Gambling: The Aristocratic Play

Aristocrats' gaming grew more moderate on the eve of the nineteenth century.

But, it had prevailed in England for at least two hundred years.

Johan Huizinga accounted for the genteel preoccupation with gambling when he explained how the nobility's understanding of virtue, the trait which set aristocrats apart from the rest of the society, had changed over the centuries.

Medieval noblemen proved their virtue through chivalrous conduct, 'by being brave and vindicating their honour'.

After the Middle Ages, the meaning of virtue changed and the nobility adopted different means of demonstrating bravery and garnering esteem.

Writing almost as if he had in mind, English peers after the sixteenth century, Huizinga suggested that early modern aristocrats might content themselves with cultivating an outward semblance of high living and spotless honor by means of pomp, magnificence and courtly manners.

For English noblemen between 1550 and 1800, gambling provided both a forum for high living and a context for honorable ritual and brave behavior.

Encouraged by a rising culture of capitalism in Britain that increased the fascination with risk and reward, the aristocracy patronized gaming pastimes as its own and gave then a legitimacy, an association with virtue, that ensured their endearment to other Englishmen as well.

The lifestyle of the 'idle and exhibitionist society' of peers, and its cultural imperative to live conspicuously, contributed to the fondness for gambling.

The 'triple vices' of 'idleness', 'pride', and 'avarice', so characteristic of courtly manners, encouraged not merely betting but heavy betting.

After the 1720s, aristocratic play grew even more notorious when it became institutionalized in the genteel clubs of London.

Establishments like White's and Almack's arose out of the commercial tradition of the metropolitan coffeehouse.

White's started as a coffeehouse open to all classes during the late seventeenth century. It became exclusive in the early part of the next century as noble patrons disassociated themselves from the 'infamous sharpers' who had also frequented the place and cheated peers out of their money.

Nonetheless, the heavy bets made inside White's did not remain private; indeed, gentleman played not so much to win, but to achieve wide visibility, perhaps the central purpose of high living.

The oligarchy's domination of gambling was but one more instance of hierarchical ties continuing to prevail throughout the island culture.

Try as they might, English colonists could not duplicate the leadership of the nobility in the New World, where the imperial frontier militated against both aristocracy itself and the sort of cohesion imposed by the elite on British society.

The availability of horses in the New World exemplified the situation. Whereas ownership of horses in England had been a privilege, the beasts multiplied so quickly in the colonies that they became a common export item.

The environment of the New World seemed to work against most forms of exclusiveness.