Ethics of gambling

[Mr Rayon]

What are the benefits for a society which emraces gambling in comparison to one which does not?

 

And generally speaking, is gambling healthy for a society?

[lemur]

I don't think gambling is good, but you could maybe argue that when many people risk insubstantial amounts of money to fill a pot that makes one person very happy, there is benefit in that. However, imagine you had a very socially level economy, where everyone was mostly self-sufficient or everyone performed some specialized labor for the benefit of everyone else. Then, if you would start having lotteries to create leisure positions that allowed people to consume without working, it would create class-differences and cultures of privilege and entitlement where some people had to work to cater to the rich, i.e. social asymmetries etc. This can also happen without gambling, but generally I think gambling promotes a culture of getting something for nothing or maybe just more for less, which is the basic principle of exploitation, no?

[Doc. Josh]

well employment for one , casinos employ alot of people and pay nicely. Basic lotto is a gamble but i dont feel it is a issue unless the person has an addiction to the game of choice. Then it can be seen as a (home wrecker staus) But so can everything in large quanities. So IMO a society which allows gambeling is healthy for the economy. On the flip side it does tend to make people want to just get it for free however i feel the reward is nothing more than what you put into it. I gambel personaly at the card tables quite frequently but i do not get sucked up into it. As long as there is control and a boundrys then absolutley, implace more casinos and bring more jobs to america!

[imatfaal]

I am very anti-gambling in a purely instinctive manner, it doesn't appeal to me, I can't see it as anything but harmful, its a waste of time and money etc. but I would recommend reading to The Road to Wigan Pier - by George Orwell who in a very short passage describes the way that gambling in general and a lottery in particular creates a licence to day-dream for many very poor people with absolutely no hope of remission from poverty apart from the lottery. They knew the chances were tiny, and rationally held no hope for the day they would be lifted out of poverty by some lucky numbers, but the lottery created the possibility, no matter how slight, that this might happen, and that vanishingly small chance was worth it.

[random]

Ethics of gambling.............Only bet on a sure thing, If someone wants to bet against you take there money ..........as much of it as they will wager. So that limits my gambling to factual knowledge based bets.

 

All gambling is really IMO anyway's is "fantasy entertainment" you pay for the "what if" dream, the hope of hitting it big. Is this beneficial? well it is in a Western society where 1) the Government needs the income stream and 2) the majority carries a debt load , the "what if" dream is substantial stress relief,

 

Where people get into trouble is when they lose too much, then they need to continue gambling in the belief they will come out ahead and get their money back, They are compelled to beat the odds with their, Fallacy system, or delusional belief in winning and losing streaks. But all in all for the majority it is a form of entertainment, People get addicted to alcohol too and we don't want beer banned for the sake of a few do we? (If you say ban beer then your no longer my friend!!!!)

 

 

[Marat]

Since gambling gives you an equal chance with everyone else in the lottery, if you think that you are smarter or more skilled than the typical person participating in the game, then you are wasting your talents. But if you think you are stupider or less skilled than the average lottery participant against whom you have an equal chance, then playing gives you more relative social power than you would normally have in the rest of life, where intelligence and skill count.

 

A professor at MIT I knew said he gambled as a type of 'negative insurance.' Just as he would pay a small amount of money every month to protect himself against the chance of rare but catastrophic events through his insurance policies, so too he would pay a small amount of money every month gambling to buy himself the unlikely chance of a huge benefit.

 

Generally, though, since institutions which operate gambling establishments seem to make enormous amounts of money, the $1.00 lottery ticket you buy has to be worth only a fraction of the chance of the payoff, so gambling is just deliberately overpaying for things.

[Guest lab_supplies]

I don't think gambling is a good thing mainly because people can become addicted to it. If people are gambling money away that they need for basic needs then it is bad. Gambling with extra money I don't think is bad, but I think it can hook people into gambling money that they shouldn't be gambling.

[kitkat]

Gambling is like any other drug that may or may not addict you depending on the individual.

[michel123456]

State lotteries are an example of a voluntary taxation system.

quoted from Wiki voluntary taxation.

Gambling is unethical by definition.

 

O.K.

I take some papers from my rubbish, cut it in 100 small pieces and put a number from 1 to 100.

I put a poster on the street that the winning price of the lottery is 50$

Then I sell each one for 1$.

At the end, I got 100$ minus 50$ for the winner: the bank (me myself) won 50$.

If I do that, I go to jail. It is dupery.

States do that all the time and don't go to jail because the 50$ go to taxes.

Casino's do that and don't go to jail because part of the 50$ go to taxes.

But I don't see any ethics in participating in a game that would send someone to jail under common circumstances.

Edited December 10, 2011 by michel123456

[imatfaal]

But Michel many things are illegal unless licensed; major surgery could be seen as GBH or Wounding in some circumstances, the postman would be trespassing, pharmacists and GPs would get visits from the drug squad...

[michel123456]

Good point. The state has the right to incarcerate, to print money, etc.

It is not obvious what is ethical in these examples and what is not.

...................

I think pharmacist get visits from the drug squad from time to time, at least in this country regulations are very strict and enforced.

What are GPs?

And why the postman would be trespassing?

[imatfaal]

GP = general practitioner, apologies it is english shorthand for community doctor. re postman, technically entering someone's front garden without their permission is trespass, but there is an implied licence that the postman can cross your front garden/yard to deliver mail to your house without risking a law suit.

It is not obvious what is ethical in these examples and what is not.

I agree - that was my point, the fact that something could be illegal if not licensed does not affect whether it is ethical or not. ethical is how to best live ones life; legal is how to best lives ones life outside gaol.

[michel123456]

(...) ethical is how to best live ones life; legal is how to best lives ones life outside gaol.

? that sounds like a maffia aphorism, or what?

[imatfaal]

? that sounds like a maffia aphorism, or what?

 

I suppose it might be although the maffia are not reknowned for their morals . the ethical view is important, it is the pursuit of the virtuous life. the legal view is book-keeping and caution, we only do it to avoid punishment. whilst lots of our laws are based on an ethical moral substrate that has widespread support, law does not equal ethics. I do not commit some crimes because I fear being caught and being prosecuted, I do not commit others because I think it is morally wrong to do so.

[michel123456]

I suppose it might be although the maffia are not reknowned for their morals . the ethical view is important, it is the pursuit of the virtuous life. the legal view is book-keeping and caution, we only do it to avoid punishment. whilst lots of our laws are based on an ethical moral substrate that has widespread support, law does not equal ethics. I do not commit some crimes because I fear being caught and being prosecuted, I do not commit others because I think it is morally wrong to do so.

Right.

A former minister here , in 2008, after being caught for tax evasion under the cover of an off-shore company, once said the historical (since then) "if it is legal, it is ethical". That was not well received, his career was ruined, he is currently under prosecution (for other reasons).