Eyes Down

Using legislation, case law, and official records (including Hansard), Chapter 2 outlines the early history of state intervention into bingo in England and Wales. The chapter traces the gradual liberalization of restrictions on small-scale gambling, and the subsequent backlash against bingo in the 1960s. It also tells a new story about gambling regulation and political economy. In particular, it excavates the key role of mutual aid to elite debates about the proper place of gambling in national life. Although many authors have argued that disavowal of gambling helped legitimize the forms of collective insurance developed by early friendly societies and similar associations, the chapter shows that gambling played a key role—as entertainment and mutual aid—within working men’s clubs, and that it was promoted by the state. This mutual aid dimension of gambling was heavily conflicted in gendered terms. Lawmakers were lobbied by bingo-organizing men, with women’s interests at least one step removed from Hansard. Unequal gender roles were hereby woven into dominant understandings of small-scale gambling.