Impact of Gambling on Society - Research Paper Example

? Gambling Introduction Gambling of any sort has become prevalent over the pastseveral years in almost many countries around the globe. With roulette, baccarat, crap, and blackjack that started in Europe, it had spread in other countries like wildfire. China with its keno and with gambling as part of their culture influenced other nearby Asian countries to come up with their own version of gambling games. Recently, Macau launched bigger casino hotels affirming that Macau is the “Monte Carlo” in the orient which is being visited by gamblers near and far. In the United States, the introduction of casino and lottery contributed in the practice of gambling among American citizens. The acceptance of gambling has something to do with the several claims that casino industry generates significant new jobs, wealth, and rejuvenate local economies. Casino industry is believed to have contributed much in the local taxes and had increased revenue income. However, such advantage is outweighed by the wide range of its impacts it exerted on the individual gambler, the family, and the society in general. Gambling is considered bad as it negatively affects the individual’s emotional, psychosocial, and physical health, as well as it threatens the family relationship, impacted on children, and cause money problem within the family, lastly, it negatively impacted on the economy and reputation of the society. Body Impact on Individual Gambling negatively affects the individual gambler’s emotional, psychosocial, and physical health aspects. The emotional stability of the gambler becomes unstable and creates problem within himself and his family. In cases where the gambler losses in his games, his frustrations could be demonstrated in his emotions in which he becomes verbally and physically abusive to his partner and may cascade to their children and others. At times, gamblers who want to get even with the money they lost in gambling, displace their grievance to their family members in the form of criticizing them and uttering of words which may hurt their family. The insulting of a spouse in front of the children is also a likelihood leaving the partner psychologically and emotionally aggrieved. In situations where the gambler is not satisfied with his verbal attacks, he may resort to hitting his partner and even children. This is supported with the study by Shaw (616) where he revealed that violence is frequent among couples in Australia where one is a pathological gambler. This is because individual gamblers are themselves emotionally affected if their gambling addiction is not maintained the way they like and in times where huge lose of money is involved. Shaw further revealed that women with pathological gambler husband are commonly admitted in hospitals on grounds of physical injuries accounting for 23% of all cases. Shaw cited the plight of one of the victims of this circumstance where she admitted that she is always in fear for reason that her husband may cause breakage of their windows, doors, overturn furniture, and destroys other things because of agitation. Although, the study of Shaw did not indicate if gambling is the only reason for such emotional outrage, it was explained that the gambler’s low frustration tolerance, mood swings, or addictive disorder contributes to such emotional outburst. The psychosocial dimension of the individual player is also negatively affected with gambling. Generally, gamblers isolate themselves to people they are close to. Family members, friends, officemates, and others they know very well become less and less important in their life and would even exert possible means to avoid them indicating that gamblers are ashamed of their gambling activities however do not have the desire to stop gambling. For some pathologic gamblers, they are aware they are hurting people close to them and the only way to avoid empathizing with them is to limit contacts. At times, they end their friendship to people whom they owed debts. Another reason for isolation is their desire to keep their gambling activities a secret. This is also a reason why gambling takes time to be known by family members. Pathological gamblers do not want to accept the reality they are involved in an illicit gambling and do not want to realize that a great deal of money is involved in this game. This shows, they deny their addiction since it is difficult to get out of it plus the fact that they are not interested to go through counseling, self help programs, and other forms of therapy. In addition, if they are caught, it is easier for them to rationalize their gambling addiction. With this, family members and close friends are powerless to confront and intervene on behalf of the gambler. Not only the emotion and psychosocial dimensions of the player is at stake but also his physical health. With the stress of win and lose games, it causes the gambler to be sick. Health problems such as bowel discomforts and ulcer may develop as a result of skipping or postponing meals. This is particularly true in times the player is concentrated in his games. Other health problems includes headache, muscle pains, poor sleep a result of manifestation of stress and impending depression. Apart from this, the gambler is likely to neglect his physical appearance so that he becomes haggard looking. Other personal needs are not also given importance. Gamblers seem to be focused more on how they could win so that they may sustain their addiction or for them to pay back their debts. Impact on Family The impact of gambling on family includes threatening relationship, affects children, and leaves the family with money problems. Although, there are families who survived the problem of gambling, majority of the families struggle through certain difficulties in repairing the psychological and emotional damages done. Some might be still in a shock stage making their recovery from it longer. Patience to work all through the issues also takes some time more so if the family becomes homeless. The marital relationship of gamblers becomes unstable. This has been reflected in many testimonies of partners where the irresponsible behavior of a gambler is considered as the main cause of separation or divorce. This claim is consistent with the study of Williams and company (6) where they pointed that gambling is implicated as among the related indices of divorce. Reports from Gambling Anonymous also indicate that divorce in areas where more casinos are established had been increasing every year. Of the testimonies, one spouse narrated that his gambler husband became uncaring and spend less time for them not to include time for recreation because he spend most of his time in gambling dens. This leaves the family with heightened stress and disharmony. Others find their sexual relationship to be unsatisfactory as a result of compulsive gambling. Although, one study had indicated that a few spouse showed a negligible number of spouses affected with this problem, it is found to be a contributory factor in divorce. Still others admit they have to leave their husband to help them realize their addiction is not accepted. Children are also affected with gambling activities of a parent or parents. They are prone to be abused and neglected. With the negative effect of gambling to the gambler, the irritation is displaced on the children and as a result they become battered. In response to the behavior of a gambling parent, children lost their self esteem, are powerless, lost trust towards their gambling parent, lonely, hurt, withdrawn, and depressed. Other reports reveal that children who were tagged along with their parents within the casino premise are left unattended and even abandoned. Yet some children died because they were left locked inside a hot car or has been left unattended. Gambling leaves the family with money problems. The challenge along this line is how the family pays for all sorts of debts left by the gambler. Mclure (1) in his study indicated that family members are often left to fix the financial mess the gambler created after emptying their savings account. Mclure however explained that with limited studies on the impact of gambling on family members, it was clearly discussed that the effect of huge debts impacts on the emotional and psychological aspect of the spouse and children. Participants on this study experience deep and negative effect of gambling on them. At its worst is when the gambler is indebted to loan sharks who may go after one’s life for the payment of debts. Another worse scenario is when a family loses properties to pay for all the debts and loans. The thinking of living on the street gives family members an impact which is great. This may also make the family feel betrayed and angry. Impact on Society The greatest impact of gambling is on society as a whole. Gambling is not all about losing money but losing everything to include the moral reputation of the gambler, his job, family, home, and self respect among others which affects the society. Although, in some States with legalized gambling operations, gambling is not still justified with the reason of what it can do to the economic progress of the State. Gambling is considered as bad economic and government policy because it would divert money of the people from goods to tickets. In an effort to earn more of the money, people prefer to buy tickets for lotteries or participate in casinos instead of buying basic needs or services. Gambling also cost the government millions of dollars in relation to the treatment and therapy of gambler addicts to get back to the mainstream society. Therapy for each delinquent gambler is worth thousands of money which is wasted instead of it being used in a more productive manner. Apart from this, their loss of job, bad debts, criminal justice costs, and employment costs all affect the economy of the society if the gambler becomes dysfunctional. Millions are also lost in deterring illegal gambling and bettors of it. With the mere tracking down of illegal gambling operators, it cost the government huge amount for their mobilization. In the study by Graham (1), he discussed that gambling impacts on community services as well. In Australia, some gamblers involved in gambling related problems use the community service and there are more users after the development of gambling related problems. This shows that gambling exacerbates the use of such services at the expense of the government. Furthermore, for individuals who claim that gambling is their form of socializing with other people, it is an expensive and destructive way of doing it. With the nature of gambling, it tends to create more gamblers whether they win or lose as it is addicting and the most vulnerable age group is the young generation. Thus, it is becoming the fastest growing addiction among teenage groups similar to cocaine addiction. Teenagers who wish to win back their lost money or hope to win it big are unaware that the more they may lose. With their time in betting, gamblers have the tendency to forego their other important responsibilities such as their work or schooling. It is observed in gamblers that once they are addicted, they do not have the sound judgment as to when they should stop. This behavior interferes with the gambler’s career in which there is a tendency to lose it too. Gambling likewise encourages crime within the vicinity of gambling places. This idea is in agreement with the study of Williams and the group (8) where they indicated that gambling increases the problem of gamblers in engaging in crimes such as crimes against property to sustain their gambling. It might be that they engage themselves in stealing car stereos, wheels, and other valuable things inside a car for them to make money. The study further revealed that other forms of crimes could be encouraged like money counterfeiting, cheating at play, money laundering, and others. Since it is inevitable not to sell alcohol and cigarettes within the premise of a gambling arena, this would also pose as another “come on” for alcohol related crimes and would attract the attention of individuals with criminal tendencies. With gamblers from all walks of life and from far and near, their number contributes to the popping out of crime which would either include the gamblers themselves, other gamblers, and nearby neighborhoods. This concept seem to corroborate with the study of Reith (7) in which she posited that population growth tends to impact on the occurrence of crimes in the area within the neighborhood. Reith in her same study explained that gambling may also serve as a risk factor to the disadvantaged groups. The presence of gambling arena and the increased gambling affects the impoverished group, unemployed, low levels of education, low income groups. Although, most of this group does not spend more money compared to their wealthy counterparts, much of their income is spent in gambling. The proximity of gambling dens also increases the gambling problems among the locals. People who are located near the casino places are observed to double their prevalence of gambling problem. Finally, on the religious point of view, gambling is bad as it undermines several functions of the government, one of which is to serve and protect its citizens. However, with the presence of gambling, the government may shift its function from a protector to becoming a retailer of products in the form of lottery tickets. With this, the promotion to patronize gambling is not far to happen. People are encouraged to purchase even at the expense of sacrificing their other needs. If gambling is viewed as a form of income generating industry which should stay, other function of the government to promote virtue to the public is likewise ruined. Conclusion Whether it is in the form of lottery, casino, or any other forms of gambling and whether it is legal or illegal, it is noticeable that gambling remains to be one of the difficult challenges of the society these days. The limited studies about the effects of gambling conclude that it impacted on the individual player, family, and society in many different ways. Although, the effect is too great, it could still be prevented at its grass roots if the individual gambler is willing to change for the better and if gambling is regulated by the government. Works Cited Graham, J. From pokies to problem gambling and impact on community service in Eastern Melbourne. 2005. Retrieved from deakin.edu.au. Keith, Gerda. Research on the social impacts of gambling. Scottish executive. 2006. Mclure, Sarah. Using cognitive mapping to describe the family member experiences living with a problem gambler. Proquest. 2007. Shaw, Martha. The effect of pathological gambling on families, marriage, and children. Journal CMES. 2007. Williams, Roberts. et al. The social and economic impacts of gambling. Canadian consortium for gambling research. 2011. Retrieved from http://www.mgcc.mb.ca. on December 5, 2011. Read More