Janet Collins
Billy MThe Gambling Addiction
October 22nd 2008 13:39
Clubs Australia has today proposed tighter regulation to deal with problem gamblers. The proposals include family intervention to have them banned from clubs, a ban on credit card gambling and tighter regulation of internet gaming operators.
Of course these proposals are limited to poker machine gambling and gambling goes much further than poker machines. Who hasn’t gambled at one time or another?
There are lotteries and lotto that seem pretty harmless. I consider myself to be a small-time gambler and often purchase lottery or lotto tickets in the hope that my ticket or my numbers come up. It is one here and there but I see people walk up to these counters with full cards all the time and that becomes a pretty serious investment.
Then there is horse racing and dog racing and the trots. Gambling on these in moderation, just like anything else, can be a lot of fun but if done to excess can cause a lot of financial hardship.
The casinos offer another place to gamble if you like that sort of atmosphere. Again, once in a while this can be fun, Going to them regularly will probably cost lots of money unless you are pretty lucky and these venues are open at all sorts of hours when others are not so are very convenient places to gamble at all hours are give a certain level of anonymity.
Then there is the business community that thrives on gambling from shares, to foreign exchange to gambling on purchasing something in the hope that it will be worth far more very soon after they have bought it. Look where this has gone lately.
Taking a risk has been a motto of the business community for a long, long time. It is how many succeed or get rich or both. Lately though it has seen not only many an investor’s weekly wages go down the drain, their superannuation next eggs have been obliterated. While our cartoonists have had lots of fun with the whole situation for a while, there are many out there who aren't laughing.
While we may all be scorning those entrepreneurs who have taken ridiculous risks with other people’s money, it is interesting that no-one tags them as “gamblers” which in the end is what they are and what they do. The whole mentality is exactly the same. It is all about making more from your money than you can make yourself (or at least that is the intention).
Now governments all over the world have decided to intervene – not to stop their “gambling” but to stop the whole world from falling over. Can you imagine one of these business executives being reported by their families for “problem gambling” and being banned from going to their office?
In the end gambling is gambling so why don’t we just call it that?
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Comment by colocountry
At last someone is making the most cataclysmic connection of the 21st century!!! The entire stock market mechanism across the world is, at its most fragile. is a monstrous roulette wheel, where the players aren't aware if the croupier has a finger on a button underneath the table. Well spotted. This fatal flaw ergo the compulsive urge to make one dollar into two with the least amount of effort, has led to the Crisis and to Alan Greenspan's recent admission that, perhaps he misread the derivatives market when he repeatedly claimed that the financial markets of the world needed less regulation not more!!! Mmmmm! perhaps you have to be smart to be dumb!!!
Col
Comment by Janet Collins
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog
I agree with you except for the bit about them wanting to make two dollars out of one. They went far more than an expectation of double or nothing and just like the guy at the poker machine, when the money ran out they borrowed some to try to get it all back.
Thanks for the comment.
Janet
Comment by colocountry
Its a pity that those who have become infatuated with the US presidential elections dont look outside the square!! The real issue is the fact that we have become imprisoned by a financial paradigm that no-one really understands, even Alan Greenspan!! Let us return to the era where a bloody hard day at work is paid by a reasonable recompense.... yeah that would do it!!
Col
Comment by Janet Collins
The Social Critic
Janet Collins Blog