The Bitter Price of Gambling
Bobby was found dead in a car parked on a north London street. Only 23 years of age, he had committed suicide.
The elderly man had been sleeping on the streets for some time before appearing at a welfare center. He was very weak, as he had not eaten for four days, nor had he taken his prescribed medicine for a heart condition.
Emilio, father of five, was heartbroken. He had been deserted by his wife and children. Now they refused even to talk to him.
A SUICIDE, a vagrant, and a rejected father: three sad cases, apparently unrelated but not uncommon in present-day society. But each tragedy had a common factor—an addiction to gambling.
Many compulsive gamblers refuse to admit they have a problem, and family members often cover up for them to avoid the social stigma. But every day millions of households throughout the world face anguish and despair because of this destructive addiction.
Nobody knows how many compulsive gamblers there are. For the United States, ten million is considered a conservative estimate. The numbers are alarming and are escalating everywhere as gambling opportunities multiply in country after country. Compulsive gambling has been described as “the fastest growing addiction.”
Many of the new addicts started off as casual gamblers who just wanted to “try their luck.” Then they got swept along into the nightmare of gambling addiction.
When Gambling Gets Out Of Control
What changes casual gamblers into compulsive ones? The causes vary, but in one way or another, gamblers arrive at a point in their lives when they feel they cannot live without gambling. (See box on page 7.) Some discover in gambling an excitement that is missing in their lives. One gambler explained: “It doesn’t really matter to me whether I win or lose. When I make a bet, especially if I wager more than those around me, I feel that I’m the most important person in the world. People respect me. I feel so excited!”
Others turn to gambling out of loneliness or depression. Ester, mother of four, was married to a military man who was often away from home. She felt lonely and started to play slot machines in amusement arcades. Before long, she was playing several hours every day. The shopping money was soon lost, and the problems multiplied. She tried to keep her losses from her husband while frantically trying to borrow money from banks or others to maintain her 200 dollar-a-day addiction.
There are also those whose obsession was triggered by a big win. Robert Custer, an authority on compulsive gambling, explains: “It is generally those who win early and consistently in their gambling career who become the compulsive gamblers.” Thereafter, the desire to keep winning becomes overpowering.
Superstition’s Subtle Snare
Many gamblers are swayed by hunches rather than logic. Simple arithmetic should deter a would-be gambler if he were ruled by reason alone. To illustrate, in the United States, the chances of being killed by lightning are about 1 in 1,700,000. Winning a State lottery is at least twice as remote.
Who expects to be struck by lightning? Only an incurable pessimist. Yet, nearly everyone who buys a lottery ticket dreams of his number coming up. True, a lottery win is a more appealing prospect, but the reason many hope in the near hopeless is superstition. Their choice of favorite “lucky numbers” convinces them that they may well beat the odds.—See box on page 8.
Claudio Alsina, a Spanish mathematician, has pointed out that if casinos and lotteries were to use letters instead of numbers in games of chance, the possibilities of winning would remain exactly the same, but the magic—and likely a fair proportion of the receipts—would disappear. The fascination certain numbers exert is extraordinary. The numbers 9, 7, 6 and 0 are favorites with some, while others choose their “lucky number” from such things as a birthday or a horoscope reading. And there are those who are guided by some bizarre happening.
One day a man had a disagreeable surprise as he approached the Monte Carlo casino. A pigeon flying overhead soiled his hat. That same day he won $15,000. Convinced that the pigeon droppings were a favorable omen, he never entered the casino again without first wandering around outside in hopes of receiving another “sign from heaven.” Thus, superstition deludes many gamblers into thinking that a winning streak will never end. However, this is often accompanied by the merciless grip of an obsession that controls them and that may finally consume them.
For the Love of Money
People gamble to win money, big money if possible. But in the case of the compulsive gambler, the money he wins acquires a special magic. In his eyes, as Robert Custer explains, “money is importance. . . . Money is friendship. . . . Money is medicine.” And why does money mean so much to him?
In gambling circles, people admire the big winner or the big spender. They want to be around him. Thus, the money he has won tells the gambler that he is somebody, that he is smart. The money also makes him forget his problems, helps him relax, and gives him a lift. In the words of researcher Jay Livingston, compulsive gamblers “put all their emotional eggs in the money basket.” It is a tragic error.
When the bubble bursts and he loses again and again, money becomes even more important. Now he desperately wants to get back what he has lost. How can he scrape together enough money to pay his creditors, to recapture that winning streak? Before long his life degenerates into a constant search for cash.
Such a wretched plight is a fact of life for millions of gamblers. They come from both sexes, from all age groups, and from all walks of life. And anyone is vulnerable, as can be seen by the recent surge of gambling addiction among teenagers and housewives.
Teenage and Housewife Addicts
Youngsters are easy prey for the fascinating slot machines or other games of chance that give them the prospect of quick money. A survey in an English city revealed that 4 out of 5 of the 14-year-olds played slot machines regularly and that most had started by the age of 9. Some were skipping school to gamble. A survey of U.S. high school students revealed that 6 percent “showed signs of probable pathological gambling.”
Manuel Melgarejo, president of a self-help group made up of ex-gamblers in Madrid, Spain, explained to Awake! that an impressionable youngster can be hooked by winning just one hefty jackpot on a slot machine. Overnight, gambling becomes a pastime and a passion. Before long, the young addict may be selling family heirlooms or stealing from the family, even turning to petty thievery or prostitution to finance the addiction.
Experts are also noting a significant increase in the number of housewives who are compulsive gamblers. In the United States, for example, women now represent about 30 percent of the total number of compulsive gamblers, but it is estimated that by the year 2000, this will have risen to 50 percent.
María, a working-class mother of two girls, is typical of many housewives who have become compulsive gamblers. Over the last seven years, she has spent $35,000—mainly household money—on bingo and on slot machines. “The money is gone forever,” she sighs. “I just long for the day when I can enter a café with $50 in my purse and have the strength to spend it on my children [instead of putting it in a slot machine].”
Dreams That Become Nightmares
Dreams are the stuff that gambling is built on. For some gamblers, dreams of wealth are transitory, but for the compulsive ones, they become his obsession, an obsession he pursues relentlessly, into the jaws of bankruptcy, prison, and even death.
Gambling promises to fill legitimate needs—an agreeable pastime, a little excitement, some extra money, or an escape from everyday worries—but the hidden price may prove exorbitant, as compulsive gamblers have discovered to their sorrow. Can these needs be satisfied elsewhere?
[Box on page 7]
Portrait of a Compulsive Gambler
THE gambler keeps gambling regardless of how much he loses. If he does win, he uses the money to continue gambling. While he may claim that he can stop whenever he wishes, the compulsive gambler who has money in his pocket will not go but a few days without betting on something. He has a pathological urge to gamble.
He constantly incurs debts. When he is unable to pay his creditors, he frantically borrows more money to cover the most pressing debts and to keep on gambling. Sooner or later he becomes dishonest. He may even gamble away his employer’s money. Usually, he ends up being dismissed from his job.
Everything, even his wife and children, becomes subservient to his gambling. His compulsion inevitably leads to marital strife and may finally result in separation or divorce.
Intense feelings of guilt make him become more and more introverted. He finds it difficult to relate to other people. Eventually, he suffers severe depression and possibly even tries to commit suicide; he can see no other way out of his dilemma.
[Box/Picture on page 8]
The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo
CHARLES WELLS, an Englishman, visited the Monte Carlo casino in July 1891. In just a few days, he converted ten thousand francs into a million, and astonishingly, he repeated the feat four months later. Many other gamblers tried to discover his “system” but to no avail. Wells always insisted that he never had one. In fact, the next year he lost all his money, and he died penniless. Ironically, the episode turned out to be a publicity coup for the casino. It acquired an international fame that it has never lost.
The Monte Carlo Fallacy
Many gamblers believe that slot machines or roulette wheels have a memory. Thus, the roulette player may assume that if a certain sequence of numbers has come up so far, the odds are that the wheel will continue to favor numbers that correspond to that sequence. Similarly, some who play the slot machines take for granted that if the jackpot has not been won for some time on a particular machine, it must come up soon. Such wrong assumptions are called the Monte Carlo fallacy.
Both the roulette wheel and the mechanism that allots the jackpot of the slot machine work entirely by chance. Thus, what may have happened earlier is irrelevant. In these games of chance, as The New Encyclopædia Britannica points out, “each play has the same probability as each of the others of producing a given outcome.” So the odds against winning are exactly the same each time. The Monte Carlo fallacy, however, has ruined many a gambler while filling the coffers of the casinos.