Thursday, March 4, 2010

Gambling

When I was walking down the hall the other day, I heard some students talking about how they can't wait until they will be able to gamble. This reminded me of my personal beliefs on gambling: I think that it's wrong because it feeds on human greed and encourages people to place their trust in possessions. Plus, not many people benefit from gambling; more people end up losing their jobs, homes, and in some cases even lives due to gambling. It is for these reasons that I believe that casinos should be closed.

I read an article by Roger Dunstan, entitled "Economic Impacts of Gambling." Although he talks about the few benefits of gambling, such as the fact that building a casino can create more jobs, he discusses the many cons of gambling. For one, locally-owned business can easily go bankrupt because consumers and tourists have changed their monetary focus on casinos. Also, these casinos buy more out-of-state products than the businesses they replace. Another important fact is that casinos lead to increased social costs (such as police), as well as the costs of problem gamblers. Additionally, many families are broken and lives are ruined because of someone's gambling addiction and greedy belief that he/she can be fulfilled by a jackpot.

I think that the cons of gambling outweigh the pros. Although some jobs can be created, I do not believe that this is the best way. According to a commentator after the mayor of Chicago proposed a gaming project that was supposedly meant to help our economy, "We could create plenty of construction jobs by building brothels and opium dens." Clearly, he is being sarcastic. What he is saying is in agreement with my argument; just because jobs can be created doesn't make it right!

What do you think?

15 comments:

  1. I'm a little confused by your argument. Aren't you supposed to be a republican? People should be trusted with their own money to do what they want with it. Jackpots pay huge dividends when it comes to funding for things like schools and though you may have found one person who thinks that economically, Casino's aren't worth the money, most economists agree that they do profit a quite well.

    As far as social implications, I think that people should be free to spend their money as they want. I would never gamble, but their are lots of people who enjoy putting money on a race with the hope of winning. There is something exciting about the chance of you being the 1 in 100 that wins.

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  2. I agree with Sam, although there are many people who lose money and who take gambling too far, that is their choice. I personally like the thrill of winning money and watching sporting events if I have placed a bet on the game. Now I obviously have never been to a casino, but I think for the majority of us it is just fun to gamble and maybe we lose a little money but what doesn't cost money to do now a days?

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  3. I have to agree with everyone above. What you do with your money is your choice and your responsibility. But you do agree, however, that casinos create a lot of jobs, which is very true. The thing is, gambling cannot be illegalized ( I'm not sure if that's actually a word. sorry.) Because the fact of the matter is that many economies actually depend on people gambling. Take Las Vegas. The entire of economy of Vegas depends on people wasting their money at casinos. That's why people go there. Also, a large part of Monaco's economy is based entirely on profits from casinos. And I just looked on Frommers.com and Monaco's revenue almost entirely comes from tourism and gambling. And actually, Monaco is a tax-free state, so you can imagine how much money gambling makes for them. Anyway, my point is that gambling, even though it can be life-ruining for people, it actually does good for an economy.

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