If we accept the fact that gambling can lead to serious social problems and there are no easy solutions that can “fix” the gambling problem, then why don’t we try and migitate the harmful effects by providing a safer, goverment provided solution.
If gamblers are going to gamble anyway, why not simply have casinos that either pay out 100% and are completely public funded or rake in just enough to cover expenses or somewhere in between and you avoid sending compulsive gamblers into crippling debt which can break up families, lead to crime or drug dealing and create a generally bad social enviroment.
No, you don’t. Unless you pay out 100% of his own stake to each gambler (in which case there is no gambling involved) you still have winners and losers, and a proportion of compulsive gamblers will be losers.
State lotteries are a form of state-sponsored gambling. Most people who play them lose money and, they more they play, the more they lose.
Why would compulsive gamblers lose more than casual gamblers? They are equally likely to end up $1000 ahead than $1000 behind. I guess the problem would be if they ended up $1000 ahead the first night, spent it all on hookers and blow and then proceeded to lost $1000.
But with a payout of 100%, you don’t have the problem of compulsive gamblers betting ever increasing amounts of money in an attempt to win back their losses which is where the real damage lies. People out $1000 a night isn’t a very serious problem, people spending $100,000 trying to win back that $1000 is.
A typical casino game involves a small number of winning plays winning relatively large amounts of money, and a large number of losing plays losing relatively small amounts of money. If you adjust the overall payout from (say) 80% to 100%, you’ll have a slightly larger number of winning plays and a slighly smaller number of losing plays, or the same number of winning plays but slightly bigger payouts, or the same number of losing plays but slighly smaller losses, or some combination of these. But my original statement will remain true; you’ll have a large number of losing plays and a small number of lucrative winning plays.
True, if you play for long enough and have a deep enough pocket, sooner or later you can expect to break even, but that won’t stop compulsive gamblers from running up losses that they can’t sustain before they succeed in breaking even. Moreover, compulsive gamblers don’t gamble to recover their losses; they gamble because they are addicted and, if they do succeed in recovering their losses, they will typically keep gambling. Do that often enough and it is likely that one day you will hit a losing streak that you cannot sustain.
The only sustainable form of gambling is never, ever, ever to place a stake unless you can afford lose it, and walk away from the loss. The compulsive gambler is incapable of this, so his gambling is unsustainable. Changing the overall payout from 80% to 100% won’t alter this. People will still place stakes they cannot afford to lose, and then lose them.
Yes, I admit there is still some harm that can arise from government sponsered casino in the same way that people on methadone can still suffer from drug abuse, but what it does stop is the exponential increase in debt caused by compulsive gamblers trying to recoup their losses. A system could easily be set up so that, statistically, less than 1% of people ever go more than $10,000 in debt over the course of a year. At that level, debt can still be taken care of without resorting to theft, drug dealing or broken families or other symptoms of spiralling debt.
Isn’t there a whole lot of new “harm minimisation” legislation passed in recent years (in Australia) aimed at precisely this?
There’s only one major casino in each Territory, and the tax revenues are awesome, so that’s a large tourism benefit to the community, no? The membership-required clubs act as regional resorts and make facilities available to the communities they’re in (I was an honorary member of the Rooty Hill RSL club a couple years ago).
I’m biased towards the industry, as I live in Las Vegas and work for an Australian manufacturer of gaming equipment
who needs more than one casino when ppl can gamble away their livelihoods at local clubs who dont care? i like gambling as much as anyone else, but how selfish can people be that theyll fight for all these pokie machines that ruin peoples lives. i dont care if its their fault, the same principle applies to drugs, both are addictive and affect more than the addicted person alone, so ban both. i personally can go without to help those who cant. a government sponsored casino is still going to cause problems, and thus shouldnt happen, just like they make drugs illegal.
Well, to begin with, why should we expect the government to fix social problems like gambling? The government should pass laws and enforce them, not be a nanny to citizens.
The US government* is notoriously bad at “fixing” social issues. Government programs rarely work, never ever go away and cost way too much money. The most effecive treatment for alcoholism is AA. The most effective treament for drug addiction is NA. I am willing to bet the best treatment for gambling addiction is Gamblers Anonymous.
I have not been to a GA meeting but I am willing to bet that gambling addiction is just like every other addiction in that the addict will seek help only when they hit rock bottom. Until that happens the addict is going to go on doing what they must to sustain the addiction and almost nothing will stop them**.
Slee
A proud member of AA.
*I know about US governemnt programs. I don’t know about other countries but I would suspect that other countries governments are just as bad as the US when it comes to these kind of things.
**I have met a few people who got into recovery for alcohol or drugs before hitting rock bottom. It happens but not very often.
All one has to do is submit oneself to the exclusion list at the casino, and turn in the membership card for the club, and the problem is solved. Be Your Own Government.
By regulating them and through the collection of gaming tax revenue, Australian and U.S. casinos are already effectively “government sponsored”. The government of Australia (NSW, as far as I know, anyway) has passed some “harm minimisation” laws aimed at reducing the impact of gambling on the community. No increased numbers of pokie machines (slot machines, mostly video - by way of explanation to non-Australians), and wholly prohibiting the advertising of any sort of gambling.
I’m going to have to disagree that the individual must always be strictly protected from his own choices by the government. I believe that if aspects of a legal action is deemed harmful to society, government should be able to progressively dissuade the action while not depriving society of the benefits of keeping the action legal.
Here is a simplistic table of examples I made up:
(action) (good for society) (bad for society) (an example of government mitigation)
gambling tax revenue broken homes harm minimisation laws
gun ownership crime resistance empowered criminals registration
drinking alcohol personal comfort too many to list stiff drink-driving penalties
smoking personal comfort early death bans on smoking in some public places
