Why People Gamble

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Recommended: The ethical and morality of the proliferation of gambling and betting in our society

Why People Gamble

For centuries, people have indulged in different types of gambling: poker, horse races, bingo, lottery, and slot machines. Gambling has seduced any and almost everyone between the ages of sixteen and ninety years old. Before turning eighteen, the legal age of casino and horse race admittance, those younger make monetary bets on football and high school stunts. Gambling is even more prevalent today than it was yesterday with the added attraction of on-line casinos, offering jackpot equivalent to twenty years salary in exchange for a credit card / debit card number. Gambling was suppressed in the 1920's as a result of Prohibition and because of this will forever lure people into its taboo trap. Gambling as sport is hard to resist because it offers immediate gratification. Not only is there a chance that you may quadruple the amount of money that you lay down, a literal payoff, but there is also a feeling of hope, an alternate limbo between reality and fantasy that can be translated into a sort of mental payoff. The question is: is it all about the money?

It couldn't be all about the money, unless the general public was extremely stupid. The odds of winning the lottery are lesser than the odds of someone being struck by lightning (1 in 649,739) or than someone being killed by a terrorist attack abroad (1 in 650,000). (7). It has been said, "If you bought 100 tickets a week your entire adult life, from the age of 18 to 75, you'd have a 1 percent chance of winning the lottery". (7) Now, a number of psychological studies have been done which indicate that the desire to play the lottery has more to do with the inability or unconcern of a person to calculate the total sum of their own money over time spent of th...

... middle of paper ...

...ody responds well to their desire to gamble, to diversify, to extend their minds and risk.

Whether it be monetary, behavioral or just plain desire to risk, humans are drawn towards the new and the chancy. It is the danger of loss and the thrill of life that keeps us breathing.

Works Consulted:

1)Alvarez,A. The Biggest Game in Town. New York: Chronicle Books, 2002.

2)Brunson,Doyle. Doyle Brunson's Super System. Cardoza Pub, 1979.

3)Dostoeyevsky,Fyodor. The Gambler. New York: Viking Press, 1966.

Sources Consulted:

4)http://www.norc.uchicago.edu/new/gamb-fin.htm

5)http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/05/010524062100.htm

6)http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0004400A-E6F5-1C5E-B882809EC588ED9F

7)http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/001309.html

8)http://www.reflection-idea.com/psychics.html

9)http://hanson.gmu.edu/gamble.html

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