Gambling (There Are Two Types)

I think it is important to say a few words about gambling. When you think of gambling, you think of casinos, bingo, or horse race tracks. You place a bet; and if you win, you get rewarded with money. Of course if you dont win, there is no smile and you say, Ah, sh__!

Personally, I think there are so many negative aspects to gambling that I would have no problem with eliminating it. However, it has been around forever, and it isnt going away. I recently saw an article that said gamblers lost $27 billion in 2003, which was up from $10 billion ten years earlier. If you gamble, recognize that the folks who run the games are doing it for a profit, and you cant beat the odds. That said, if you are willing to use your brain and practice a lot, you may be able to count cards and hopefully break even at blackjack. Or, if you are willing to invest the time and effort to become a good handicapper and only bet an occasional horse race, you may manage to break even at the track. Poker has become a very popular game, and again, if you are willing to read books and invest the time and effort, you may be successful at it. Needless to say, if you do break even, you have made money because you have beaten the odds and you didnt lose. Lastly, serious gamblers spend a lot of time at it, and you need to ask yourself if you are being fair to your family and are making any meaningful contribution to the world.

As a teenager, I went to horse race tracks with Dad and Uncle Harold, and my dad would place bets for me. I had read a book on handicapping horse races, and by betting on only a few races, I was able to have some degree of success. Frequently, I wouldnt watch the race since I looked at the bet as an investment, and watching the race had no impact on the outcome of my investment. In college, I occasionally considered the possibility of trying to make a living at handicapping horses. The idea was dismissed for several reasons. First, if I was successful, I felt I would be taking advantage of other people. Second, I wouldnt be doing anything to make the world a better place, and lastly, I figured it would get boring after a time.

There is another form of gambling that we all do and we arent even aware that we do it. The other form of gambling is called making decisions in our lives. If you choose not to get an education, you are gambling that you can be successful without one. If you choose not to wear your seatbelt (and one of you does on occasion), you are gambling and hoping that you wont be in a bad accident in which your seatbelt is required to protect your life. If you choose not to look to the left and the right when the stop light turns green (a lot of folks dont), you are gambling that nobody is going to run the stop light. If you drive on other folks bumpers at 70 mph (which I think one of you does), you are gambling that somehow you can stop if they do. If you choose to pull into an intersection when the light turns green even though your vision to your left is blocked by another vehicle, you are gambling that another vehicle hasnt run the red light. If you dont fill in the rabbit holes in your yard, you are gambling no one will step in them and get hurt. If you dont help your kids with their homework, you are gambling that somehow they will grow up and be successful. If you choose not to recognize that one of your jobs in life is to put a smile on your spouses face (a quote from my dad), then you risk the loss of a most important person in your life.

The decisions go on forever. However, unlike the other form of gambling, it is possible to stack the odds in your favor in the game of life by simply using your brain to think and reason things out, make good decisions and do the right thing. Yes, there it is again: we need to use the gray matter in that thing that sits on our shoulders to think and reason with; if we do, we can affect the probability that events in our life will be successful. If you use your brain to stack the deck of life, some people will call it luck, and some people will say luck is where preparation and opportunity meet. You know this using the brain stuff doesnt cost any money, it requires no physical exercise, and it can bring large rewards. So why not do it?