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SBC WGES Live Blog Wednesday – Keynote address: the History & Future of Luck : Is Luck Becoming Obsolete? And Where Does this Leave Gaming?
- Session – WGES Customers & Strategy -9:00 CET
- Topic – Keynote Address for Day1
- Session Speaker – Kevin Slavin, MIT Labs, TED.com Technology Speaker
Session Summary:
In this session popular technology/ E-business expert and self described start-up raconteur Kevin Slavin, addresses the theme of luck in society and culture with regards to popular entertainment, popular hobbies or as means of personal gain. The speaker examines the reasons for their raise in popularity within all cultures and societies regardless of factors such as political alignment, religion or cultural intricacies. Finally Slavin further examines the tricky relationship between businesses that promote games of chance and their governance, answering whether in big business such as igaming – will luck become obsolete?
SBC Key Session Notes
- Slavin opens address by briefing the audience on games of chance and luck,throughout the history of mankind. Slavin addresses that these may have had a wager element attached to them in some type of form, but these games do not necessarily attribute themselves as gambling. Their popularity is driven by the possibility that the players choice or selection may simply be right or wrong, or good or bad – hence the driver of entertainment is chance/luck.
- Speaker comments on the historical persecution of chance games by governments, seeing this as the conflict between chance and the society’s / governments need for control.
- Slavin states that society and governance feels that it has to bring order and a form of balance to all forms of popular cultural trends. This can have a negative impact on society if undertaken the wrong way – look at prohibition in the USA as an example. Games of chance by their nature will always cause a certain amount of panic in governments
- Slavin ends his talk by addressing that governance of luck and games of chance will likely become uniformed, with one governance body copying other regulations that they deem to be a success upon a culturally similar society. This uniformed thinking will have a negative impact as governments will dictate to business, who in the speakers opinion should be deemed as independent thinkers, The likelihood is that luck may become standardized, thus shredding some of its entertainment value to society.
Kevin Slavin
