Though it’s nearly as popular as eating, gambling has always struck me as slightly strange. It’s an adult activity that might be a better idea for children playing with toy chips and without a life savings to lose.
Gambling has become even more popular in recent years, with 73% of Americans having bet in the past year and about 88% over their lifetimes. Maybe we in the bet-averse minority should try to understand the roll-the-dice crowd.
Frequent gamblers often describe their favorite activity as just entertainment they enjoy. Non-gamblers can appreciate the correlation of gambling and entertainment. Both can be dicey.
For instance, in this era when movie studios keep mining the depths of comic books and explosions, I worry about making a bad bet every time I go to a movie theater. But the odds on enjoying a new movie aren’t stacked against your judgment. And I’d bet on the value of sitting through Batman XXVII or Godzilla vs. Son of Kong sooner than I’d try to beat the house edge at MGM Grand.
Lottery tickets are popular everywhere, a small bet providing the chance to feel like a big wheel. Three sure things about lotteries: Annual sales nationally are expected to reach $194 billion by 2025. The odds of winning a U.S. lottery are 292,200,000 to 1. And about 70% of all lottery winners end up completely broke soon after winning.
Lottery gambling has deep roots. In 1662 English economist Sir William Petty wrote “A Lottery therefore is properly a Tax upon unfortunate self-conceited Fools….” A 1951 Associated Press article referred to “Lotto, a 400-year-old gambling game” as commonly called “…the tax on stupidity.”
Almost every bet placed with a legal or illegal “house” pushes against the constant headwinds of the house’s fixed advantage or “edge.” This ranges from lows around 1% to highs around 16%. Most gamblers believe they can beat the house edge through luck or skill, sooner or later.
Luck can win briefly or intermittently. But the fixed formula of house edge gradually deepens the trough of loss experienced by a lifelong gambler. Eventually a house might be put up for sale or a student might be pulled from college.
Long-term success at gambling is mostly a fabrication of fantasy, foggy memories, or working around house rules. These rules are quietly backed up by laws in Nevada and other states. The work-around devices can lead to a meeting with a judge or, worse, a big guy named Sal.
Sports gambling has become a big business, attracting tens of millions of people who seem to feel they have too much money on their hands. Non-betting fans, smart enough to sense that gambling is essentially a negative investment, should be eligible for winner trophies. Chicago sports fans who bet with their hearts should be eligible for therapy.
Well, at least we few surviving White Sox fans can win at something, just by not betting on WS wins. How much in betting losses would my beloved team have cost me over the years? Would I have managed to make the smart bet that they would only win the “prop” category of injuries running to first base? No, I’m not even good at bad bets. I would have bet on Hillary (shudder).
Las Vegas is famous as America’s capital of gambling (as well as concerts by Barry Manilow or Wayne Newton, still). A century ago, it was a minor railroad stop in a scrubby desert. Today it’s a tourism dreamworld of swanky hotels and casinos — a monumental profit machine fed by the aspirations of millions of people more eager to win wealth than to work for it. Gambling does produce something.
I had a basketball buddy who liked gambling so much he described Las Vegas as “beautiful.” Maybe he saw it as the redwood forest of neon lights.
Of course, many gamblers are not addicted or self-destructive. They gamble moderately and socially, enjoying more reward than risk. I met one recently, a sunny 85-year old widower named Jack. He lives alone, is fighting a major health challenge with cheer and courage, and has a personable warmth I wish I had. Last month I accompanied Jack on one of his regular trips to a pleasant reservation casino in Minnesota. He bet very small stakes, sharing friendliness and chat with his fellow low-rollers as he strolled slowly among the penny slots.
My friend Joe, a shrewd, soft-spoken professional statistics guy, has rare wisdom about gambling. He once took a date to old Arlington Park —long before the Bears’ premature gamble — and placed one bet on a race he was surprised to see only on a screen monitoring an Ohio track, then was surprised to win. He and his dear Blanche celebrated by spending the $46 winnings on a nice lunch at the Apricot Family Restaurant. “I don’t think we ever went back after that,” Joe recalled. “The only way to win at gambling is to quit while you’re ahead.”
The serious gamblers for whom Las Vegas is Valhalla with comped drinks usually have colorful casino stories to share. Their stories run along a wide spectrum of likelihood, as in…
Wish you’d been with me on that Vegas trip when I had my Panorama Suite and gourmet meals totally comped and I beat the house for six hundred grand!
I never chase losses and I never cross back into the red. Once I was up a hundred and sixty grand at blackjack, went back down to even, walked away from the table, went home happy, and didn’t lose a dime.
After the show, I actually shook hands with Wayne Newton and he said, “Thanks for coming, Lucky.”
I put my whole bankroll on one and double zero came up — only one pocket away! I almost made three hundred grand on one spin!
As a non-gambler, I can only guess at the truth of any Vegas tales. But the four prototype yarns above sound to me, in order…
probably not true
not true
probably true
true
Most gamblers have developed philosophical rationalizations. They express a calm equanimity, such as…
(Insurance salesman Bob) It’s just entertainment for me, lotsa fun! When I’m losing, I don’t really care. A few hundred bucks, maybe more? It’s worth it for all the good times.
(Small businessman Larry) Look, one trip I win, one trip I lose. Over the years, I’ve probably come out pretty much even.
When I hear gamblers like Bob and Larry minimize their possible gambling losses, I try to reconcile such recollections against that made-of-money Las Vegas Strip. The costs of building one of the recent gambling palaces on the Strip range from about $2 billion to about $4 billion.
Casinos are not charitable institutions. Their viability depends on the stupendous sums lost over the years by casino customers. Total annual revenue for Las Vegas casinos is estimated at over $20 billion. (That’s annual.) Good chance you know at least one of the revenue providers, someone who tends to feel lucky.
“The house always wins” is one of those truisms that runs truer the deeper you dive into it. A chilling deep dive was taken by the late novelist Mario Puzo, best known for his very good novel developed into the great movie The Godfather. His powerful novel about the world of gambling, Fools Die, is a dark drama portraying in detail how the house wins, sooner or later but inevitably, making fools of the Bobs and Larrys and even the more savvy players.
Gamblers who are skilled “advantage players” (the casinos also call them “cheats”) can cut into profits slightly here and there, though they often encounter sudden exit ramps. And freewheeling high rollers often leave fortunes behind. But what class of gambler provides most of the gargantuan sums required to run Las Vegas’ monuments to wishful thinking? It seems to be the medium-rollers like Bob and Larry.
Well, good luck to them, maybe the luck of shifting their chosen pastime to something more sustainable like trout fishing or pickleball. Losing at pickleball can’t force the loser to move from a five-bedroom home to a fifth-floor walkup.
I spent my career as a drilled foundation contractor. I always felt a bit like a gambler, or at least a statistician with stakes in the “game.” I still tend to make decisions around the calculated odds of this or that eventually happening. I’m a bit embarrassed, as a non-gambler myself, how often I use the language of gambling, such as “odds are,” “I wager,” or “I’ll bet.” Maybe there’s a bit of gambling in all of life, and the compressed experience of gaming brings a catharsis of some sort.
Thoughtful comments, Jim. Made me recall one by author Christopher Hitchens. Although he was a non-believer, he acknowledged how often he thought or said, “God only knows.”
Truly a great article.. I know a family that are degenerate gamblers. Short on house payment… no problem.. go to the boat to make up the difference.. we are in Illinois. The parents have passed this on to their 6 kids. I think that this is child abuse.
Sorry about your friends, Jack, but I’m glad you appreciated the column.
My former neighbor would spend most of his paycheck at Balmoral Racetrack in Crete years ago. He lived with his mother and put nothing toward the household bills. He worked for Ford and his mom was a housekeeper at a nursing home. He probably gambled and lost more each weekend than she earned in two weeks. She passed away after I married and moved away. I wonder what ever happened to him.??? Nice article. Thanks!
Thanks for your thoughtful response to my article, Diane. I was trying to comment on a widespread problem, maybe picking gambling because I have other problems but not that one. Strange type of self-destruction. I hope your former neighbor is OK now…..