The weight of evidence suggests that differences in laws governing the responsibilities, roles, and obligations of private police and concepts of loss prevention, market accountability, and the preservation of private interests represent a substantial departure from the centralized, objective, impartial, and obligatory community service philosophies that underpin State policing. However, critical discussions of private policing continually overlook the range of operational similarities shared by State and private police and their impact on communities who attend various entertainment venues. The author emphasizes the importance of context in examining the order maintenance functions of State and private crowd management services, drawing on data from two major and culturally diverse sporting event sites in Melbourne, Australia. The author contends that future research assessing the outcomes of State and private order maintenance services at entertainment venues needs to be cognizant of event culture, site-specific roles and cultures of both forms of policing, and the interaction between these variables at each event setting. 60 references