Ambiguity and Abjection: Residents’ Reactions to a New Urban Casino

Abstract

While the social and economic costs and benefits of new gambling locations have been studied extensively, less is known about how new venues are experienced in view of city residents’ spatial and sociocultural identities. This study examines residents’ opinions and expectations on a new small-scale casino in the City of Tampere, Finland, as a case of new gambling opportunities in an urban setting. Nine focus group interviews were conducted with 43 Tampere residents three years prior to the scheduled casino opening. The study points out ways in which the residents struggled conceptually with the casino project. When speaking about it, participants drew on imagery from popular culture, drawing a sharp line between casino gambling and the everyday convenience gambling so omnipresent in Finnish society. As residents of a historical industrial urban region, the participants positioned themselves as critical of the municipality’s aims to brand the venue in a larger experience economy entity. By drawing on the concepts of city image and city identity, this study is able to demonstrate that the cultural geographical intrusion of new physical gambling spaces can appear to be harmful to the city character. In this case, that harm is likely to hamper the success of the City of Tampere’s experience market, of which the new casino is part.