I got interested in studying Singapore’s national lottery in the course of trying to understand the history of the criminalization of gambling. Clearly, these two processes are interconnected – in Singapore as in elsewhere, it was through legalization that the state starved the underworld of a lucrative source of revenue. This logic of substitution raises all kinds of ideological contradictions since the state must prove continuously that its intervention actually reduces or maintains the amount of gambling among the population (similar to the principle of “unstimulated demand” adopted in the UK) and that the revenue collected must go towards good causes. In other words, in performing the role of what it criminalizes, the state cannot be seen to promote gambling or profit excessively from it. This set of contradictions is not universal – in the case of the US, for example, casino gambling run by private corporations experience no such moral qualms (at least until something bad happens … and we must see the current turn towards “responsible gambling” as an attempt to moralize in the (neo)liberal tradition). It also does not apply to the colonial period – while gambling farms were created to stem the spread of illegal gambling and its associated socio-political problems, especially the secret societies, there were no compunctions on how much the colonial state could earn from it, or whether or not such revenues were put to “good” causes. I think it is fair to say that while the moral dimension is always at play, it is in how it intersects with political economy that produces rather different kinds of contradictions.
In Singapore, there are two organizations that run large scale lotteries – Singapore Turf Club and Singapore Pools. Though both are private companies, they are governed by strict legislations that place much of the gambling revenue under the control of the Singapore Totalisator Board. Pools was set up after independence in 1968 as a way to raise funds to build the National Stadium and promote a sporting culture amongst the people (again, there are many parallels with other countries where state lotteries were crucial to the nation-building project, Brazil being a prime example). The Turf Club is a colonial legacy that reaches back more than a hundred years. Yet, its current incarnation is far removed from its original constitution and purpose. By the late 90s, this venerable club had been incorporated fully into the channels of state control – it can hardly be called a “private club” anymore.
I was interested in how the history of these two organizations and their activities (more Pools than the Turf Club) set the stage for what happened in 2007 when two casino licenses were approved in Singapore. Though many would see 2007 as an unprecedented moment in the history of Singapore, I thought that the key logics and contradictions of the casino debates are very similar to what happened in the 1960s when the government tried to legalize the national lottery. Furthermore, I was convinced that if we look closely at the material manifestations of the national lottery and how it changed over 40 years, we can ask if a certain gambling culture has developed around its visible but stigmatized status, and if this pre-existing context had some bearing on the development of the Integrated Resorts. It is in these terms that I started mapping a few things – 1. the flow of money from gambling to the state to nation-building projects; 2. the geographical distribution and aesthetics of lottery stations and other public events related to the national lottery; 3. the architectural products of gambling revenue, such as the National Stadium and other sporting facilities. As a whole, I thought of these as forming a symbolic system that transforms “bad” money to “good” money. I even have a sexy term for it – “moral laundering”. It is copyrighted, by the way. (ferocious face).
My research assistant, Tammy Lepham, and I used the addresses listed on the official website of Singapore Pools in 2010 to draw up this map. It shows all the outlets where one can participate in games such as Toto, Singapore Sweep, horse-racing and sports lottery. We also included the Turf Club, the two Integrated Resorts and the Singapore Pools headquarters where the weekly public lottery draws are conducted. We did not manage to find data that allow us to show this distribution over time. Nevertheless, the ubiquity of opportunities to gamble isn’t too surprising to me – the logic of substitution and the moral judgment that people will always gamble drove the state to locate legalized gambling wherever a market exists. In other words, one can always find a lottery station in every housing estate and center of commerce. The only spaces where these stations are barred from being located within a specific radius are places of worship and schools (and possibly other public institutions). The follow-up question is how this proliferation has assimilated into everyday life to the extent that it has become more or less invisible. This will require a more detailed visual analysis of the actual stations and public draw events. But for now, this map is quite fascinating… and is worth sharing.
