Why We Gamble (Foxnews)

In 776 B.C., during the first recorded Olympic Games, Greek athletic contests became the subject of heavy betting.

It’s thrilling. Almost everyone does it, and if you’re good, and very lucky, you could end up rich.

“It,” of course, is gambling; known as the second oldest diversion. Last year, Americans spent nearly $50 billion on legal gambling, three times the combined amount they spent going to the movies and theme parks.

And Americans aren’t alone. There is evidence of gambling in virtually every society since the beginning of recorded history. The ancient Greeks and Romans used to throw the astalagus, a precursor to modern dice. Gaming boards were found in 4,000-year-old ruins. Even our Puritan forebears weren’t above holding an official lottery when they needed to raise a little cash.

There are surer ways to make money. Statistically speaking, you’re more likely to be hit by lightning than to hit it big in the lottery. And there are plenty of other means for having fun.

So why do we keep rolling the dice? Pick a card, and find out.

The Thrill

Although gambling is loaded with lures that draw people to wager at gaming tables, the racetrack, the corner store or even via cable television and the Internet, very few of those lures have anything to do with money.

“Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of gamblers don’t play to win,” says Dr. Igor Ksusyszyn, an associate professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, who is not only one of the world’s leading authorities on gambling psychology, but also owns racehorses and has written books on how to win at blackjack and harness racing. “Except for professional gamblers, people play with money — not for money.” The professional gambler is the rare individual who is driven and talented enough to make a living at the tables or the track.

So, if not money, what do gamblers take away from the tables? In the first place, excitement. Gambling is not only mentally stimulating; it’s also emotionally thrilling and physiologically arousing to hang on every card or toss of the roulette ball. The size of the bet needed to set a pulse racing varies widely from person to person: some need to bet $1,000 to get the same thrill that others achieve from a $2 wager.

Part of what is so compelling, according to Professor Derezensky of McGill University, “is the intermittent reinforcement gambling offers.” For example, if every time you pulled a lever you won 50 cents, you might get richer but you wouldn’t feel the same frisson.

In slot machines that offer either a huge grand prize (such as a car) or nothing, players will usually get bored and wander away after a while (unless, of course, they win the car). Far more popular, and riveting, are machines that pay out small amounts for hitting two cherries or lemons every few pulls. The rate of the rewards, and not just the amount, keeps people coming back, and some won’t leave until they have no money left to play.

Though the vast majority of gamblers do so without any problems, it is estimated that as many as 5 percent suffer from compulsive gambling addiction. The treatment for that addiction is much like the treatment for drug and alcohol addiction — recovery groups, counseling and drug therapy.

Urge to Control

There are almost as many explanations of why we love to gamble, as there are “sure things” munching on hay in the Preakness stables, but the most compelling theories stem from the idea that gamblers are acting out an urge to exert some control over the uncontrollable. The inability to predict or control the vicissitudes of life, psychologists have observed, makes most people very uncomfortable. This leads many to seek comfort in the (false) hope that they can control the dice.

“Human nature abhors randomness. We prefer order over chaos, harmony over cacophony, religion over the prospect of an arbitrary world,” according to Stuart Vyse, Ph.D, an associate professor of psychology at Connecticut College and the author of a recent book on the psychology of magic and superstition.

In several documented studies, people seemed incapable of behaving randomly. When asked to write down random sequences of H’s and T’s (to simulate the heads and tails of a coin toss), the sequences came out far more patterned than real, random coin flips, leading some psychologists to conclude that the tendency to group and order is a basic human personality trait. These experiments even failed with graduate students studying statistics who were trained to identify patterns.

Most of the games we bet on - roulette, lotteries, craps and slots - are based on entirely random outputs. Yet this knowledge does absolutely nothing to deter gamblers from formulating, and believing in, elaborate systems or superstitions - people have been known to camp out overnight to secure the right seat at a Bingo table.

And when we win, we don’t just beat the odds - we beat the gods. Or maybe we just get them to smile on us for a while. “We gamble,” according to Dr. Vyse, “because we like to feel that luck, or the fates, or whatever we need to believe controls the universe, is a positive force in our life.”

How We Gamble

When gambling, different personalities crave different games. The garrulous tend to gravitate toward craps tables and roulette wheels, which are generally crowded and noisy. More reticent players, as well as compulsive gamblers, often prefer blackjack, where fast-moving cards require more concentration and leave little time for emotion. Quieter gamblers also favor betting on sports contests, which can be conducted over the phone or even the Internet.

There are some gender differences, too, according to Dr. J. Clark Laundorgan, a professor of sociology and director of the Center for Addiction Studies at the University of Minnesota. “Women often like to play Bingo, because they like the collective, supportive, non-threatening environment, while sports-betting and other illegal games tend to be male-dominated.”

If sheer numbers are any indication, the most accessible form of legalized gambling is the lottery. Fifty-nine percent of the U.S. population bought at least one lottery ticket last year, spending a total of $15 billion. Lottery enthusiasts can be broken down along socioeconomic lines: Unlike most other gamblers, lottery players are drawn disproportionately from lower-income and less-educated sections of society. The Boston Globe recently reported that in one of Boston’s poorest suburbs, the average adult spent $915 a year on lottery tickets, while in upscale Wellesley, each person dropped an average of only $30.

No matter the game, winners rarely keep their good fortune to themselves, while losers do their best to go unnoticed. “Winners tell everybody,” says Dr. Thompson of University of Nevada at Las Vegas, “because this is an indication that the gods must favor them.”

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A Losing Bet – Why Christians Should Avoid Lottery Fever (Christian Post, 051018)

The newspaper headlines certainly command attention when a record Powerball jackpot of at least $350-million is at stake. As a matter of fact, the gambling interests are counting on lots of attention -- and hoping for even greater sales.

The multi-state Powerball lottery’s newest record jackpot comes almost three years after the last record-setting pay-off in 2002 ( a mere $314.9-million), and has been produced by a change in the lottery intended to boost jackpots in order to compete with other state lotteries.

Of course, the reality of the lottery is a bit more complicated. If a winner shows up with a ticket that matches all six numbers, the winning ticket-holder will not walk away with the full $350-million. The “cash option” for the jackpot will be $164.4-million -- and that’s before the government steps in to claim taxes. Nevertheless, we can be sure there will be enough money left to entice participation. Thousands of ticket-buyers are rushing to purchase tickets.

“Lottery sales are going great. It’s just a mess,” Dennis Thornton, owner of L.A.’s Milk Depot in Scottsdale, Ariz., told USA Today. “People are all over the place, buying for themselves and for pools,” he said.

Another drawing is scheduled for Wednesday night, and ticket buyers are lining up in 27 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands to purchase their tickets. $300-million is a lot of money. A ticket to play costs only one dollar. So, where’s the harm?

The tidal wave of state lotteries that has engulfed the nation in recent years is driven by a very clear state interest -- the desire for more revenue. Legislators and governors see lotteries as a means of raising vast sums of revenue for state projects and programs without raising taxes. The lottery is most often sold to the public as a way to fund education and other popular causes. With the public dead set against raising taxes, a lottery looks like an easy way out.

But, as is the case with most apparently easy options, the reality just isn’t that simple. As The Christian Science Monitor has reported, the headlines don’t tell the whole story. “The proceeds from state lotteries are less than you might think,” says Molly Burke, researcher at the Education Commission of the States in Denver. “Even if they’re all earmarked toward education, it isn’t a huge amount. It’s never quite as much as states would like the schools and the taxpayers to think.”

In some states, dependence upon lottery proceeds has actually caused revenue for education to shrink. Even in Georgia, where the popular state lottery is credited with an impressive college scholarship program, a dependence upon lottery revenue has put the entire program at risk.

The moral problems involve even greater risks. A Christian understanding of the lottery involves at least four vital moral considerations. A quick review of these considerations may help Christians frame the lottery issue in a new and much needed light.

First, lotteries lie about the true path to financial security. The vast jackpots advertised by lotteries attract a great deal of attention and entice many persons to belive that their true hope for financial security lies in taking a chance on the lottery. In truth, this is nonsense.

A 1999 study by the Consumer Federation of America and Primerica found that many low and middle income workers thought that the lottery was their best hope of a retirement nest-egg. The odds of winning anything of consequence from a lottery is negligible. The odds of winning the jackpot in this week’s Powerball drawing is one in 146,107,962. As your local gangster would advise, fuhgedaboutit.

The Bible points to a very different financial strategy -- work and save. Ten dollars played in the lottery each week adds up to over $10,000 in twenty years. Saved and invested, those same funds would provide a good start toward a college education, a down-payment for a home, or a retirement fund.

The Bible links labor and reward. The worker is worthy of his reward, and the wise man favors thrift over risk. The Christian worldview honors and dignifies work and warns that separating work from reward leads to danger. The lottery lies, not only about a vain and empty hope of riches, but about the necessity for hard work, honest labor, and the satisfaction of knowing that a dollar has been earned -- not won.

Second, the lottery preys upon the poor. Wealthy persons are not fueling lottery sales. Studies indicate that over 80-percent of all lottery tickets are bought by only 20-percent of purchasers -- and these buyers are, as described by an MSN report, disproportionately “low-income, minority men who have less than a college education.”

The real victims of the lotteries are familes who go without necessities because scarce monies are spent on lottery tickets. You will not see the faces of sad and hungry children when the lottery winnings are announced, of course. Instead, you will see the ecstatic faces of the winner(s). The millions of losers will go unnoticed.

Third, the lottery puts government in the position of preying on citizens. Governments are charged to protect citizens, not prey upon them. The success of a state lottery depends upon the state’s ability to convince a sufficient number of its citizens to buy lottery tickets -- even against their own best interests.

The official Powerball Web site urges caution: “Lottery games are just that -- games. Lottery games are designed to be enjoyable entertainment for adults, and for the vast majority of lottery players, that’s exactly what they are. Multi-State Lottery members sell lottery tickets for the benefits of their citizens, raising millions of dollars for worthy causes and projects. The Multi-State Lottery Association encourages all lottery players to be responsible in their amount of play. Never spend more than you can afford on any lottery product. Please remember, it’s just a game.” Right.

Are we really to believe that state lotteries are designed for the primary purpose of providing entertainment for the general population? This claim merely adds insult to injury.

Fourth, the lottery leads citizens to prey on fellow citizens. The enormous jackpots awarded by lotteries are made possible only because millions of losers fund a very small group of winners.

Some persons justify their purchase of lottery tickets by claiming that they are playing merely for entertainment, and that they can easily afford a few lottery tickets a week. After all, as some explain, it’s really no more expensive than going to a movie.

Well, that argument won’t withstand scrutiny. You may be able to afford a few dollars a week as “entertainment,” but you are buying into a system that only works by enticing those who cannot afford tickets to do so.

You can count on a banner headline when the winner is announced, and a new record jackpot is probably right around the corner. Remember these considerations when you see the happy winners. In the end, the lottery makes us all losers.

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R. Albert Mohler, Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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