Blackjack in the Kitchen: Understanding Online Versus Casino Gambling

Abstract

About $10 billion a year is spent by consumers worldwide on online gambling, and that number continues to grow. We present a qualitative, image-based study of 30 Las Vegas online and casino gamblers. By examining online gambling as a consumption experience, we examine what happens to consumption meaning as gambling moves away from a regulated physical space to an unregulated online space, one accessed from home. We explore the meaning of online gambling consumption to consumers and flesh out the social welfare implications of our findings.