Using a rich variety of historical sources, Suzanne Morton traces the history of gambling regulation in five Canadian provinces – Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and B.C. – from the First World War to the federal legalization in 1969. This regulatory legislation, designed to control gambling, ended a long period of paradox and pretence during which gambling was common, but still illegal.

Morton skilfully shows the relationship between gambling and the wider social mores of the time, as evinced by labour, governance, and the regulation of 'vice.' Her focus on the ways in which race, class, and gender structured the meaning of gambling underpins and illuminates the historical data she presents. She shows, for example, as "Old Canada" (the Protestant, Anglo-Celtic establishment) declined in influence, gambling took on a less deviant connotation – a process that continued as charity became secularized and gambling became a lucrative fundraising activity eventually linked to the welfare state.

At Odds is the first Canadian historical examination of gambling, a complex topic which is still met by moral ambivalence, legal proscription, and volatile opinion. This highly original study will be of interest to the undergraduate history or social science student, but will also hold the attention of a more general reader.

Janet Guildford (Mount Saint Vincent University) and Suzanne Morton (McGill University) are Dalhousie University graduates who have played a leading part in regional studies and women’s history for many years. Their most recent collection is Making Up the State: Women in 20th-Century Atlantic Canada.

Suzanne Morton's profile page

• Commended, Sir John A. Macdonald Prize, Canadian Historical Association