding in some respects. Casey (2003), for example, notes that working- class women are keen to stress that winning money would not change their class identity. This seems also to be true of more middle-class respondents.

I have daydreamed about winning a serious amount of money, but only in a very general sort of ‘who hasn’t?’ kind of way. Yes it would be nice not to have to work, but I’d probably still do lots of interesting voluntary work, in stately homes and art galleries and the like. I would, of course, do more exercise. I like my house where I live, but it would be nice to have a bigger house—so I’ll just make my neighbours an offer they can’t refuse for the house! That kind of thing. We were talking about it at work yesterday—I work for a charity—and agreed it would be nice to win enough that you could have a grand but not too lavish lifestyle, and then leave enough to set up a charity trust fund when you die because that will be more long-term that [sic] just leaving one-off donations in your will. (D4351: Female, 41, Oldham)

This is clearly not someone who wants to escape ‘drudgery’ (indeed, the informant does not seem to view her life in this way). She simply wants a “grand but not too lavish lifestyle” while being in a position to help out other people. Another, who experiences hardship, defined her win fantasy around her current day-to-day needs:

Do I dream of having money? Hell yes! I don’t want to have to struggle to pay the carers bills, or work out what to do without in order to eat this month. If I won money I have no interest in big holidays or massive spending sprees. I want the security of my own home and no neighbours around—basically similar circumstances to as I live now, just owning the property myself. (H4611: Female, 37, Near Thirsk; see also R4604: Female, 46, Birmingham)

And while some informants express a wish to give up work, this relates more to their current job rather than work more generally. The change they envision is one that provides both security and satisfaction (V3773: Female, 186 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 49, Solihull) and, perhaps, an escape from a particular kind of drudgery. That is, in response to this question in the Directive, respondents often bring up the topic of being happy.

I never dream about winning money through gambling so I don’t talk to others about it. Some people live on dreams but I don’t. I do the best with what we have and we are happy as we are. (J1890: Female, 79, Hull)

Another, reporting that she “honestly wouldn’t like to win a lot of money”, writes “I value my life as it is and don’t have massive aspirations for it to be more materialistic” (L4656: Female, 21, St Andrews). This all suggests that playing the lottery is not about the money as such. As McCaffery observes, and as the data confirm, “most people do not want money per se. They want the things that money can buy” (McCaffery 1994, 101). Hedenus concurs when she observes that it is

not the opportunity for wealth in its own right that is the object of those dreams [of the big win]. Instead, it is the possibility of being able to create a better life for themselves that constitutes the major driving force. ( 2014 , 228)

And while dreams of lavish lifestyles and exotic travel may be the next ‘step up’ for the affluent middle classes, if one is struggling, the dream may be far more modest. In describing the dream, McCaffery refers specifically to the “drudgery” of work (1994 , 102) which is attested in the data. He draws out this characterisation when he argues: “Lottery play is positively correlated to what we may assume to be the drudgery of work, with unskilled, clerical, and professional workers playing in decreasing order” (1994 , 103).21 Of course it is also possible to add to this list the ‘drudgery’ of being unemployed and looking for work or being on short term, insecure, zero hours contracts. This is life for many people. They work hard yet they do not prosper. As discussed above, while McCaffery’s argument makes lottery play explicable, it seems to me that—because of the MOP data—we can develop his insight further. People play the lottery as they want to acquire a life-changing amount of money and the lottery presents a unique way of doing so. But if we are to believe the plans and dreams that people outline (and Larsson’s research suggests that this is warranted) what is the change they wish to make? What is it that people desire? What are these responses telling us?

7.6 The Telling Case In relation to Mass Observation Project responses, the ‘telling case’, as described above, is the counterweight to the typical case. The telling case, in the words of Moor, “can help identify hitherto unexplored themes and It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 187 principles that underlie people’s talk” (2017 , 87–8). I want to argue that the telling case in these data is the counterweight to the dominant ideology that hard work pays off. This dominant view, typical of contemporary neoliberal economics, is certainly evidenced in the data. I deal with that first. In the data, one finds critiques of gambling based exactly on this ideology, the idea that hard work is both necessary and sufficient for financial well-being. Gambling, therefore, is criticised as getting something for nothing. A forty-three-year-old woman from Lowestoft reports “When I do something I like to think that with hard work I will achieve what I set out to do, there is no sense of achievement in gambling” (H4734). A man from Fareham concurs, as he believes “people should work for what they have” (W3233: Male, 66), as does a ninety-year-old male from Peacehaven who has supported his family by working “very hard” (T2741). The connection made between hard work and money is about just returns and the satisfaction that comes from knowing you deserve it. A thirty-five-year-old woman makes this connection explicitly:

I think there’s something around deservibility there for me [in gambling]. If you win it you haven’t earned it. I think that earning it and deserving it are more important factors for me. (B4750: Female, 35, Exeter)

She also remarks:

I think that winning it [the money] means cheating almost. (B4750)

It seems to be cheating because it is luck, because no effort has gone before the positive result. As Belk and Wallendorf observe, drawing on Weber’s insights, “In a culture where hard work is revered . . . money obtained without labor is seen as evil” ( 1990 , 53). The problem with gambling that does not require work or skill is that chance is just that, chance. There is no way to prevent the ‘undeserving’ winning lottery money.22 In addition to the connection between work and reward, it may be that chance is derided because people like to be in control, or at least to feel as though they are. As a forty-three-year-old woman from Lowestoft remarks:

Gambling runs on chance and I don’t like leaving things to chance, I like to think I can influence things in some way. (H4734: Female, 43, Lowestoft)

The self-determination and self-reliance seen in these examples are typical attributes of the neoliberal individual. This is the subject position people are supposed to enjoy inhabiting. In this context, agency is rational and chance is both irrational and unfair. 188 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich I do not want to suggest that people have no agency. People make choices and these have consequences. But the idea that people have complete control over their lives, especially over their economic situation, is a myth. As discussed in Chapter 2 :

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. ( Marx 2006 , 5)

It would be nice to believe that hard work (whatever this means) always pays, and that good, hard-working people prosper, but the facts do not bear this out. What, then, is the counterweight, the telling case, to this view? The telling case can be found by looking at the plans people outline for their hypothetical winnings and in some of the critiques of gambling. While the telling case here is a silent case, it can nevertheless be reconstructed by looking at what people say about their fantasies of winning. If we consider again the responses that informants gave when asked about winning money, for example, we find a striking coherence of responses. People dream about being able to secure their own standard of living and that of their children. They dream about buying a house, being able to choose rewarding ways to spend their time (including work). They also report wanting to give money to charities. People dream about being free from drudgery, stress, worry and pain. Taken individually, they are modest dreams. If we take the modest individual dreams collectively, if we see these fantasies as indicative of a collective dream, they look very different. Interpreting these desires as a collective dream, or a dream for society, is simply to situate individual desire in a full social context (and to treat the data set as a single text). Within the data itself at least three warrants can be found for taking a broader social context into account. First, in the critique of the lottery as a regressive tax, informants orient to social issues and society generally. This critique of the lottery can be read not just as a liberal concern for the poor, but as a criticism of social structure more generally. Second, the critique of social inequality is further evidenced by the frequent occurrence of charitable giving in winning fantasies. It is certainly the case that specifying charitable donations in fantasies of winning could be attributed to social desirability bias, but it is nevertheless a recurring topic. At the very least, its presence suggests some awareness of social inequality and a recognition that it is good to want to remedy this (or be seen to want to remedy this). Finally, in the definitions of gambling recounted in Section 7.4.1, informants question why some activities were not considered to be gambling. Whether because of the stock markets and banks or the chance of getting cancer, informants insist that life itself is a gamble. It “is pretty obvious that life itself is a gamble” (F1589: Female. 79, Staffs; It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 189 see also T1843: Female, 61, Cheshire). Thus, I want to suggest that implicit in the general sympathy for the poor and in the discussion of chance in many domains, it is possible to reconstruct a more general critique of a different kind of gamble: the lottery of life. The silent case in this data, the unsayable desire, is not (just) a wish for a different individual life. Rather, it is a wish for a different life for everyone. The wish, the fantasy, is for a world in which people are free from worry, stress, poverty and pain. If that is the case, the reason for buying a lottery ticket is to escape the negative effects of the lottery of one’s own life and to help others do the same. This collective dream aligns with Weber’s argu- ments about human desire for money. He writes: “People do not wish ‘by nature’ to earn more money. Instead, they simply wish to live, and to live as they have been accustomed and to earn as much as is required to do so” ( Weber 2011 , 85). The force of ideology, however, is strong. People have been recruited to the idea that money itself is a goal. But this “is the product of a long and continuous process of socialization” ( Weber 2011 , 85). I suggest that from the fantasies of winning, in the desire to help others less fortunate and in the recognition that life itself is fraught with risk, it is possible to identify an implicit resistance to exactly this process of socialisation. The informants are critiquing the lottery of life. The reason this critique is not made in exactly these terms in the responses has two possible answers. First, respondents were not asked. The Directive did not ask about the ‘lottery of life’. However, as Moor observes (2017 , 97) Directive responses can nevertheless be read in relation to what was not asked. Moreover, in their discussion of what constitutes gambling, whether gambling is acceptable and what their dreams are for winning, many informants gesture towards this issue. It is also worth remembering that the questions in the Directive are phrased to allow such discussion and digression without compelling it. In this sense, the responses that are given are perhaps more robust than if the researchers had asked specific questions about the lottery of life. The second possible reason that a critique of the lottery of life was not made more explicit in responses can be linked to the influence of dominant ideology and the idea that hard work is necessary and sufficient for success. It is not comforting to think that life itself is riddled with chance. It is particularly discomforting to think that one’s secure place in society is not only the result of hard work. The lottery threatens this ideology security. Anyone with a ticket could win. As such, however, it is one of the most equal domains of contemporary life. In his review of Millikan’s Lotteries in Colonial America ( 2011 ), Vaz reports that Millikan finds “lotteries [to be] ‘a type of equalizer’ and a ‘democratizing force’ as they allowed colonials ‘from all stations of life to compete on a level playing field for the same prizes’ (p. 61)” (Vaz 2013 , 488). Haisley, Mostafa and Loewenstein (2008) provide empirical evidence for this view, finding that low-income lottery players may be drawn to the game exactly because of this equality of chance. Bjerg notes a similar 190 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich dynamic in relation to poker as it is “an idealized version of democratic capitalism where everybody has equal access to the spheres of value circula- tion” (2011 , 242). 23 It is an equality that is found in very few places and certainly not in life itself.

7.7 The Lottery of Life I now want to return to the proverb that opened this chapter. As outlined in Section 7.1, the idea that it is better to be born lucky than to be born rich rests on the argument that one may lose riches, but luck will always allow one to prosper. The form of the proverb thus sets up a bifurcation between ‘rich’ and ‘lucky’ while still drawing a connection between them. But what if there is no distinction? What if to be born rich is to be born lucky? These questions immediately raise the topic of social mobility. Is it possible, if one is born ‘lucky’, to become rich? Lansley and Mack offer a straightforward assessment of social mobility in the UK, observing that “children born in poorer households are more likely to experience poverty as adults than those born into higher income families” (2015 , 76). They state that this is largely due to “societal causes” (2015 , 77). That is, the disadvantages that people born into poverty experience are not explained by a “supposed culture of poverty” (Lansley and Mack 2015, 81). Rather, access to education and the state of the labour market are key variables. 24 Moreover, when one is at the ‘losing’ end of this inequality has consequences (see also Blanden 2013 , 62).25 Thus, “Those who did not experience poverty as a child increasingly had life’s dice heavily weighted in their favour” ( Lansley and Mack 2015 , 79). The punishing results of changes to social welfare in the UK, austerity and rising inequality not only in relation to income but also in relation to wealth also need to be considered.26 Considered in this context, the lottery looks completely rational. The drudgery that people hope to escape may not in fact be attributable to their own actions, it may well be an ‘accident’ of birth. To put it bluntly: the lottery of life is one of chance. It is not ‘fair’. Indeed, the ‘ticket’ that we are given at the start of life determines a great deal of what happens thereafter. Gambling on something like a lottery, however, provides a chance (small though it may be) to mitigate or reverse the effects of the lottery of birth. If it is irrational to play the National Lottery, then the consequences of the lottery of birth are even more irrational. Indeed, given this originary inequality we should be arguing not for fewer lotteries, but for more (Goodwin 1984). Wisman takes up the issue of equality when he argues that one of the negative effects of lotteries is that they buttress the idea that there is equality of opportunity (2006 , 961). Indeed, in an era of increasing inequality Wisman finds state sponsored lotteries particularly irksome. “State lotteries” he concludes, “make a mockery of the freedom they pretend to celebrate” (2006 , 964). The small chance of winning, the aggressive advertising, the lottery as a regressive tax, the scorn with which lower-income players are treated and It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 191 the risk of financial ruin clearly all count against the lottery. Wisman is of course right. But the lottery is not the problem. It is a symptom. The lottery is one of the very few areas in which there is equality of opportunity, even if that opportunity is a vanishingly small one. It is a chance to buy another ticket in the lottery of life and is thus particularly attractive to those who have lost out. The problem is that hard work and perseverance do not guarantee financial well-being. The problem is that financial inequality is getting worse ( Piketty 2014 ). The problem is that people have to compete for jobs that don’t pay a living wage or face punishment from the state. The problem is that increases in the cost of living outstrips wage rises (Lansley and Mack 2015 , 58). The problem is that it is lucky to be born rich but we are largely blind to this fact and do not do enough to rectify the effects of this unjust lottery of life. To be born rich is to be born lucky.

Notes 1. Including up to 4 left and right collocates (http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/) 2. Thank you to Professor Rodney Jones for drawing my attention to Schüll’s work. 3. I do not consider addictive or compulsive gambling as such, since to fully explore this requires expertise in psychological matters (though see, for example, Hen- driks et al. 1997). It was also not explicitly a question in the data explored in this chapter (from the Mass Observation Project 2011 Directive), though it is mentioned by some respondents with personal experience of such behaviour. But as the data set here is not a representative sample and it was not designed to assess compulsive or addictive gambling (although certain Directive questions certainly allow respondents to discuss this), it is not an appropriate set of data with which to explore such questions in any detail. 4. In the UK, the Saturday lottery draw is televised in a programme that includes other games and quizzes in which members of the public participate for prizes. 5. While it has been much used by sociologists, it has been little used by linguists. Sealey and Charles’ work on people’s experience of animals in their everyday lives (2013 ), and Bloome, Sheridan and Street’s work on literacy practices, are notable exceptions (1997; see also Sheridan, Street and Bloome 2000; Charles 2014 ). 6 . The first set of questions relate to donor conception while part 3 asks respondents to record their activities on the day of a Royal wedding (29 April 2011). 7 . For a discussion of the materiality of the responses, see Moor and Uprichard (2014 ). 8. The 2011 Directive is a particularly valuable data set as a 1947 Directive on gambling had also been collected allowing Casey to undertake a comparative analysis (Casey 2014). The 1947 Directive was commissioned by the National Anti Gambling League whose founder, Seebhom Rowntree, compared gambling to a ‘cancer’ ( Casey 2014 , 3.1). 9. ‘Spot the Ball’ competitions were in newspapers and involve readers marking where they think a football is in a still image of a game. The ball has been deleted from the image. 192 It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 10 . Still running today, ‘the Pools’ involves betting on the outcome of football (soc- cer) matches in the UK. It is cheap to enter and entries were, in the past, collected by an agent who lived locally. 11. A euphemism for a bookmaker’s establishment. 12 . Though see discussion of what constitutes ‘gambling’ below. 13 . This is in reference to Foxy Bingo advertisements current at the time www.you- tube.com/user/FoxyBingo 14. These involve scratching off a layer of the card to reveal whether the player has won. They can also be played online in the UK. 15. In 2011, a packet of cigarettes in the UK cost around seven pounds. 16. Clotfelter and Cook observe that “The propensity to gamble at unfavorable odds was the subject of the classic article by Milton Friedman and L. J. Savage (1948). They suggested that people may perceive a disproportionate benefit to a prize that is large enough to elevate their social standing, and be willing to pay a premium for that sort of chance” (1990 , 110). 17 . A line is a set of numbers; one game. 18. “Faced with such a remote chance, people tend to assess the prospect on the basis of rough heuristics like what Tversky and Kahneman (1974) called ‘availability,’ defined as the ease with which instances of the event can be brought to mind. In the case of lotteries, the ability to visualize such instances is aided by the steady stream of winners, who are announced each week with considerable fanfare, and by the advertising of lottery agencies” ( Clotfelter and Cook 1990, 110). 19. Indeed, some ‘instant’ lotteries are not so instant at all, requiring a deal of scratching work carried out in precise ways to reveal whether the ticket is a winner. Experience was gained from a selection of tickets from Spain, the UK and Washington State in the USA. 20 . Some respondents remark that this should be done anonymously (C2677: Female, 58, Lacock; W1335: Female no age or location given). 21 . In terms of variables that seem to correlate with lottery play, McCaffery notes that education is the strongest predictor (see also Clotfelter and Cook 1990, 112; Beckert and Lutter 2012), with higher education correlating inversely with lottery play (1994 , 84) although in relation to Massachusetts at least, Jackson does not concur. “A community with high per capita lottery purchases can- not as readily be stereotyped as having a lower educational level and a higher percentage of minority residents” (1994 , 324). He does note, however, that it is increasingly attractive to the elderly. 22 . When the ‘undeserving’ do win the lottery, however, this does cause public con- sternation (see Rkaina 2014). Moreover, the undeserved receipt of winnings is linked to a more general moral decline. “I believe that gambling has added to the general attitude of self gratification (that dreaded phrase “because I’m worth it”) that has caused so much damage to British modern society” (H2447: Female, 76, Oxon). 23. Bjerg also points out how seeing contemporary capitalism in terms of poker makes clear the shortcomings of capitalism (2011). See also Graeber, who writes “Capitalism is a system that enshrines the gambler as an essential part of its operation, in a way that no other ever has” (2014 , 357). 24. It should also be remembered that this link depends on the country (and indeed the area— Wilkinson and Pickett 2009 , 162–3) in which one is born. Social mobility in Nordic countries (Norway and Denmark) is much better than in the UK and the USA (Lansley and Mack 2015) at least in part because there appears to be a link between high inequality and low mobility (Piketty 2014 , 484). Inequality has another effect in the sense that it has been found that a person perceiving their income to be lower than some reference point encourages the purchase of lottery tickets ( Haisley et al. 2008 ). It’s Better to Be Born Lucky Than Rich 193 25. The relationship between education, inequality and mobility is also complex. Piketty argues that education is no longer key to mobility (2014, 484) suggesting that this may be linked to increasing costs of Higher Education (especially in the USA 2014 , 485). On the other hand, Blanden finds that “countries with greater education spending have more mobility” while urging caution about exactly how this money should be spent (2013 , 62). 26 . For detailed, incisive and vivid accounts of what this is like in the UK see McKenzie (2015) and Seabrook (2016); for the USA, see Halpern-Meekin, Edin, Tach and Sykes (2015 ). As I have argued elsewhere, the current regime of benefit sanctions and the rules that individuals need to abide by constitute a form of public torture ( Mooney 2017a ).