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Although social sciences generally approach gambling from the perspective of addiction, with a focus on public health issues, this article invites us to consider gambling as a research subject in itself, with different dimensions being discussed and suggested. This exploratory immersion in the world of gambling, based on investigations conducted in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, proposes in particular to probe the concrete and essentially urban forms of the emergence and development of games of chance in West African societies.