Des théories et des pratiques ludiques: L'Éthique et la responsabilité en jeu

Abstract

The classical theories define game as a complex activity having a specific reality and benefiting from time and space external to everyday world. In the social life, the place of game is specified by culture, religion and the values of a certain period. Risk refers to chance, which distributes winnings and hands down losses in an unequal way. For a long period of time play was opposed to work, because the player did not follow the stages of the laborious course of a worker. The history of gambling shows that different societies and religious communities have regulated or prohibited its practice. In the Western World, the ethical attitude, which manifested itself in a moral form regarding passionate gamblers, was replaced by a pathological vision of the compulsive gambler during the 20th century. The current offer of gambling forms and the mediatization of the gambling practices have transformed the perception of game. The freedom to gamble is still controlled by the states, but the on line gambling operation passes laws and frontiers. In order to respond to modern individuals' desire to gamble, but also in order to avoid the social costs, the social responsibility has become the emblem of gambling offer and regulation at present.