Is Gambling a Legal Form of Leisure - Essay Example

Gambling- is it a legal form of leisure? Name Institution Despite having been subjected to a lot of debate pertaining to its legality and its moral factor in the society, gambling is one of the most popular leisure events in the world today. The third generation finds itself existing in a world of economic power and more stability. For this reason, many of the people in this generation, both young and old can afford to engage in this form of leisure more frequently and more intensely than their ancestors did (Simmons 2006, p.1). Gambling activities have been associated with many negative factors. This raises major concerns in the society pertaining to the legality of gambling as a leisure form when the negative effects of gambling are brought to light. This essay illuminates this concept in a more detailed manner so that it can be determined whether gambling is indeed acceptable as a form of leisure or it occurs illegally. Various forms of gambling will be discussed in this paper. The effects of gambling activities will also be discussed and the impact to the society. At the end, a conclusion that ties this concept down will be offered. Gambling and gaming are two closely associated but very different forms of leisure activities. The difference lies in the expectations of the outcome. In gambling, the person who engages in this activity (infamous as the gambler) expects some form of reward, either in cash or in material if by chance he wins on the wager. It is important to note that the word ‘chance’ used in the previous sentence has a very huge impact in a gambling scene. For an activity to qualify as a gambling activity, three things must be present. The first one is the chance. In gambling, there is a chance that once one engages in the activity, he or she might win on a wager. There is also an equivalent chance that he or she might lose the wager. The next one is the rewards. If one wins, he or she is given a reward that has been predetermined before the gambling process started. If one loses, he or she is expected to part with a certain reward, either in cash or in material form to the person whom they had waged. The last part is that there are very clear rules that govern how the gambling process will occur. These rules are followed faithfully throughout the gambling process. If by chance a person deviates from these rules, he or she is considered to have cheated and the process ends. Gaming is not very much differentiated from gambling. However, in gaming, there is not necessarily has to be the presence of a reward. People engage themselves in a gaming activity so that they can refresh their minds and have some fun. Most times, gaming is done by a group of friends or using platforms that are free of charge. When one loses in a game, he or she does not have to part with anything and when one wins in a game, he or she does not have to gain from the win. There are very many different forms and types of gambling that exist in the world today. Every nation has its own localized gambling activity that might not be known outside the boundaries of their nation. Others maybe have grown huge to become sensations across the world. The forms of gambling that are internationally recognized have been expounded in the following paragraphs. Undoubtedly, casinos are among the largest businesses in the world that rake in substantial amounts of revenues in a very short period. These are considered luxurious businesses with catchy displays and lightings. In a casino, games could be played for fun, but also at a fee or people could play to win some cash. There are machines set up in casinos that people place some amount of money into before they are allowed to play for a certain period. They may even win some money in this process. Casinos are in two forms, the physical address where one walks into the business and starts playing or an online platform where a person plays virtually on the internet at the comfort of their homes (Bell 1999, p. 7; Wohl 2009, p.2). In the physical casino, there are a number of machines such as slot machines, video poker and Pachinko. These are forms of electronic gambling present in the casino. The casino may also offer table gambling where people sit down on a table and play a game, waging upon each other. Las Vegas is indeed the home of Casinos and gambling business in the world. Here, the revenue collected from gambling business far exceeds any other form of revenue. There are also other forms of gambling that do not take place inside a casino. Examples include lotteries, carnival games, card games, dice games, coin tossing, bingo among others (Rodenberg &  Kaburakis 2013, p. 9). Today, forms of gambling have upgraded to include even betting on normal issues and activities such as the outcome of a political event. This falls under the category of fixed odds betting. In a fixed odd betting, the outcome can only be two, a win or a loss. In an election, one may bet for or against a particular candidate following his or her own conviction. The candidate has only two chances, he can win or he can lose in the election. If the candidate wins, the gambler wins the gambler and is rewarded. If the candidate loses, the gambler parts with some of his possession. People even bet on realistic TV shows. Sports’ betting is also another very popular form of gambling (Insley, Mok & Swartz, nd, p. 4). In this form, there are a number of possible outcomes and people bet according to their conviction of the possible occurrence. For instance, assume there is a soccer game between two major teams, team A and team B. a number of outcomes could occur. Team A could win and team B lose. Team B could also win the match and team A lose. Both teams could come out of the match in a draw, implying that neither of the team has won. Gamblers are even going to the extent of predicting by how many goals a certain team would win over the other team. This is not just done in soccer only. It has sprawled over to other fields of sports such as boxing, basketball and even racing. Today, institutions have introduced modes of betting and gambling even to the risk averse individuals. This is called arbitrage betting. People who do not wish to lose much money on a certain scenario may gamble upon multiple occurrences of one activity. For instance, in the above sports case, a risk averse person who wishes to bet on his favorite team A may bet on the team winning and Team B losing. This gives him a 33.33% chance of winning on his bet since the outcomes are three. However, to increase his chances, he goes ahead and bets on a draw. This improves his chances of not losing the gamble to 66.67%. This activity is called arbitrage gambling. Arbitrage betting could also be seen mildly occurring in an economic platform where people prefer investing a certain amount of money in different stocks as opposed to investing in one option. They reason that if they lose some money in one, they can always recover from the other stock varieties. Moving on to another concept of gambling, it is important to note that gambling is conducted as a business in many nations across the globe. However, the investors in this industry have to meet very strict conditions before they can be issued with a gambling license. They are then expected to be able to comply every time with certain rules and regulations that are existing in this industry. Gambling is considered addictive and it is up to the organizations to monitor and control the way their clients spend money on gambling activities (Becona et al 1995, p.285). Capital outlay for setting up casinos in different is also momentous. Gambling is addictive. Many people who have started this activity have been recorded as not being in a position to stop (State of Delaware nd, p.3). Millions of money have been lost by people because of engaging in these activities. This has resulted in breakages of homes and families living in poverty (Kearney 2005, p. 5). Gambling has also been associated with drugs and other immoral activities such as prostitution. Though a direct connection between the two has not been established yet, many people in the society believe that gambling falls right into this alley. The taxman than the person playing the slot machines may feel the advantage of gambling more. This is the most taxed industry in the world. For this reason, the industry is able to amass sizeable amounts of money as tax to the government. Some people have also managed to amass a fortune from this business too as either gamblers or business owners (Kearney 2005, p. 6). The casinos also employ thousands of people across the globe and this is good for the economy. The above essay has looked deeply into the concept of gambling. There are several forms of gambling that have been defined and discussed in this paper. These include gambling in casinos using machines or even on the poker tables. Another form is online gambling where people gamble online from the comfort of their homes. Sports gambling has also been discussed. People bet on the outcome of a sports game following their own convictions or through reading a certain trend in the games. Other forms of gambling have been identified in the fixed odd betting such as on political matters where the outcome could only be one of the two, forming a probability quotient of 50%. Arbitrage gambling is also another form of gambling as seen from the discussion. As observed, this form of gambling is used mostly by the people who are risk averse and who do not wish to place all their eggs in one basket. It has also been observed from the discussion that gambling is most times associated with other vices in the society such as drugs and prostitution. It has also been observed that gambling as a business brings a lot of income to the government in form of taxes. In conclusion, this paper supports that gambling is indeed a legal form of leisure activity as people who control this business have legal licenses from the government. How people conduct themselves in the activity should be their own concern. Gambling is a legal form of leisure. References Becona et al 1995, ‘Slot machine gambling in Spain: an important and new social problem’, Journal of gambling studies, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 265-285. Bell, T, W 1999, ‘Internet gambling: Popular, Inexorable, and (Eventually) Legal’, Policy analysis journal, no. 336, pp. 1-24. Insley, R, Mok, L & Swartz, T nd, ‘Issues related to sports gambling’, Viewed 9 November 2013, http://people.stat.sfu.ca/~tim/papers/gambling.pdf Kearney, M, S 2005, ‘The Economic Winners and Losers of Legalized Gambling’, Viewed 9 November 2013 http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2005/2/gambling/200502kearney.pdf Rodenberg, R, M &Kaburakis, A 2013, ‘Legal and Corruption Issues in Sports Gambling’, journal of Legal Aspects of Sport, vol. 23, pp. 8-13. Simmons, C, W, 2006, ‘Gambling in the golden state 1998 forward’, California state library, Viewed 9 November 2013, http://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/pdfs/gambling/GS98.pdf State of Delaware nd, ‘The Costs and Consequences of Gambling In the State of Delaware’, Viewed 9 November 2013, http://www.udel.edu/healthserpolresgrp/gamrpt02.pdf Wohl, I 2009, ‘The Antigua-United States Online Gambling Dispute,’ journal of international commerce and economics, pp. 1-20. Read More