Roulettenburg

"Roulettenburg" is a documentary photography project about gambling in Germany. The work shows places of gambling and people whose lives are connected to gambling in different ways.

It is not only about individual fates, but about a system that is visible everywhere and yet conceals so much. Gambling is advertised, regulated and made accessible. What can arise from it often remains hidden for a long time. Shame in particular means that losses, debt or a loss of control are often only spoken about when it is already too late.

For the project, conversations were held with people with lived experience of addiction, gamblers, relatives, researchers, a therapist, and people from the gambling industry. From these perspectives, the work develops a view of the tension between public staging and personal withdrawal.

"Roulettenburg" asks why gambling is so attractive, how this attraction is produced, and why its consequences often only become visible once much has already been lost.