Gambling from Within

Life is a gamble. Man is thus a gambling animal, the only one we know. He gambles everywhere. Always. It may not always be on a lottery ticket or horse race. The mountain climber risks his life with each Himalayan ascent, the speculator his cash on every new investment. However, we are interested in a specific sort of gambling. It is the staking of something valuable, with consciousness of risk and hope of gain, on the outcome of a game of chance.

If you are reading this article by choice you must be interested in gambling. If you're interested in gambling, chances are you've gambled once or twice. And if you've gambled well, you know it can be a complicated affair. But why do you and I, and he and she, why do we all like to risk our precious dollars on the random spin of luck's wheel?

There are, of course, the deep, dark reasons, the secret inner-mind provocations, the sexual insinuations of poker bids, the Oedipal overtones of twenty-one.

Like, for instance, the fact that everybody likes to get something for nothing (and corollary to this statement, which explains why we so often retire losers that "you can't get something for nothing"). This is as good a reason as any, especially for those of us from the push-button society. Press a button, the toast pops. Press a button the car window drops. It's the split-second world, a perfect environment for the practice of gambling for the psyche of the bettor is based on the promise of instant results. What a man can make in his entire life at his job he can hypothetically earn in an hour at the roulette wheel. Gambling is the perfect occupation and preoccupation of the impatient.

Then, again, it's exciting. Life on the whole, one must admit, is often a slow affair. There are the highs and the spins, yes, but these aren't as common as the shampoo commercials would have us believe. As a rule, it's the daily pace, nine-to-five ennui. Somehow the spaces must be filled. Some of us do it by racing fast cars, others by solving chess problems. And some gamble. We gamble because it's fun, because it produces the kind of electric thrill we once felt long ago, the first time we stole a candy bar from the dime-store. It's a kick, intoxicating, romantic, dangerous, exhilarating, exhausting, fearsome, abandoned, despairing, and euphoric all rolled into one, not many experiences offer such a broad spectrum of emotions.

There's another reason, obvious but important: winning. We like to win. We like kewpie dolls and door prizes. And, even more, we like money. When all is said and done, gambling is about money. But here is the big question: will we ultimately come out ahead if we gamble? The odds say no. To gamble over the long term is to lose. Nonetheless the gambler is undaunted. Because, being basically a mystic, he believes that the cold steel of statistics affects only the other guy. For the real believer there's a big kiss from Lady Luck just around the corner, a secret gift of luck headed his way amid the slings and arrows of outrageous randomness. The genie of wheel and dice whispers to the gambler that he alone is special, that he alone is above the laws of chance that bind all others. Did he win the last time out? You see, that proves it! Did he lose? Never fear. Tomorrow his luck will change.

Gambling is an outlet of ambition, aggression, and dreams, an instructor in probabilities, prudence, and silence. It tests us, amuses us, and sometimes breaks us. It teaches many useful things, if we care to listen, things concerning the private and sometimes very surprising facts of our own very human weaknesses and strengths. In the final analysis, gambling is all about ourselves.