There was a time when gambling was regarded as the immoral fleecing of the working man, which motivated many attempts to declare it illegal, or at minimum, confine it to a strictly controlled sphere. A mid-twentieth-century opinion held that it was better to drive it underground than to sanction the bankrupting of people with limited means lacking the fortitude of will to walk away from the racetrack or gaming table. But in the neoliberal pantheon, the person who abjectly submits to risk (even handicapped by house advantage) is a hero, not a weak-willed fool. Hence, in modern life, and in contrast with prior regimes, gambling takes on an aura of moral probity. In a sense, playing slot machines or attending betting parlors or blackjack or roulette tables is not just the privilege of the idle rich, but rather, a mass version of simulated practice for an ideal life. In the neoliberal era, the state went from trying to quarantine gambling to insinuating it into every hamlet, high street, filling station, and Indian reservation.

Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis …, loc. 345