Based on the theory of communicative constructivism and on field observations conducted over several months in arcades, this chapter proposes that, rather than conceptualising such voluntary risk-taking as ‘addiction’, passionate gambling with money can be better understood as ‘edgework’. In evaluating different forms of edgework, I argue that society socially sanctions some costly forms of voluntary risk-taking (carried out chiefly by the middle classes), while readily labelling other forms of edgework, especially those practiced by the working classes, as pathological and grounds for medical intervention. In this way, passionate gambling at slot machines can also be seen as a resistance by the less privileged to the principles of meritocracy.