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Back to Subjects - Current Events

gambling

gambling As time marches on into the twenty first century, gambling has become an increasing problem in the United Sates. The continuing problem has hurt the lives of many often leading to actions such as suicides. The problem with gambling today is it is not taken as a serious problem by the American world. According to Richard Wilhelm, it is thought of as “ a recreational hobby that has little negative affects”(2). Little does much of the public know that gambling is a serious addiction that can completely take over your life. It is a problem that is continuing to increase yet people have no idea the permanent damage it can cause on a person’s life. Our job is to inform people of the dangers of gambling and create a solid awareness so that this problem can be dealt with in a proper way. Unfortunately not every one feels as if we must spread the word about the dangers of gambling. Local governments are firm believers in leaving the system the way it is. It is estimated that the city of Las Vegas takes in well over a billion dollars each year throughout their casinos(1). They then use the money to build up a city that opens up both job opportunities and cheaper housing(1). Las Vegas brings up an interesting argument that benefits its city but they forgot to mention what it does to the people that live in their city. You can have the most beautiful city in the world but if people in your city are losing their life savings and killing themselves, a discussion must take place. To often with gambling, big time governments think only of the money that is coming but not how it is coming in. This is exactly what happens with gambling. Money is brought in at will in areas that contain a number of casinos. However, the money that is brought in is not honest money or hard earned money. “Governments live off the ten percent of the American population that are compulsive gamblers(2).” It is estimated that nearly one in every ten individuals today are compulsive gamblers. One thing people don’t realize is how serious compulsive gambling is. I personally am one who suffered through a great deal of distress to my addiction to gambling. People think compulsive gamblers are weird and messed up low life’s who have nothing better to due with their time. The average person thinks that there is no way he or she would ever be stupid enough to get to the point where they are risking their hard earned money every day. Little to people know that nearly half the estimated compulsive gamblers come from professions that make over seventy five thousand dollars a year(3). This is well above the average earnings. This disease can happen to anyone at any given time once they seek into gambling. Lawyers, doctors, you name it anyone. If the media were to pronounce facts such as this, the American public would get how serious this problem has really become. It’s interesting to know that if your hanging out with a group of fifty people on the weekend that probably five are compulsive gamblers. This is a problem we will have to reckon with. It is the furthest thing from a joke but unfortunately for us, the government has the last say in every thing that goes on in the American world. The real problem behind the reason why this message has not been spread is government’s unwillingness to take a serious cut in income they take in. Another group that is in strong argument of not having gambling come to the for front of media attention are people who don’t have a compulsive reaction to gambling. They have no problem abstaining from gambling and have never had to deal with it directly in their lives. All there friends don’t gamble and their argument is it’s a big waste of time. This point leaves several holes in it, even more so then the first one. First of all it’s easy to say something is not a problem when you don’t have to deal with it(4). For example, I don’t smoke and I think some of these advertisements for quitting are a bit extreme. I pay absolutely no attention to them at all because it plays no role in my life at this time. I personally think more media attention should be paid on gambling and not on smoking. Why is this? For one simple, I’ve had a problem with gambling in the past but I’ve never once tried a cigarette or anything else of the sort. I’m willing to admit I was wrong because we know smoking is a serious problem. Everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health and that is why the number of smokers has dramatically decreased in the past years. However, with gambling, there is no awareness created, therefore the number has increased dramatically over the past years. Another item that is left out is that most people don’t even know that gambling is an illegal action outside an established facility. It is illegal by law to pay to get into a pool for March madness. You can be arrested and thrown into jail for filling out a tournament bracket. However, this so called law in my opinion is the least enforced law out there. For God sake, police officers fill out brackets, I’m sure the president fills out brackets for a given pool. It is by far the most broken law in the U.S. today and people are blind to all of what goes on. How often do you fill out your brackets in public and worry about a cop coming up to you and putting the cuffs on you for illegal gambling? I’d probably ask if he had any hot tips on the upcoming games. If we would broadcast how people lose their life savings and go onto kill themselves because they made a bet they couldn’t afford to pay, I’d wonder if this would be taken so lightly. Another real problem people we can’t relate to is the physical and mental torture a compulsive gambler goes through each and every day. The key thing we must recognize and that hardly anyone does is a compulsive gambler can’t win. No matter how many bets he or she wins, a compulsive gambler cannot stop until he or she receives recovery help. Therefore, over time eventually all compulsive gamblers will have blown everything over a stupid addiction. This doesn’t even begin the worst of it. The media in general awakes the public of dangers of alcohol and drugs and other such harmful addictions but gambling is rarely mentioned. It causes severe mental stress and unlike other substances, it’s a super expensive habit. A person who makes seventy five thousand dollars a year and is a chain smoker can try there hardest to spend all their money on cigarettes but there just isn’t enough hours in a day. The same thing goes with alcohol or pills, it’s impossible. However, a gambler can lose his year’s paycheck on one game or one spin of a riled wheel. It can take less then a minute to lose your life savings. If nearly ten percent of the population is without money that leaves a major whole n society. The only way to treat this problem is to recognize it and do something about it. A compulsive gamblers first step and possibly his toughest are admitting he or she has a gambling problem. This must also be the attitude the media must take too aware the public that yes; gambling is a very serious problem. The scary part of all this is if by some chance that all this information was not able to leak out about compulsive gambling. Without looking in a source or a book, you can put the basics together. As more gambling establishments are being built, the amount of compulsive gamblers will increase. This means another broken person, one who had a bright future before being introduced to gambling. This means more broken families. The mood of a person changes dramatically when he or she is in deep financial trouble and the way he or she treats their respective families is very poorly. This says that the suicide rate in the United States will increase due to the fact that compulsive gamblers have a higher suicide rate then both drugs and alcohol. Information is a vital part of our world and without it, we cannot know from right or wrong. If someone doesn’t tell you anything at all, you would never know the possible dangers that lurk. Before people knew about the dangers of smoking, nearly fifty percent and up of the population smoked. Now DARE programs have been set up to teach kids that this is wrong. All over the news, we here stories of alcohol related incidents as well as people over dosing on drugs. However, how often is it we here about that guy who dropped his life earnings in a night and Vegas and shot himself to death? Unfortunately we don’t. Therefore we are not able to protect our children and ourselves against what quite possibly be the fast growing disease out there. Information is the gateway to which we base our decisions on everyday, however without it we seize to know. NBC runs fifteen second clips about how knowledge is power. We need to get into the faces of the media and protest the government’s stance on this issue so as our children grow they will realize the dangers of gambling and not just alcohol and drugs. We have the knowledge; all we have to do is proclaim it so that the world can know how this works. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1636