Bricker when you say gambling, are you separating the guy who walks in with a roll of quarters, plays and goes home from the guy who maxes out his credit card and can’t pay it?
I don’t, I consider the industry to be built on the backs of pathological gambler who just can’t stop, as opposed to the busload of little old ladies with their $10.00 roll of quarters. They all make up the industry, the question is which group really represents the true face of it?
Before I attack the conclusions… I assume you also accept Family.org’s truthfulness as to issues concerning homosexuality, abortion, marriage, and constitututional interpretation?
Or are they right only about gambling, and wrong about these other issues?
It seems somewhat disingenuous of you to quote a source that, in other cirucmstances, I believe you would be heartily rejecting.
All of those quotes speak to a person with a gambling addiction. In Bricker’s case, he sounds as if he gambles as a form of entertainment and knows when to say, “Well, that was fun, but that’s enough of that…”. How is his gambling causing urban blight, increased prostitution, and other of society’s ills?
Gambling to me is like drinking. Yes, done to excess it damages individuals and their families and, by extension, society. On the other hand, the American reaction to it – make it illegal, but turn a blind eye to church bingo and office football pools – makes no sense to me. People can and will do anything to excessive levels and can make addictions out of anything.
I’ll be honest. I enjoy gambling. Actually, I enjoy any kind of gaming or competition, and beating the gentleman in my life at backgammon when the stakes were Ghirardelli chocolate was just as satisfying as beating my uncle at backgammon when the stakes were British Pounds. To me, gambling is like playing video games. I expect to come away with less money than when I went in (although that hasn’t always been the case), but I expect the pleasure I derive to be worth the money I spend. I’ve never gambled more than I could afford to lose, nor do I intend to. If anyone cares to tell me that I inevitably will, I warn you, I consider that just as insulting as telling me that because I enjoy the odd glass of wine I will inevitably become an alcoholic.
Come on, folks! Some people go to church and become religious fanatics, out to proselytize everyone in sight. Should we therefore outlaw religion?
Respectfully,
CJ
Legalized prostitution, such as is practiced in Holland or Nevada, is probably not a social ill. Regulation of the industry - including medical exams for the sex providers and circumstances that remove much of the desperation inherent in the drug-addicted-street-walker model - removes those aspects of prostitution that turn it into a social ill. I painted with too broad a brush when I said “prostitution.”
Your visit to a legal brothel represents no great social ill.
Your pick-up of an underage street-walker, desperately trying to accumulate enough money to buy heroin, represents social ill.
Good question.
“Vice” and “morality” haven’t really come into play in this discussion as yet. I’d like to hold off defining them until such time as someone makes it necessary by relying on one of those words in support of a point.
“Social ill” is certainly key to this discussion already. As a working definition, I’d propose the following, and I welcome comments on it:
The source I was quoting is the NGISC, I merely linked to family.org to save people the trouble of having to download the PDF. and you did note, that I said it was bias, right?
This isn’t about Bricker, it’s about the institution of gambling.
I’m not so sure about that. Tunica, Mississipi has some awfully nice schools and civic centers that weren’t there before the casinos moved in. The casino employs people, maybe not all of them have great high paying jobs but we’re talking about a small town in Mississippi so you take what you can get. The economy gets an additional boost as non gambling businesses move into the area, such as their outlet mall and non Casino hotels. Most of the people coming to the casino are from outside the county and probably from places like Arkansas, Missouri and Tennessee so you’re generating tax revenue from someone elses cookie jar.
I can see why some areas like casinos.
Marc
I was using him as an example of someone who is not a compulsive gambler as represented in the cite you provided. Don’t be obtuse.
Do you include stock-broking in the definition of gambling? How about investment? Mortgaging your home a second time to set up your own business? If these aren’t gambles what are they?
Gambling is not destructive to society. Gambling is simply structured risk taking. Everyone takes risks at some point or other. Sometimes for money, sometimes for love, status or just for fun. But always in the hope that it’ll pay off and they’ll be better off. We co-operate with others on the agreement, and risk, that they’ll return the favour. It’s a gamble, sometimes they don’t. If we weren’t by basic nature gamblers, we would never have left the primeval soup.
Far from being destructive to society, gambling is what has made society.
Gambling is, however, destructive to some individuals and to those around them. This can’t be denied. But what you gonna do? If they weren’t gambling, they’re the sort of addictive personalities that would be taking risks (with money or other things) some other way. It’s a price we pay.
Oh by the way Bricker, I can assume that since you don’t agree with Family.org stance on gambling, you course disagree with everything else they have to say too. I mean, I wouldn’t want to think you have different rules for yourself and everybody else.
Or could it be, that people have to ability to agree with a group on one issue and not another?
I would suggest that debt is the cause of increased social ills, and one can get into debt in all manner of ways, gambling being only one (business failure, arguably a form of gambling itself, being a significant culprit.) I would actually advocate the teaching of mathematics in school to compulsarily include a module demonstrating the statistical fallacies which distinguish those who gamble away sustainable sums for pleasure from those who risk losses they simply cannot accomodate.
I see a fair dealing/consumer protection issue with regard to gambling (at least, casino gambling). The casinos benefit from a combination of cultural myth and promotion that strongly implies that anyone can walk into a casino and hit it big. They also benefit from a basic flaw in the workings of the human mind that leads most people to misapprehend their chances.
I’d be for regulation to counter these perceptual unfairnesses that the casinos benefit from. For one, I would require casinos to display real chances prominently next to games. Next, I would limit the right of casinos to set the rules that tilt the games even more in their favour, like barring casinos from restricting play by people who use simple memory skills, such as card-counting, from playing.
Again, this is about the institution of gambling, which includes pathological gamblers, unless you have a reason to separate them out.
The portions of the NGISC report refer to pathological or problem gamblers, and the social cost incurred BY THEM.
Undoubtedly a similar statement could be found concerning drunk drivers, but we would not argue from that that alcohol or automobiles are a social ill – would we?
I notice that the National Gambling Impact Study Commission Report does not recommend that legalized gambling be stopped.
From their recommendations section:
They go on to recommend additional study, and some measures to curb certain problem areas (removing credit card cash advance machines from the gambling area, ensure children are not permitted to gamble, etc.) They go on to say:
[quote]
The Commission recommends to state, local and tribal governments that (when considering the legalization of gambling or the repeal of gambling that is already legal) they should recognize that, especially in economically depressed communities, casino gambling has demonstrated the ability to generate economic development through the creation of quality jobs.
[quote]
(Emphasis mine).
I wouldn’t quote them as a source in a debate on this message board.
That’s you, I wouldn’t question your honesty if you did.
I appreciate that… but there are others that would.
Certainly you can agree with a group on some things and disagree on others. But I think, if you quote them as an authority on some things, you lose - or at least damage - your ability to call them dishonest on other things. So I guess I should modify my statement from before: I assume that, even though you don’t endorse their positions regard abortion and homosexuality, you acknowledge that their research is done honestly and in good faith, even though you disagree with their results.
Yes?
So what, you don’t think we as a society pay for drunk drivers? How much does your insurance cost? How much police energy is wasted on random stops? How many families lose their breadwinner, or require treatment because their loved one is killed by a drunk driver? Who pays for that, we do. Every single one of us.
Bolding mine. So it looks like they can create some jobs, in some places, but overwhelmingly it doesn’t work out.
Let’s include them, by all means.
According to the Nevada Council on Problem Gambling (a link to the site is provided at the web site for the Nevada Gaming Commission), “a 1997 study indicates that up to 2% of adults who gamble” suffer from compulsive gambling (no cite if provided for this estimate, but it’s a start).
Clearly, for the 2% of adults who gamble who also have a gambling addiction (and for their families), gambling is a societal ill. That being said, it would seem that a very large segment of the population who gamble are not negatively impacted and, for them, gaming is merely a diversion.
More info is available here: http://www.unr.edu/gaming/index.asp