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There's no such thing as responsible gambling

Leepotism

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
'Responsible gambling' is a dangerous ploy


by Willie Cheng

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Recently, I attended a forum on responsible gambling and gaming.

The term "responsible gambling" refers to judicious engagement in games of chance.

One forum speaker explained the concept well with a diagram of three boxes, from "no gambling" to "healthy gambling" to "problem gambling".

Responsible gambling is depicted as the middle stage, where one gambles moderately without adverse consequences from going overboard and becoming obsessed with gambling.

The forum discussed how the industry can promote responsible gambling. For gambling operators, this is known as "responsible gaming", which covers areas such as codes of conduct, programmes for vulnerable players, ethical marketing and fair gaming.

As I listened, I wondered if gambling can, indeed, be responsible. How can a person be responsible if he engages in an activity where the dice are loaded against him, knowing that he will lose more than he can win, on average and in the long run?

If the amount spent is small, it might well be affordable but still irresponsible, even if mildly so. After all, no one would invest, say, in a stock, if it was guaranteed he would lose money on it eventually.

However, there is one situation when casino gambling can be considered responsible: When the odds are clearly on the side of the gambler. In some games such as blackjack, the odds change as the cards are dealt even though, overall, the odds favour the house.

A very skilled player, especially one who "counts" the cards that have previously appeared, can make more winning decisions based on mental computations of the ongoing odds.

It is hard to imagine casinos welcoming such players who engage in what is more "advantage playing" than just gambling. Casino processes and staff training aim to identify and discourage, or ban, such players.

The philosophy of responsible gambling, as proposed by the industry, seems to be: Gamble responsibly, but do gamble. This sounds like the safe sex approach: If you cannot be good, be safe.

Well, just like the debate over safe sex, there is a third approach if we want to recognise that gambling is a vice: Abstinence or, rather, no gambling.

To be fair, casinos do implement "abstinence" through exclusion orders of problem gamblers, initiated either by the gamblers or those close to them. However, we need more proactive persuasion of the "no gambling" message through campaigns.

But why would gambling operators, who make more money the more irresponsible gamblers are, want to support responsible gambling? Of course, their aim is also not to get problem gamblers to a stage when they are unable to pay off their losses.

Largely, responsible gaming is enlightened self-interest by the industry - and often imposed by regulators. The support of responsible gambling moderates an image of gambling operators as exploiters of human weaknesses to one that presents them as being caring of their clientele.

To some extent, responsible gambling provides a moral backstop to the moralistic arguments by those who are against institutionalised gambling. It cleverly shifts the problems of gambling from the operators to the players.

However, as argued above, if casinos and other gambling institutions are serious about being responsible on gambling, they should only promote "advantage play" or "no gambling."

Otherwise, we should recognise the term "responsible gambling" as not just an oxymoron, but also a dangerous ploy that leads a person down the slippery slope of recreational gambling to problem gambling.



Willie Cheng is active in the non-profit space and writes extensively on it. This is an edited extract of an article which first appeared in Salt Online at www.salt.org.sg

 
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streetsmart73

Alfrescian (InfP)
Generous Asset
hi there


1. bro, it is such some idiotic justification to gamble.
2. responsible gambling! my foot.
3. gamble is still gambling no matter with responsibility or none.
 

Jah_rastafar_I

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
i do engage in responsible gambling.


I bet small amounts. I don't borrow money to gamble and there were times when i risked losing all my stake and i never thought of putting in extra money. I was prepared to let it all go and give it up totally. In fact all this has taught me to be less reckless. FYI i do sports gambling and some of the bets are pretty easy to predict 50-50 chance.


Obviously there are gamblers that borrow tons of dollars and then blow it all away on some riddiculous game.
 
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jw5

Moderator
Moderator
Loyal
If someone regards gambling as a form of entertainment expenditure and not an investment or a money making exercise, he will be able to control himself and be responsible.

People who know how to control their spending on gambling and when to stop or walk away should be ok.
Sometimes, contolled gambling as an entertainment activity does help to reduce the stress and mundane nature of life or even to keep going. The problem is of course that many can't control themselves and wrongly think that they will end up richer from it.
 
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Jah_rastafar_I

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
hi there


1. bro, how many sheep do think like you mah?
2. you know when and how to stop.
3. there are tons of loanshark harrassment cases everywhere, reported and unreported ones.

There are tons of stuff to bet on. 4d, toto, dice, rolette, slot machines, sports betting encompassing football, b-ball etc and so on.

Some are harder to play then others and obviously the rewards are high but the chances of winning are low. Some gamblers probably want to be entertained and win at the same time hence the cards and the dice and the spinning wheel in rolette etc. For me nope i don't care about non of that. The sole purpose is to win money, so i just put in a bet amount and wait for the results to come. I don't even bet big unless i know it's a sure win. I usually put like 5 bucks for a bet and then slowly accumulate it.

Started out with like a hundred and won a few thousand. There's also tons of sites that gives info on the teams especially famous teams where anyone that constantly watches football for eg can sort of guage the outcome. Many ppl bet on it too and you can get feedback from them. Numerous online sites to choose from. Most famous outside of sg pools would be ibcbet but i don't use that cos you need to go thru an agent a 3rd party which isn't safe.


The ppl that mostly lose are those with unrealistic expectation. They put in a few hundred and hope to accmulate like a few hundreds of thousands like almost instantly or after a few hours of playing. More often than not they lose the money and these punters have that empty feeling that comes with a loss and try ways and means to win hoping that the longer they play the higher the chance of winning. Hence from an initial starting amount of some hundreds they slowly start to burn away thousands and more.


Even though the few thousand i won isn't much but it was like over 10x the initial amount i put in.
 
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jacobsgoh

Alfrescian
Loyal
Seems there are people who know when is the right time to do the right thing.
i have a friend who was teaching me how to invest in the share market; he told that i can surely make money by buying cheap and selling when the price goes up, and i being stupid, didn't even started investing, could had make Tons of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
 
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Leepotism

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
There's no sure win in the share market. It's also a form of gambling but they call it speculating.
 
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Leepotism

Alfrescian (Inf)
Asset
There was a man I knew who made tons of money when the market was good. But in the end he committed suicide because he lost more than he could pay when the market crashed.
 

Glaringly

Alfrescian (InfP) [Comp]
Generous Asset
Seems there are people who know when is the right time to do the right thing.
i have a friend who was teaching me how to invest in the share market; he told that i can surely make money by buying cheap and selling when the price goes up, and i being stupid, didn't even started investing, could had make Tons of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

But people say buy share you becomes an invester, not gambler, so it is proper and respectable.

I like you knows nuts about share, have only Singtel, get con by lau Goh. 4D and big sweep also no play let alone toto football and what's not.

When people makes money from share, I can only envy them and looks stupid.

But when they lost money, I say Heng Ah, I didn't play!
 

mako65

Alfrescian
Loyal
Wat will they tink of next? Responsible gambling is just pure bullshit...to those incorrigible hardcore gamblers, it's either the roof, the river or the revolver! Remember the house always win...
 

jacobsgoh

Alfrescian
Loyal
Joke is, when they made money, they tend to give free advice about something they hardly know anything about.
I once had some Oriental shares way back in 1980s, when there was also this emporium holdings at Ang Mo Kio central by this name 'Oriental', i even tried to advice my relatives to 'invest' as me not knowing that what i invested in was Oriental Penang, making car batteries and Honda car assembly
 
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