Gamble Less
Impacts: Mind, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time
“Games of chance are traps to catch school boy novices and gaping country squires, who begin with a guinea and end with a mortgage.” – Richard Cumberland
A friend of mine says, “The lottery is really just a tax for people that are bad at math.” In fact if you stop for a moment and think about the odds of winning in any type of game of chance you’ll quickly realize there’s not a lot of money in gambling unless you’re the casino. Continue to look around and you’ll notice that those casinos seem to be getting bigger everyday. I wonder where they are getting all that money?
The problem with gambling is that it’s all about taking risk without thought. The few people that fall into the category of mathematical genius and learn to count cards or otherwise beat the system get banned from big casinos because they have some kind of unfair advantage. That’s pretty funny actually. Who has the unfair advantage?
You can also apply the idea of gambling to other things in life beyond casinos. Anytime you take on unknown risks for the chance of getting ahead you are choosing to put your future in the hands of luck. Maybe that’s the core reason why people gamble in the first place; they are seeking the excitement delivered by risk. It’s a bit ironic that the excitement of an unlikely win somehow outweighs the disappointment of loosing, at least for a few moments.
So the trick is to ask yourself if the excitement is worth the cost. The next time you’re considering taking unknown risks for unknown gains stop and brainstorm ways of having fun for free.
Take Action
- Make all choices carefully and try to factor in all risks.
- Avoid buying lottery tickets.
- Avoid casinos and online.
From childhood, I was taught that whenever an opportunity arises that permits you to take control of your future, you should seize it. Gambling is the antithesis of this. (Instead of handing control to another person, from whom you might eventually wrest it back, you irretrievibly
give it over to chance.)
As a native northern Nevadan, I grew up with gambling all around, but never understood the fascination with throwing away money. (I’ve never visited a brothel either, but that’s another story.)
On occasion, we’d have company from overseas and my father would show them around. They’d see the glittering casinos at Tahoe and Reno and their eyes would grow wide. My father had a stock response, delivered in his thick German accent:
“Ha! You tink dey keep all those lights on by giffing money avay?”