Fast Money Schemes Are Risky Business: Gamblers and Investors in a Papua New Guinean Ponzi Scheme

Abstract

Gambling and financial investment have a long shared history, with many convergences and many moments where each has defined the other as its opposite. In the contemporary Pacific, not least among evangelical Christians, gambling is often understood as wasteful entertainment and even as an irresponsible vice. Investment on the other hand is seen as a productive activity for both individuals and society at large. These moral concerns draw on discourses of proprietorship of the self, of money and of risk. This paper explores moral attitudes to gambling/investment among middle-class investors in a mass Ponzi scheme in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and charts new valorizations of risk and investment as components of the construction of modern 'financial selves'.