News from money games research

India, Korea and - gambling. Those have been the three subjects of my research for the last five years. The connection between the three in my research has been the fact that they have dealt with the new media culture. In India I studied mobile phones, in Korea mobiles and internet, and in gambling especially online poker. My gambling culture research received a boost a few weeks ago when I got a grant from the Finnish Foundation for Gaming Research. According to my research plan, I will eventually write a book about online poker as a cultural phenomenon. The book will include most of my research up to date, extended revisions of my columns for Poker Magazine and Pokerilehti as well as a year-long online gaming diary of a gambling rookie - me. In the meantime, if you are interested in gambling research, you can read one of my latest publications on poker.

Moderate Expectations: The Case of a Normal, Level-Headed Semi-Professional Online Poker Player and His Family in Global Media Journal (Polish Edition). 

I will also give a presentation about my recent studies (including the themes of my upcoming book) on online poker at Nordic DiGRA 2012 in Tampere, Finland in June as well as at the 9th European Conference on Gambling Studies and Policy Issues in Loutraki, Greece in September.

Moreover, a chapter by me and Dr. Perpetual Crentsil titled Ethnography on Immigrant Gambling and Online Poker for a book edited by Prof. Pauliina Raento will come out this summer by Gaudeamus.

And for the last issue of this update, I will (finally) revise and resubmit my manuscript for Visual Culture and Gender. The text is titled Signs of Battle and Joy: Observations of Gender in Online Poker Imagery and will analyze poker advertisements in the Finnish edition of Poker Magazine as well as apply Jean Baudrillard's and Umberto Eco's views of hyperreality while at it.