Why do People Gamble?

By Shahin

Is it because the chances of becoming a recipient of a large amount of money or because the rush you get while your placing your bet. Well in 1931 when Phil Tobin legalized gambling in Nevada, his intentions where to legalize it for the simple purpose that it would bring in well needed tax money for public schools. The expansion of gambling was tremendous, within a few decades it went from small casinos to multi million dollar casinos. Which ultimately revolutionized gambling in America.

Nowadays advertisement for gambling has become very common, you see them on billboards, magazines, and you get pop ups on the Internet about them. You may wonder how the gambling industry had become so successful, because people like to risk their money for a chance of winning a lot more. The government likes the gambling industry because they profit a lot of money off them. For every dollar the government receives from casinos off taxes, they keep 90 cents net profit of it.

Recently Internet gambling has become very popular due to the fact that you don't need to travel hundreds of miles to go to a casino. But a big problem with Internet gambling is a lot of the sites are fraudulent, they just open the sites so they can receive your personal information such as your credit card and social security number.

Another problem is underage gambling, recently people under the age of 21 have been able to gamble online because they had access to a credit card and the sites have no proof of their age. That is why the United States will not allow gambling sites to be opened in the United States; most of the sites are located in Canada where there laws are different.

Some pros about gambling are that it brings in a lot of tourist, which helps out local stores and restaurants. It also provides a lot of jobs in the city. Some cons are that it overpopulates cites which effects the people who live in the near by residential areas of the town. It also leads to crime, for example in Atlantic City, when they opened their casinos crime went up 69.7%.

In American 2.4-4% of people are considered compulsive gamblers, meaning when that paycheck arrives there going to go cash it in and go to the casino. 75% of compulsive gamblers need help being bailed out of debt and 17% of them attempt to commit suicide.

In conclusion I think people need to keep their composure while gambling and more of the tax money from the casinos should benefit our society.