| Abstract: | This study investigates the social construction of bingo players and bingo playing. Although gambling has largely maintained its deviant reputation, bingo, as a form of gambling, remains untainted by labels of deviance. We undertook a small ethnographic study of bingo playing in a Southwestern town. Because we had very little knowledge of bingo and bingo playing when we entered the field, our original research questions reflected the central concerns of how to play bingo, who plays bingo, and why people begin and continue playing bingo. We found that the bingo world contains a complex web of assumptions and practices surrounding who should win and how to win. Information from our informal interviews suggests that players begin playing and continue playing for the hope of winning and profit and to maintain friendship networks built through playing bingo. Four preliminary domains of analysis emerged from our data: the protocol of bingo playing; and winning; the culture and superstitions of bingo; fun, profit and bingo playing; and hints of deviance among bingo players. Each domain is critical in answering our question: What is bingo? |
