CALL FOR PAPERS (2006)  
   
When gambling, a bettor voluntarily places his or her "net worth" at risk  The wheel is
spun and "net worth" increases . . .  or decreases!
   
Some neoclassical economists were puzzled about this behavior and were tempted to describe
bettors as "irrational."  Apparently with the gaming industry in the United States now
grossing revenues in excess of  $25 billion dollars a year, and even the conservative
city-state of Singapore is starting a casino to bolster state revenues as well as attract
fun-loving tourists from Malaysia, Macao and other "high-roller" spots, the age of
gaming/gambling has arrived.
   
Gambling practices vary from mere entertainment to a calculated fiscal alternative to
taxation. The gambling sector is so well established that the world of casino gambling
sometimes seems an alternative universe to the hedging mechanisms that are vital to the
world of finance and global exchange. Wealth redistribution has never been more glamorous
and for every hedger seeking to avoid risk, there seems to be many others looking for the
chance to venture into the world of casino risk. Even business students fumble for words
when asked to distinguish gambling from investing.
   
Those who set the odds facing the bettors--the real entrepreneurial wizards of the gaming
industry--use a variety of psychological strategies, strategic misrepresentations and
mental heuristics to relieve otherwise rational economic men and women of their wealth.
On the other hand, there is a growing backlash of savvy bettors that are not above what
the gambling experts called "advantage playing" (also known as "cheating the house") and
who when the situation is right and the pickings are there do just that.   This is a
fascinating industry in which the regulators have a definite conflict of financial
interest when they regulate to "protect the public" from the ravages of lady luck.
   
This issue of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology (AJES) will combine papers
on the subject of gaming/gambling from a variety of different perspectives and different
research methodologies in the social sciences.
   
The AJES celebrates its 65th year of continuous publication as a quarterly in 2006.  All
those with a scholarly interest in this subject are encouraged to submit an abstract to
Professor Laurence S. Moss at [log in to unmask]  Commissioned papers are still subject to
blind refereeing always in keeping with the usual protocols of scholarly publishing.  The
papers will be edited with a scholarly index in 2006 and published in both the journal and
hard/soft copy forms in January 2007.  The publisher is Blackwell Publishers of Oxford,
England and Malden, Massachusetts.
  
  
Larry Moss