Can someone explain to me, briefly, why and when the belief started that gambling was bad and to have laws against it? Is it just our All-American culture where our politicians grabbed from the idea that they need to know how I am using my money. From what I know about this whole gambling = bad tirade is that it is simply immoral. So if this is the basis of our laws then can we take a look at San Francisco for a second? Now I realize laws are different for every state and each state can and should be (even though they usually aren't) different in their view of how much government they want in their life. But this is more of an issue that needs to be brought to the attention of the public, with all the sex-crazed-maniacs this generation has produced, how in the living-sh*t can you possibly tell me that gambling can even be considered outlawed in some states. The people in these states that still have gambling laws, need to tell their law-makers to get their head out their ass, and realize this isn't the Victorian era anymore! And if the immoral aspect of it is the only argument those of you against my position have, that's a pretty darn weak argument! Lemme tell ya why! Let us consider the immoral aspect of gambling that some of us believe exists.. If you need to pay the rent, and have no other way, you may use the only funds left you have available to take a chance at getting more. It's a risk, but it's tempting because you do no work, and produces an adrenaline rush! Because of the rush it gives, it can also turn some into gambling addicts who use all of their week's pay to do it all again. This puts people at risk for going into poverty, perhaps even targeting those just above the limit of poverty or driving down others who are already in it. This can also be a burden on the government, spending more to aid families who spent themselves into nothingness. So basically gambling is a risky investment. Investment. Shall we look at other risky investments going on in America? Surely somewhere in the chain of the housing-crisis catastrophe, someone was making a bit of a risky investment! Maybe they over-looked human psychology? How could something so good on paper turn out so terrible in practice?.. Maybe we didn't learn a damn thing from communism after-all! What it narrows down to is the government deciding for you, how you should invest your money. Of course, they know better than you about your own finances, so it would blasphemy to ever question this philosophical train of thought. Hope you enjoyed my late-night rant, prove me wrong please tell me why gambling is so bad. The truth is every decision you make is a gamble, there is no clear-cut definite outcome to any decision so where do you draw the line??
I agree with you. Gambling should not be considered 'bad' or 'illegal'. It should rather considered 'risky'. If an adult goes to a casino and loses money, it's his conscious decision. Why in the hell would the government be concerned about what he does with his money? It's about time we had a libertarian government.
Meh, I could really care less if people want to throw their money out the window. As far as I can tell in my state the government wants people to play the insanely bad odds of their lottery instead of playing black jack on a river boat. In short it is about cash.
Because people [Without means] blow all their money on it and ruin their and their families lives. Gambling isn't guaranteed to make anyone rich. Chances are rather slim. Limited and controlled gambling is okay, but we know how much self-control most people have. So gambling is considered "bad". I am all for taking risks, but you have to know your limits and when to stop. We all have heard of the people who became rich through gambling and then threw it all away and became broke again.
I agree with everything you've said. My question is - who in the hell is the government to decide what I do with my money? So, gambling is risky. What's the big deal. One gambles despite knowing perfectly well that he might end up losing all my money. So, the onus is on the person who gambles. The government shouldn't intervene and act as a big brother.
I have no idea of the reasons why government does what it does, i can only speculate. Maybe allowing gambling is not worthwhile or in the interests of government. Maybe it is just because people expect government to protect them from various ills. Maybe because of gambling fraud or something else.
Look at what it has done to real estate speculators, loan agents, and market advisors. Look at what it has done to AIG and Lehman Brothers. Gambling, especially with billions of other people's dollars, is BAD.
This is true, I've seen it happen. But the state decides rather arbitrarily which types of gambling are good and bad. They should probably either not operate gambling rackets themselves or leave the private sector mostly alone about it.
Goddammit nobody was supposed to know. Now I'll have to change it to an extreme close-up of John Travolta's hair from the movie Grease.
Stock market, from a layman's perspective, is nothing short of gambling. How about banning stock trading altogether? If gambling, by definition, is something whose outcome cannot be predicted through empirical data, then stock market is nothing short of gambling. And everyone and their mother knows that the stock market is manipulated by big shots in each country. Why doesn't the government do anything about it?
I think it's a matter of some states not wanting to deal with the troubles that can come along with gambling. States have to create, manage, and enforce rules/regulations on gambling facilities. It can be a very shady sector of business that sometimes leads to organized crime, and addiction. In the end some communities just don't want to deal with the extra trouble it can bring. I wouldn't call the stock market a real gamble nor would I call gambling a investment, you either win it all, or lose it all. Your odds are much higher picking a winning stock, than a winning game of black jack.
In college my degree program was in Finance... and what amazed me is that random stock picks generally outperformed investors. A portfolio chosen with a dart board would probably do better than many individuals compilations of personal favorites. Short-selling (a term we'll hear a lot about in the news with the current troubles) is high risk gambling. The stock market is very similar to blackjack in that there are methods you can follow to improve your odds but no certainty and a bad turn of the economic cards can be disastrous... or in the case of an analyst sitting on a bear spread... a protracted GOOD economy can be disaster because his position bets that the stocks will fall. In non-stock market gambling you have similarities to the stock market where some games have better odds than others and some have higher returns and volitility than others. Roulette and craps offer varied risk return ratios where great risk can lead to great return/loss and lesser risk leads to less volitility but less opportunity for gain/loss. Poker in it's varied forms actually has more skill than luckm though luck is still a factor. There's a reason you tend to see the same faces at final table in tourneys. IMO the regulation of gambling is mostly justified by the government-as-nanny school of thought, where somebody thinks it is bad for us and decides to save us from ourselves. That isnt the function of government and those that wish to add their personal list of dislikes to legal code are out of place to try to use government to enforce personal moral standards.
" fuck" is acronym meaning "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" police documents for adultery and prostitution were stamped with the acronym. wikipedia states that "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" is an urban legend but I have seen police documents from the 50's and 60's with that stamped and/or written for the charge.