Las Vegas in Singapore: Casinos and the Taming of Vice
Journal: eScholarship (California Digital Library)
Year: 2012

This dissertation investigates the historical formation of the modern casino as a "dividing practice" that cuts society along moral, legal and economic lines. It analyzes specific episodes in Singapore's and Las Vegas' histories when the moral problem of vice was transformed into a series of practical interventions devised by lawyers, detectives, architects and bureaucrats to criminalize and legalize gambling. Spatial containment and aesthetic form are key considerations and techniques in these