Gambling is a time honored entertainment and stakes pursuit where wits, knowledge of the game, willingness to bet or invest resources on odds, and chance get thrown into the mix. Many fortunes are made or lost on gambling. Variable games and complex rules of play each offer a different lure of beating the odds. The excitement and drama of the game builds suspense until everyone is caught up to see who will win. Becoming old enough to gamble has become an American rite of passage. But contemporary culture has a moral tone that casts slurs against online gaming and casino gambling.
Current culture celebrates gambling as luck and fun activity, and many industries have benefited for the popular enjoyment of gambling as a destination travel or even occupational pursuit. Cruise ships regularly host ‘Casino Nights”, as do many philanthropic groups and charities for fund raising. Native American Indians with little or no natural resources to exploit have been issued gaming rights for gambling businesses to improve their condition. This on balance does not blend with the general tone and criminal element many critics of gambling focus on.
Movies and television shows commonly reference important gambling terms, gambling destination place names, and behavior that suggests knowledge and participation in gambling. The recent poker phenomenon of Texas Wild card Poker infused every media stratification from cocktail naming to a James Bond movie plot in “Casino Royale”.
Entire towns such as Laughlin, Nevada have grown up in the shadow of kingpin gambling behemoths like Las Vegas. Towns like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and Monte Carlo have been built around the mystique of the potential for winning and the life changing success of a life due to a lucky throw of dice or spinning roulette wheel. But laws regarding physical real estate limits on where gambling could take place always kept gambling a separation from habit, and many people gambled only when in a vacation resort and never anywhere else. (more…)