Who Gambles?
Is gambling just the pastime of international playboys, or wealthy businessmen?
Not at all. Young and old, rich and poor, wives and factory workers — all get into the act.
Gambling, according to a report made by two observers of the British scene, has led to bad debts, child neglect, a higher divorce rate. Adultery sometimes becomes an "after-Bingo pastime." English betting shops have been blamed for loss of productivity on the job by workingmen, as well as for breakdown of marriages. Doping of dogs and horses has also increased. This is in addition to the ORGANIZED VIOLENCE of the protection rackets and the big league hoodlums.
Scotland Yard has blamed gambling for the great increase in violence and gang warfare in Britain. Mysterious fires, Molotov cocktails used in assaulting bookmakers, bombings and booby-traps — these are part of the ugly, sordid picture which develops when the kingpins of organized crime move in and dominate the gambling centers.
Gambling in the United States is, of course, much bigger business than it is in England. Gambling has become a vast, transcontinental empire. some four million Americans make illegal bets with bookmakers every week in the year. Betting on sports events is the biggest craze.
But is it all innocent and pleasant?
Former Assistant U. S. Attorney General Malcolm R. Wilkey declared: "Gambling . . . overlords . . . insinuate themselves into all local rackets . . . tainting all they touch with violence and corruption."
Virgil Peterson, director of the Chicago Crime Commission in 1960 stated bluntly: "Gambling is run by the underworld."
Almost everyone agrees that organized crime is EVIL. But gambling? That, to many people, is vastly different — a horse of a different color. Gambling appeals to human nature to make a "fast buck." The glittering excitement of gambling, and winning, appeals to the selfish greed and lust in human nature which wants to get something for nothing. It appeals to human vanity, which wants to think it has "beaten the odds."
Brutal Facts
The money bet illegally in the United States every year is estimated as high as $50,000,000,000!
Gambling supports 50,000 master bookies and 400,000 others.
Gambling finances every conceivable kind of racket and is the very heartbeat of organized crime both locally and on a national scale. If you scratch the professional operator of gambling enterprises, you find the narcotics peddler, the loan shark, the white slave trader, the murderer.
"Scratch a gambler," says a Brooklyn district attorney, "and you find a murderer."
Investigators believe half the gross profit of $9,000,000,000 annually is invested by gangsters for bribes, protection, payoffs, and purchasing political influence. The other half is spent in expanding crime and gambling industries, buying into legitimate businesses, labor racketeering, prostitution and bootlegging.
"There's a sucker born every minute." And gamblers take advantage of this fact. California tourists flock to Reno and Las Vegas, where they "blow" more money than they pay to build highways, conserve forests, and educate their children.
Nevada officials estimate almost 20 million tourists enter their state every year to gamble. Most adults play some of the 19,000 slot machines and 1400 gaming tables. There, they bet $2,400,000,000 — and lose at least ten percent, or $240,000,000. At least $12,000,000 of this goes to the Nevada state treasury. An added $600,000,000 is spent on entertainment, food, lodging, and other non-gambling but associated items.
Gambling, obviously, is Nevada's largest single industry. Gambling furnishes nearly 30 percent of the state's tax revenue, and is its second biggest money source.
Is gambling commonplace? According to Dr. Ernest E. Blanche, former Army chief statistician, FIFTY MILLION adult Americans gamble regularly. He asserted 26 million play bingo, buy lottery or raffle tickets, or take part in baseball or football pools. Fourteen million play slot machines, and eight million play the "numbers" game.
According to the Post Daily Magazine (New York Post, January 4, 1965), 90 million Americans gamble — some occasionally, some regularly. They bet on horses, numbers, cards, dice, bingo, roulette, wheels of fortune, sporting events, elections, dominoes, punchboards, slot machines, chain letters, etc. Eighty percent of them are losers. They lose $50,000,000,000 a year — but only $800,000,000 of this is known to the Internal Revenue, so obviously the great preponderance of it is illegal.
The Compulsive Gambler Gambling, of course, has its other victims. Like the alcoholic and dope addict, the compulsive gambler is a sick man. There are perhaps six million gamblers who "can't quit."
Evidence accumulates that gambling is becoming one of today's most worrisome sociological problems. A group of University of Chicago psychologists reported that every year thousands of men
and women become HOOKED ON GAMBLING and the betting habit. They gamble compulsively.
In 1945, there were perhaps three million-plus compulsive gamblers, but today there are six million — 100 times as many as the number of registered drug addicts.
One out of every three gamblers could become a compulsive gambler, this report states — could become a helpless victim of a pack of cards, a roulette wheel or the race track.
The compulsive gambler has convinced himself that he will win. He's sure the odds are secretly in his favor. Just one more bet, and he'll strike it rich. The more he loses, the more firmly he's sure he will win next time! But subconsciously, he may want to lose!
He may hock all his belongings in order to gamble. He may lose his shirt, neglect his family and children. If he wins — all he can think to do with the money is gamble until he loses it again.
The habitual gambler is a tragedy. He may lead a double life, lying to keep his secret. He habitually takes chances on everything that comes his way. He never quits when he's ahead, but keeps on gambling. He never learns from his losses.
The compulsive gambler is afraid to face reality. Gambling is a means of escape from life and its tedium. Lady luck, goddess fortune, and the web of Fate — these fantasies entice him to think one turn of the cards, one spin of the wheel, one roll of the dice, and everything will be wonderful! To him, gambling makes the future glow with promise.
One compulsive gambler in my acquaintance confessed to me he was bitten by the gambling bug. "I took $5000 of my own money and borrowed $6000 from my mother," he related. "Then I went to Reno, started gambling in the evening and gambled all night. I could think of nothing else. Sex, food, time — nothing interested me but the turn of the cards. By the early morning hours I was flat broke. I lost everything."
This man, however, did not learn his lesson. He still takes fliers to Reno when he has the money — and compulsively loses it. He keeps going back. To him gambling doesn't seem a sin — a mortal danger to human welfare. To him gambling is a sport — a pleasure — a chance to punch Fate in the nose! He feels guilty about it, when he loses; but not guilty enough to quit. He is hooked — enslaved by the habit.
To help compulsive gamblers, an organization called Gamblers Anonymous was created about ten years ago, modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous. In chapters in 80 cities across the country, regular groups of compulsive gamblers meet and try to help each other and encourage each other through group therapy. Gamblers Anonymous charges no fees. One third of the applicants have been through the mill emotionally, divorced, and most of the others face it, many with neglected and hostile children, and many others face prosecution. Their lives have been wrecked by the compulsive urge to gamble.
The withdrawal pains from gambling can be just as bad as an alcoholic abruptly abstaining from alcohol. Fighting off the temptation to make one more bet can be as hard as conquering the urge to have just one more drink.
Gambling Can Be Overcome
How can a compulsive gambler overcome his compulsion? The founder of Gamblers Anonymous declared: "A compulsive gambler must work out his reformation the hard way — strictly through his own efforts." He added, "If things are made easy for him, he'll go right back to the horse tracks and the gambling tables" (Saturday Evening Post, May 26, 1962).
This, however, is not the complete story for many gamblers.
True, hard effort and intense desire to overcome the problem are necessary.
The person afflicted must realize and admit his problem, or he is doomed to suffer the consequences. Once he sees himself, however, he CAN take initial steps to overcome it.
But sometimes the grip of the "addiction" may be too strong to master on one's own strength and resources. If a man is willing to humble himself, and cry out to the living GOD of heaven and earth for help, God can and will give it.
Gambling obsessions and compulsions CAN BE OVERCOME! But the gambler must come to HATE the sin of gambling, REPENT of it, and then put it totally away from him.
Coming to know the true God is a vital KEY to overcoming any pernicious urge, or human lust, or perverse desire!
The CURSE of Gambling Plainly, we need go no further to realize that gambling is a terrible CURSE! It is closely attended by gangsterism and is connected with vice, prostitution, theft, narcotics, and murder. The gangster element has taken over or is closely involved in most gambling establishments! But gambling even by itself is a personal plague.
Take a good, honest, long look at gambling. Is it right for human beings to prey on the lusts and greedy appetites of others? Is it right to throw money down a rat-hole, for no constructive purpose, merely to be "entertained" in doing so? Is it right to try to get "something for nothing"?
HUMAN NATURE IS GREEDY! It is avaricious, lustful and selfish. Gamblers are the slaves of their human nature. They seek something for nothing. They want to get rich quick, without working for it. They are totally self-centered and selfish — nobody else matters.
Gambling does not show genuine love — outgoing concern for other people. The prime motive of the gambler is to GET! He's not interested in serving, helping, assisting others, or giving of his time and energy. He just wants to GET while his luck holds out, while he's "hot." And the large gambling casinos are there to take your money, but try to make it appear as painless as possible while doing so.
Betting and gambling are diametrically opposite to the way of love. They are selfish and incoming rather than outgoing. They are based on the principle of GETTING - which is Satan's way —rather than on the principle of GIVING, which is God's way.
God put us on this earth to learn lessons, to be constructive and creative, and to build character. He wants each of us to learn to show love and concern for our neighbor — not to "take him to the cleaners" through gambling.
God wants us to learn to work for our living; to do an honest day's work for our wages. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," God told Adam (Gen. 3:19). Every honest job or occupation involves a certain amount of constructive labor and mental effort. Constructive, productive work is character building.
But gambling, on the other hand, is one of the ways of the world which God condemns. The apostle John was inspired of God to write, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the LUST of the flesh, and the LUST of the eyes, and the PRIDE of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the LUST thereof: but he that doeth the will of. God abideth forever" (I John 2:15-17).
God knew, long ago, where the gambling fever would lead. He foresaw that gambling would open the doors to a multitude of other evils and vices. God knew that gambling would lead to broken homes, compulsive gambling, neglected children, and a terrible waste of human endeavor and potential. He knew it would lead to a false sense of values; a glittering, tinsel-wrapped package of no durable value; to aimlessness, lack of character, destitution; with the side effects of sexual lewdness, adultery, fornication, drunkenness, stealing, hoodlumism, gangsterism, murder!
That's why any sensible and wise person will stay away from gambling —avoid the gaming deuce and traps which have proliferated in this mad modern world! Don't be a "sucker" — don't gamblel!