A touch of luck and a “real taste of Vegas”: a sensory ethnography of the Montreal Casino

ABSTRACT

In recent years, there has been an explosion of “experiential design” in casinos, driven in part by research suggesting that curating gambling sensescapes can lure patrons to spend more time – and money – inside the casino. Building on the promise of existing casino ethnographies, this paper argues that a sensory ethnographic approach to the study of gambling environments can offer valuable insight into the experiential design and mood management of the casino. We use sensory ethnography to explore the ambiance of the Montreal Casino, particularly during the casino’s “Vegas Nights” promotion. How does the casino feel (and how does it touch back)? What rhythms flow through its neon labyrinth? What does “getting a real taste of Vegas,” well … taste like? Moreover, we position this ambiance at the center of the casino’s “push-and-pull” approach to problem gambling – where this government-affiliated sensory extravaganza must toe a tenuous line between attraction and responsibilisation. In addition, we examine how the ambiance of the casino is co-produced by patrons and employees. Ultimately, we argue that the casino floor is unlike a sensory research laboratory – for here, sensations mix and mingle, and it takes a sensory ethnographer to quite literally “make sense” of the casino ambiance and its impact on visitor experience.     

Software Review: Linksys Wireless Network

This follow-up longitudinal study examined 86 social service agency websites that were previously examined in 2000. The websites were examined on dimensions of the language, readability, and disability access over a 10-year period. Data were gathered in 2000, 2005, and 2010. The results indicate that agencies are not creating websites that are user-friendly for diverse populations. This is due to complex reading and comprehension levels and a lack of language opportunities on the websites. Agencies may be able to better serve clients by a decrease in the sophistication of the agency website, namely reading comprehension levels.     

A decision theoretic approach to ridits

Since its inception, ridit analyses has been in widespread use in epidemic-logic studies where the data are ordered but are not on an interval scale. However, no mathematical properties of ridits have been given. In this paper, we use a squared error loss function to show that, for a particular class of distribution functions, ridits form a best invariant estimate of the unknown distribution function. Under another class of distribution functions, we derive another estimate, m-ridits, of the distribution function. Data are used to compare these two scores with the scores obtained from the empirical distribution function and the original scores used on the data. The results indicate that, although these scores are numerically different, the same inferences can be drawn.     

Expansion of psychiatric services to the community

This paper describes an experiential model for teaching final year social work students how to deal with feeling issues in practice. It focuses on the middle phase of intervention primarily, using an outside person role playing a client in a classroom setting. The aim of the model is to enhance the students' ability in learning advanced empathic skills.     

ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS AND SCHOOL SEGREGATION IN HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA, 1987–1999

This article draws upon the political economy and urban ecology of race perspectives to examine trends in school segregation for schools located various distances from environmental hazards. We study trends in segregation among eighty-four public grade schools between the years of 1987 and 1999 in the Hillsborough County (Florida) School District. After controlling for the percentage of students eligible for free lunch, we find that grade schools nearer to environmental hazards became disproportionately black and Hispanic while grade schools situated farther from hazards became disproportionately white. These results are consistent with a political economy of race perspective. We argue that the observed relationship between public school racial and ethnic composition and environmental hazards is likely the result of long-term historical processes that shaped geographic patterns of racial segregation.     

Cohort and life-course patterns in the relationship between education and health: A hierarchical approach

Recent medical sociological research has examined whether the relationship between education and health is dynamic across age, whereas recent demographic research has examined whether the relationship varies across cohorts. In this study, I examine how cohort structures the influence of education on life-course health trajectories. At the cohort level, changes in education and in the distribution of health and mortality make cohort differences in education's effect probable. At the life-course level, the effect of education may vary across age because the mediators of the education-health relationship may vary in their relevance to health across the life course. Using basic regression analyses and random-effects models of two national data sets, I find that the effect of education strengthens across age, that this pattern is becoming stronger across cohorts, and that these patterns are suppressed when either effect is ignored.