Gambling can be defined as money wagering or just something else that is of value materially on the outcome of a certain uncertain event with major goal or a hopeful intent of becoming a winner of more goods or some additional cash. Gaming on the other hand is a word that is mostly used to refer to a form of gambling that has been legalized obviously depending on the country in question. They may also often be controlled by a board to check its gaming activities e.g. the Control Board of Nevada. However, in other places e.g. the United Kingdom the regulator of all activities involving gambling is named Gambling Commission. Gambling has risen to become a big activity in the commercial world. With estimates running into 335 billions of dollars just in 2009 of all legalized gambling, it looks like it has become a major stake in the economy.
Since the 1970’s, gambling has been on a general growth around the world. Many factors can attribute to this increase in gambling for example the desire for social mobility, the continuously loosening morality amongst many nations and many other reasons. However, it should be noted that the single most important factor contributing to the vats expansion of the gambling industry since 1970’s is definitely the legalization of gambling which has led to exploitation of legislative loopholes within it.
A Marxist approach in perspective is used in a certain selection of the final section of the book of the reader by Nibert. He argues that through the use of lottery as a form of gambling, systemic conditions constraining the lives of the poor persons in a community tend to be forgotten just little bit. This is because they tend to divert all of their livelihood associated problems and concentrate on the now legal gambling (Cosgrave, 128). With legalization of the gambling business, there has been emergence of state lottery which encourages more people to join openly without any fear of reprehension. This thus encourages the growth of the gambling business.
Indeed since it eventual legalization in parts of the world for example the Northern America has certainly caused an upsurge in gambling activities. This has been coupled with reported cases of increase in gambling addictions. It is no wonder that many people are contemplating on suing the government for legalizing gambling since it has led to destruction of many lives. One such example is Sylvia who is in deep financial problems due to his husbands gambling addiction. His husband of 30 years is said to have been involved in massive counts of bank fraud so as to fund his ever loosing spree while gambling. She thinks that someone ought to make the industry of gambling and the government accountable for their sinister moves towards ensuring that ambling is here to stay and it is legal (Peele, 1).
The arguments that by instituting gambling that is legal would eventually lead to driving out of illegal forms of gambling is just not holding. By the government stating that it has instituted legal channels to ensure that all gamblers are going to have indiscriminate equal winning chances, then there will certainly be an increase in gambling. This is because even those people who would not dare to gable become enticed by the notion of fairness in the gamble that has been introduced by the legal channels. Thus this leads to an increase in gambling
On the other hand, statistically, legalization of gambling in any place would eventually lead to an increase in illegal gambling in that particular place. In United State for example, since the start of legalization of gambling, it has been noticed that in those particular states where gambling has been legalized, there has been a sharp increase in illegal gambling and hence a general increase in gambling as compared to those states where gambling is yet to be legalized (Kerby, 1).
If gambling is uncontrolled, then people are most likely to loose their valued assets and money just for a mere hop of making it big. The gambling seems to have taken to dangerous heights where people could gamble even against all that thy have in their bank accounts. This is especially vivid in the “Brothers Karamazov”, where it becomes a norm for them to even gamble against their bank accounts (Dostoevsky, 401). Should legislations have existed t counter this form of gambling, then perhaps few people would have thought of doing so.
There will always be people who love to gamble away their properties and money. Some of these people do make a fortune out of it but some are usually not so lucky. They do end up with a lot of frustrations, dissolution in families due to the financial mess that some of these most depended upon members do end up in. The legalization of gambling has certainly encouraged the use of loopholes that exist to further ensure that more people are drawn to it. Gambling has certainly greatly grown: mostly due to this single factor.
Works Cited
Cosgrave, James. The Sociology of Risk and Gambling Reader. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamazov. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvanian State University, 2000.
Kerby, Anderson. Gambling. 2002.
Peele, Stanton. Wife Of A Pathological Gambler Seeks To Eliminate Gambling. 2010.
