The roots, significance, value and legislation of gambling

The Roots, Significance, Value and Legislation of Gambling

Gordon Moody, M.B.E. Salcombe, Devon, United Kingdom

In this highly personal account, Reverend Moody traces his exploration for over three decades of many facets of the underlying nature of gambling in society and in h u m a n nature. He makes the case that much of the appeal of gambling comes from the excitement of "playing with chance," and discusses how different types of gambl ing-- lotteries, wagering, and continuous be t t i ng - -mee t a variety of needs and pose diverse levels of risk to gamblers. He notes distinctions between "controlled" and "uncontrolled" gamblers, and the tendency for controlled gamblers to play on the edge and risk loss of control. He notes difficulties in prevent ing the excesses that can occur to individuals who gamble. He points out the problems with legislatures legalizing gambl ing for ulterior purposes, such as to raise tax revenue, ra ther than to cater to the demand for gambling from punters. This can lead to situations where commercial gaming interests are not directed to act in the best interests of the general public because potential problems that may arise with available gambl ing are ignored or deemphasized. Finally, he points out the tensions amongst various interest groups who deal with gambling and notes those forums which have evolved in recent years that provide greater opportunities for dialogue among the various entities who deal with gambl ing and public policy issues.

Gordon Moody was ordained a Minister of the Methodist Church in 1942. In recognition of his work on gambling, he was awarded the M.B.E. (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by the Queen in 1969. In 1980, the Open University conferred on him the Honorary Degree of Master of Arts. (See obituary, pp. 3-7). This issue is dedicated to his memory.

Send reprint requests to Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming, Mail Stop 024, University of Nevada, Keno, NV 89557-0016.

Journal of Gambling Studies VoL 11(1), Spring 1995 �9 1995 Human Sciences Press, Inc. 35

36 JOURNAL OF GAMBLING STUDIES

I N T R O D U C T I O N

This analysis describes a quest on which the author set out in 1958 and concluded in 1990. (Moody, 1985; 1988; 1992) The quest was to discover the value of gambl ing - i t s appeal to those who enjoy it.

A number of factors prompted me to undertake it. In 1958 I became Secretary to the Churches' Council on Gambling. Parliament was then about to legalise off-course cash betting and I would be expected to help the Council express its views. That being the case, I believed that I should know something of what gambling means to gamblers. Not being a gambler, I did not expect to find the answer by engaging personally in gambling.

One thing I knew. I could not accept views then current within and without the Churches. These implied that the motivation to gamble was negative, that it was used as a substitute activity. M y belief in human nature persuaded me that the motivation must be positive because so many people gambled keenly and consistently in spite of losing often in the short run and always in the long run. I believed that if we knew what moved them, there would no longer be the need--as was then the case-- to suggest that gamblers were seek- ing a substitute for sex, a relief from boredom, were greedy for other peoples' money, or were simply the dupes of gambling promoters. The traditional moral theological argument as to whether gambling was wrong in itself or only when taken to excess seemed to me to be irrelevant because its basic assuinption was that the principal interest for gamblers was the money, something I found impossible to believe.

One course was open to me: to go and view the gambling scene. I went to greyhound tracks and horserace courses and, from 1961, when they were legalised, to betting offices and gaming and bingo clubs. In the following years I learned a great deal in frank and friendly discussions with legislators, controllers and promoters of gambling in France, Australia and the United States of America as well as in the United Kingdom.

The first enlightenment came in 1964. In those days, in the United Kingdom, the general view was that there were no serious social consequences of gambling. Compulsive or problem gambling was never mentioned. As I went around, however, I saw people who appeared to be "hooked", for whom, to say the least, gambling was

GORDON MOODY 37

doing no zood. That impressed me and prepared me for the opportunity to enable Gamblers Anonymous and Gam-Anon to come to the United Kingdom. (Moody, 1990, pp. 10-12)

I seized the opportunity and was plunged into the life of those fellowships. In and out of meetings, day after day, week after week, the experiences of problem gamblers and their families were poured over me. I saw how gambling can take people over and run away with them, but the one thing that never became clear, that was never explained, possibly because it was so obvious to them all, was the nature of the hold gambling had over them. So, with respect to my quest, I was no further forward.

Indeed, the great light that fell on problem gambling had the effect of thrusting normal gambling into the shade. However, in 1971, when my office was moved from London to Berkshire, and much more in 1978, when I retired and moved to Devonshire, my active involvement with Gamblers Anonymous was much reduced, and I returned to thinking about ordinary gambling. My belief that its motivation must be positive grew into a conviction that, whatever the secret, gambling must be related to a deep and real response to our environment. Though I did not know it then, I was waiting for personal experiences which would show me its significance.

THE ROOTS OF GAMBLING: PLAYING W I T H CHANCE

The first such experience came when our grandchildren (then nearly three, just four and just five) became immediately, intensely and absolutely absorbed in gaming the moment we introduced them to it. In the week following Easter, 1983, my wife and I took them into a seaside amusement arcade to shelter from the rain. They were not impressed by the slot machines or by the video games. However, they responded at once when we came to a roulette machine.

In the centre of this, under a glass dome, was the wheel. The slots were not numbered but coloured red, yellow, blue, green and white. The odds were determined by the number of spaces allocated to each colour. On each of the six playing positions a lamp was illuminated periodically to indicate that bets should now be placed. This was done by inserting a two-penny piece into any one of five slots. Behind each coin slot a pair of light bulbs indicated which colour it represented.


One lit to acknowledge the bet, the other to indicate that the colour had won. A pair of lights declared a winner and the appropriate number of two-penny pieces rattled into a box below.

I shared a supply of coins between the two elder children who could just see the lights and reach the coin slots. They heard the sounds emitted by the machine when the wheel turned but they could not see the wheel nor did it occur to me to lift them up to see it.

I was deeply impressed with the way they plunged into this activity. There was no time for Pavlovian processes to work and I saw no reason to ask what Freud or Jung would have made of it. The eldest, a girl, was at first so excited that she could not extract a coin from her clenched fist in time to play. She boiled with frustration until I showed her how to have a coin ready in time. Suddenly I noticed the youngest, a boy, crouched between his brother and sister, one hand over each payout box, ready to grab the winnings. He did not protest when these were taken from him and given to the players to return to the machine.

After perhaps twenty minutes, funds were exhausted and we came away. As soon as we turned from the machine Elizabeth burst out in white heat excitement: "Can we come here again tomorrow?" My wife said: "I expect we shall go to the beach tomorrow." (And how they loved the beach.) Elizabeth replied, with great conviction, emphasizing each word: "But this is so much better than the beach!"

These were lively, enthusiastic, articulate children, active, inven- tive, imaginative. We knew them and their ways well. At that time we had them without their parents for about six weeks each year but ! cannot recall any response to any experience to match that. What had evoked it? The lights, the music and the rattle of coins? Certainly not the winnings, for ultimately there were none, just money lost. I was convinced that much more was involved.

It was the way the children plunged into the play that gripped and held my imagination. For two months the experience remained domi- nant but unproductive in my mind. Then, suddenly it attached itself to memories of experiences of my own. These were associated with card and dice games played without stakes within the family circle or on wider social occasions. In particular there was a game called "Beetle." Players sat four to a table. Those opposite to each other were partners. Each player threw the dice in turn. A six allowed both partners to draw the body of a beetle, a five the head, and so on. The first pair to

GORDON MOODY 39

complete a beetle, shouted "Beetle," and scores for that round were counted and each pair of winners passed to the next table. People became intensely excited. Some, having thrown the dice, could not let go of the shaker, the next player having to grab it in desperation. The emotion and commitment matched those of the children at their roulette machine.

Once these experiences mated in my mind, the conception and birth of an idea soon followed. On all these occasions, I realized, we were playing with chance. The conception of people playing with chance reminded me of the way Konrad Lorenz, in King Solomon's Ring, described ravens "playing with the wind" (Lorenz, 1952). The compar- ison appeared to be relevant. We live with chance as ravens live with the wind. However, to discover the significance of playing with chance I had to ponder on chance itself.

First, viewed objectively, cold and distant, or so it seemed to me, chance plays an important part in the origin and development of all existence and life. I cannot speak or write with any authority on these matters. I therefore sought pre-digested information and appealed to Dr. Jack Dowie of the Open University. He sent me literature prepared for students taking the Open University's Course on Risk. In the section "Chance and indeterminancy in the physical world," prepared by Dr. Fred Holroyd, I found a statement which seemed to distill the message of the whole: " . . . chance is a property of the laws which govern physical behaviour . . ." (Holroyd and Collings, 1980)

Then, in the second place, I considered our warmer, mistier experience of uncertainty in our dealings as persons with the world we inhabit. The same questions disturb modern people as disturbed those of ancient times. Is there meaning and purpose? Is there ultimate reality-- a "creator"? If so, is it benevolent, antagonistic or just indif- ferent to the human race? Do we matter or do we just think we do? On all these questions, there is evidence for "yes" and there is evidence for "no." Taking it all together the answer seems to be either "maybe" or just a noncommittal shrug.

What a fertile field for gamblers! And from it what a rich harvest of magic, soothsaying, necromancy, religion and astrology. All these have their origin in, and drew their strength from, uncertainty. People don't "play" with chance, so conceived. Those who seriously have dealings with these areas of life are careful to put on every available spiritual protection.


Third, I considered chance as an inescapable fact of life, beginning with conception in the womb. What were the odds against my never having been born? Another occasion, and it would have been another person, not me. What chance arrangement of chances, through the generations, provided just that assortment of genes which makes me myself?. Further, as we grow, develop and pursue our lives, an endless variety and succession of contingencies affect us. Risk and chance may be perceived as shuffling a huge pack of possibilities from which actual situations and events are dealt.

All that being the case, to play with chance would be a deep and real response to our environment.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GAMBLING: LIVING AND P L A Y I N G W I T H C H A N C E

Animals as well as human beings experience risk and chance. Indeed, risk and chance dominate the life of the animal kingdom. Survival depends on the ability to assess the degree of danger or opportunity, and the capacity to make the appropriate response. I realized this as I watched animals in their natural habitat. Today, at least in the United Kingdom, this is an armchair activity. Television brings us series after series of nature films in which predators and their prey play a considerable part.

There is the gazelle, venturing cautiously into the open to graze. Every sense is alert. It scents the air and listens constantly. It grazes briefly, then raises its head to lbok around, grazes again and so on. There is the predator, waking up and setting out to find a meal. It moves with a stealthy, fixed intent, every sense alert. Prey is sighted but a kill is not certain. Concentration brings every nerve and muscle under control for the subtle advance that precedes the chase or the spring. In a flash, it is over. The rudiments of the calculation of odds are there. If the prey escapes, does the predator say: "It was a long shot anyway, not enough cover?"

Birds find food on roads and, when drivers approach them, they take off individually, not as a flock. Some, perhaps because they are more hungry, defy risk to the point of absolute danger. They seem to know, even to be calculating, what they are doing.

All of this we share with the rest of the animal kingdom, bringing it with us as we developed into the human race. No doubt, however, our enhanced awareness, both of self and of the environment, would

GORDON MOODY 41

soon be applied to experiences involving risk and chance. Maybe the first attempt at speech, the noises in the throat being accompanied by much waving of the arms, meant: "Watch out!" or "You nearly had it that time." It was by taking the intellectual step of isolating the notions of risk and chance from the experiences in which they were daily encountered by our ancestors, that they were set free to play with chance in games of their own invention. They would do it, of course, in their tree or cave, safely insulated from the life-threatening risks they knew too well. The nursery of the human race must, in that way, have resembled nurseries of later times.

For many people, playing with chance the "nursery" way without stakes is sufficient. They may not understand why staking, which takes playing with chance nearer to life, introducing an element of real risk, is necessary to others. That may be due to a failure to take account of how strongly the human child of all ages is attracted to games of"dare." Stakes accentuate that element and, in some games, for many people, they become necessary if the game is to be taken seriously. Poker, for instance, is very much a matter of"dare."

This has consequences which can be serious. Without money stakes games of chance may be enjoyed with abandon. Because gains and losses, however small, are real, stakes constitute a leak in the "insulation" of the "tree" or the "cave." Cautious people warn about "playing with fire" and needing "to know what you are doing." That leak turns gambling sour for many gamblers--not all compulsive, problem or addicted--who are carried away and lose more money than they intended. That leak turns gaming sour for governments and populations as well, encouraging corruption, making difficult the en- forcement of the law, and inviting the attention of organised crime.

To those matters we shall return later. Just now we will consider the way in which lotteries (including pool betting), wagering and betting (bookmakers and totalisators), and gaming, reflect aspects of modern life, and how staking brings people away from safety into real risk.

L O T T E R I E S A N D LIFE

Alone among the forms of gambling, lotteries properly and neces- sarily have their place within the framework of our daily lives. Their value is that they make impersonal choices. Children understand this. To choose who is to be "it" and try to "tag" the others, they recite such


rhymes as: "Dip, dip, my little ship, sails on the ocean, you're not IT." Some may pout, but none will argue with the result. At the other end of the scale, at least in films, straws are drawn to decide who will take the risk for which no volunteers can be expected.

Lotteries relate to the dominating effect chance has upon our lives, to everything which leads us to say that life is a gamble. Chance decides our starting point in life, our natural gifts, our basic health and physical constitution. It touches everything that happens subsequently. Consider the difference between: "It's a pity you did not come yester- day" and "How lucky you came today."

These things considerably affect not only the wealth we can or cannot command, but also the way we stand with each other. Gener- ally speaking, however, apart from the truly unfortunate (in material or personal terms), we are pretty contented as we are. Even so, at some times and in some ways, most people would like the fairies at the bottom of the garden to make a change or two.

This is not a matter of greed or envy of the rich. People don't want all that. The appeal of the way of life of the rich, especially as they appear in popular serial television dramas, is that if the story requires the house to have a games room, a swimming pool, stables, private jet aeroplane or a hunting lodge, it is there. Our experience is different. Lotteries offer a hope (though not much expectation) of greater freedom of activity. People have a go, but they are not deluded. They know, in the words of the motto of one of Australia's lotteries, that "You have to be in it to win it."

A young friend of mine put l~er finger on the point. She said: "I look on money as freedom" and explained what she meant. The money from her own job took her on holiday with her baby when her husband went on duty to a conference. If lotteries were not used to exploit us (though they are, as we shall discuss later) they could afford a marginal kindness, helping people to live with maybe's they do not take too seriously.

WAGERING AND BETTING

Wagering and betting have their place just over the edge of life, over the touchline. Bets are placed on events but they do not affect them. Indeed, great care is taken that events on which betting takes place are not "fixed." Further, although we shall find similarities between betting and other financial transactions, they differ fundamentally in significance.

GORDON MOODY 43

A bet is more than an opinion. It is a commitment. Children understand this. They argue about who will win this match, that race, a certain fight. Each challenges the other, defending his own choice. I speak from my own experience. As a boy, I was usually penniless. Given a penny I would spend it. It was the same with my fellows, but in a dispute we would say: "I bet you a pound to a penny" or: "I bet you any money."

The commitment, not the amount of money, is of first importance. A street bookmaker, operating illegally in London before cash betting off-the-course was legalised in the United Kingdom in 1960, explained this to me. When he thought a young man was losing too much money, he said to him: "You can have the same bet for sixpence (two and a half new pence) as you can for half a crown (twelve and a half new pence)." Betting is making a selection and backing your judgment. The stake forces you to accept the verdict the result passes on your judgment. That is the essential nature of betting. It is altered as soon as winning becomes the most important matter. It is altered, also,, when "having a bet" is replaced by continuous betting, a matter considered later along with casino gaming.

WAGERING A N D B E T T I N G A N D LIFE

The common denominator for betting on the one hand and for dealing with risk and chance in life on the other is the actual or virtual calculation of the odds. The late Professor John Cohen, for years Head of the Department of Psychology of the University of Manchester, applied this to a consideration of people's intentions when making a suicide attempt (Cohen, 1960; Cohen, 1970). At one end of the spec- trum they hoped to be discovered, forgiven and loved, while at the other they truly wished to die but could not eliminate the risk of discovery. Either way, he said, they calculated the odds.

Insurance is based on the recognition of unavoidable risk and is designed to ameliorate the effects of mischance. It is often compared with betting and indeed insurers' calculations bear a striking resem- blance to bookmakers' odds. Also, some important ins t i tu t ions- the stock, commodity, futures, antique and art markets--as well as the money markets, are sometimes popularly described as casinos. This is because each transaction is based on an actual or virtual calculation of the odds. Indeed, to weigh the pros and cons in any matter is to calculate the odds. I will give an example which impressed me greatly.


In March of 1987, a conference for industrialists was held in Lon- don. Its title was "Gambling with Risk." The theme was: "Can process plant be safe and efficient?" The brochure stated: "The conference sets out to debate whether or not industrial plant can be both safe and efficient, and to explore the commercial and moral trade-offs that have to be made by industrialists when deciding how much to spend when making plant safe." The illustration on the cover showed a bridge, an aeroplane, a ship, an oil rig, a factory, and vehicles on a motor-way. These were dominated by representations of an explosion, fire and flood with, most prominently, a pair of dice showing a five and a two. This suggests that, virtually at least, industrialists have to work out the odds, decide when they are too short to take the risk and when they are long enough against an accident occurring for them to take a chance.

We must now note, however, that just because, as was said above, the actual or virtual calculation of the odds is a common denominator for betting and other transactions, it does not follow that they are alike in all respects. In some ways they differ completely from each other. For instance, in life, the result is of paramount importance. Risk may add spice, but if it takes first place, a crash is not far off. In betting, challenge and risk are of the essence. Punters lose overall but most survive and count their hobby worthwhile.

From its position on the touch-line of life, betting teaches us that the depth at which our convictions are held is tested by our readiness to get our stake down and risk losing. This may be applied to our generally expressed hopes for peace, the elimination of poverty, hunger and want, the sufficient promotion of health and enlightenment, the achievement of true freedom and the full acceptance by all of the whole human race. How serious are we? Fully to commit ourselves to achieve these goals would be a "gamble" indeed. The stakes are high, by common consent the odds are against success and no one really trusts the other players. The general practice of people and nations shows that only rarely do we "gamble" at such great odds.

CASINO GAMBLING AND LIFE

With casino gaming we are to take continuous betting and we should include prolonged bouts of machine gambling on any premises. In all these, risk and chance are met head on, repeatedly and rapidly, enclosing bettors and players within the activity, so that insulation

GORDON MOODY 45

seems to work the other way. In many casinos there are no windows and no clocks. Playing chips, not notes and coins, are used for stakes. On betting premises, clocks and sometimes information from the course keep bettors in pace with events and forgetful of the significance of time and the value of money. A machine player, one with his machine, can appear lost to the world. General awareness and balanced judgment are diminished. Excitement increases with enthrall- ment. In the end, however, the money is real and fantasy risk comes home with a bump as real risk. That is another world, and we would never dare cross a road with the abandon with which bets are made there all the time.

Life cannot be lived like that as the experience of the boomtowns of the California Gold Rush illustrate. Towns, hastily constructed, died as they were suddenly deserted. Gambling was not only rife; it characterized the whole experience. Those who invested in hotels, bars, stores and stables, were "gambling" on there being a good strike as much as were the miners. Working by day and gambling by night seemed to be two aspects of one experience.

Bret Harte epitomizes this in a sentence in his tale: "How Santa Claus came to Simpson's Bar" (Harte, 1896, p. 75). The weak and sickly son of a miner is aware that his father's companions are gambling in the adjoining room. He says he would like to take a hand and win some money, t-Iis father, glibly repeating a familiar formula, says if Johnny would wait until he struck it rich in the tunnel he would have lots of money. The boy replies: "But you don't, and whether you strike it or I win it, it's about the same. It's all luck."

That Gold Rush experience lives on in fiction and drama and in dreams about what makes a man a man, but it could not last in real life. Certainly, three Western gambling centres, Denver, Kansas City and San Francisco, remained active after the boom had ended. For a brief time San Francisco was the gambling capital of the world, but the end had to come.

Soon the railway brought people of a different temper to the West. They too, sought their fortunes, but on a solid foundation. They lived with risk and chance but they met them with caution and prudence. They saw gambling as an enemy and made it illegal. They drove it underground. In the same century, for similar reasons, the same action was taken in the eastern states of the United States, and in the United Kingdom and in some other European countries with the same result.


Prohibition is one way in which prudence deals with gambling. It is not satisfactory because people want to gamble and bookmakers and others provide them with ways of doing so illegally. That makes matters difficult for the police because the law lacks the full sympathy of the majority even of non-gamblers. To remove all restrictions on gambling is not a practical alternative. When in the United Kingdom a gap in the Betting and Gaming Act 1960 enabled over a thousand gaming clubs to flourish outside the law until the Gaming Act 1968 came into force, we saw what that could mean. The processes of justice were rendered ineffective, organised crime from the United States was moving in, and players were being exploited to an intolerable degree.

The alternative to prohibition, it is now generally agreed, is to legalise gambling under license and to apply adequate, reasonable and enforceable controls. That is not easy to accomplish as we shall see below. I believe the difficulty to be that it is not sufficiently understood "what gambling means to gamblers--a problem for me, as I noted in the opening paragraph of this paper. We now come to the second personal experience, the one which helped me understand the value of gambling, its positive appeal.

T H E V A L U E OF G A M B L I N G : C O N T R O L L E D S T I M U L A T I O N

In May, 1990, my wife and I were on holiday in a small town in Lower Saxony in Germany. I was considering a theme for the paper which forms the basis of this section (Moody, 1992) and was reflecting on the importance of stimulation in gambling, for players, operators, legislators and regulators alike. Then, one Sunday, we entered the main square and found ourselves in Fairyland. Children had formed a market and were selling grown-out-of toys, books and records and, in the centre, there was an old-fashioned fair. M y eye was caught by a traditional skittle alley of wooden construction at which four young people were finishing their play. The sight of it stimulated me and I went to have a go. I knew I was risking making an exhibition of myself. I was 77 years old and had never before played skittles, and ten pin bowling only twice.

GORDON MOODY 47

While waiting my turn I noticed that the proprietors were keeping records and that, so far, no one had knocked down more than five skittles with one ball. I paid my Deutschmarks and took up my first ball. It was heavy and, for a moment, it almost unnerved me. There were no slots for finger and thumb so it had to be balanced on, and rolled off, the palm of my hand. Stimulation rose and, with it control, and the ball went straight and true, and seven pins were down.

I had done it and I felt great. In the hours that followed I took pleasure in re-living the experience, enjoying the stimulation as much as the sight of the skittles going down.

Prompted, no doubt, by that self-indulgence, there came recollec- tions of goals, tries and points I scored in the various games I played when I was young. All were special, memories of which I had savoured many times before. Now, perhaps for the first time, I was aware of the importance of the controlled stimulation which flowed through the body and limbs to the foot, hand or head that had to strike the ball at the right moment, the right angle and with the right force.

That further self-indulgence did not last long. Soon I was plagued with embarrassing memories of other occasions on which stimulation had overwhelmed control. Even in infancy, when visitors to the house played with me and uncles sparred or wrestled a bit, excitement over- powered me and I lost control. In shame I would hear my father's patient explanation: "He never knows when to stop."

Experiences of being stimulated beyond control usually occurred at conferences or residential gatherings, occasions which give rise to situations which have some aspects of a game. Debates and conversations provide opportunities to score points and in that way also I am very competitive. Once again, for success, stimulation and control are necessary. In my case stimulation was often excessive and out of hand. My thoughts, agitated and disturbed, could be all over the place. I would not be able properly to follow debates or conversations. I could neither form the words of a suitable intervention nor spot the moment to intervene. All this occurred at intervals until, at about the age of forty-five, I decided that I had had enough and that it must stop. Now it all came back to me and I could feel the enhanced heart-beat, the agitated fuzziness in the head, the choking sensation in the throat.

Then something remarkable occurred. While still feeling those remembered emotions, in my mind I saw and heard, from twenty-five years before, one of the earliest British members of Gamblers Anony-


mous. He was speaking in a meeting and saying passionately: " . . . and there I was again, shouting suivi, suivi, suivi, like a fool." He was a chemin-de-fer player, telling how, over-stimulated and out of control, on a losing run against the bank, he had insisted on continuing to play instead of following the wiser custom of the game, allowing play to pass to the person on his right. The way he looked, the way he spoke, convinced me that, both at the time of the event and as he re-lived the experience in describing it, his emotions were those I used to feel. Indeed I am sure it was that association which brought the incident immediately to my mind.

It took some time for my mind to settle after that. When it did I asked myself what there was in common between my experiences in games and conferences and another person's experiences in gambling. I saw that, in certain essentials, they were closely related. Fundamental to each were chance/risk, win/lose situations. In each case participation evoked considerable stimulation which, if controlled, brought pleasure, but if Uncontrolled, put participants at risk.

I expect we all enjoy the stimulation provided by some activities which offer chance/risk, win/lose situations, while fear, prudence or incompetence keep us from engaging in others. I therefore hope to be understood when I say that I believe that all who fully participate in such activities, including gambling, enjoy or suffer the same experiences. To illustrate I offer the following anecdotes.

In 1987, a "Wide-World" British Broadcasting Corporation television programme described crop spraying from the air in Kenya. Pilots flew only just above the ground and every pilot's nightmare, it was said, was that he would lose his nerve. However, when interviewed, one said: "You just cannot give it up." The narrator remarked that, for such men, the dangerous journey is enough and those who have the craving put it above family, friends and health.

In 1963, I introduced a psychologist to a short-term recidivist prison to meet a group of men whose gambling was thought to have led them into crime. He asked, "What other experience comes nearest to gambling?" With one voice and great emphasis they said: "Being on the job"--commit t ing a crime. Is the enjoyment of risk a significant motive in law-breaking? If it were, it might help to explain why boys, too young to apply for a driving license, steal fast cars and drive them in cities at dangerous speeds. It might also help to explain why so many of the children who become "addicted" to amusement-with-prizes ma-

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chines (modified gaming machines with low stakes and payouts) en- gage also in crime--ostensibly to fund their gambling. Certainly, in the late 1980's criminologists on the one hand and psychologists and sociologists on the other discovered that the peak age for participating in crime and for playing the machines was in both cases fifteen.

Some years ago a friend who was trying to understand gambling asked me: "Is it as sailing is for me? I can enjoy it fully only when I am so close to the wind that at any moment I may capsize." Rock climbing and pot-holing could, I suppose, raise a similar question, to say nothing of motorists who frequently or regularly drive recklessly.

Although I have no understanding of what it is like to build a huge financial, industrial and property empire, I found myself wondering, in 1990, if what happened to Alan Bond in Australia and to Donald Trump in the United States might relate to what we are discussing here. Such activities must abound in chance/risk, win/lose situations capable of engendering enormous stimulation. Failure to control stimulation in such circumstances would be disastrous.

Since then there has been the spectacular collapse of the Robert Maxwell empire. If the published accounts give a true impression of what happened he seems to have acted exactly as a problem gambler. In trying to save his "ship" he seems in desperation to have moved away from one company or fund to another, aware only of the immediate crisis, unable or unwilling to recognise the folly, futility or criminality of his actions.

Elsewhere I have described the life of a problem gambler as follows: "You are like a man trying to keep his balance on the crazily moving platform of gambling, while at the same time attempting an impossible feat of juggling. But instead of plates, you are trying to keep your family life, your home, your job, your solvency and the rags of your reputation and credibility in the air." (Moody, 1990, p. 24) Robert Maxwell's career at its end reminded me of that.

There are other similarities. Under pressure, problem gamblers become desperate, and relentlessly subject those around them to all kinds of abuse. There were echoes of that in the reports of the way Robert Maxwell hectored and bullied those around him, storming at them until they signed documents they knew to be unwise or unlawful. Perhaps he was also on a losing run and shouting suivi, suivi, suivi, like a fool.

Such cases must be exceptional or the financial and commercial life of the world would collapse. Even so, I suspect that, while the


acquisition of power and wealth figure largely in the ambition of those who build up financial, industrial, and property empires, the ultimate driving force may prove to be stimulation evoked by win/lose, chance/ risk situations.

We miss the point if we say that the airmen in Kenya, the prison inmates, the sailors and rock climbers or the financial empire builders, were "gambling." They were engaged with risk, sometimes wholly or partly playing with it, but it was all in real life activities. It is the distilled essence of that experience we enjoy when we "play" with chance. We began by talking about playing with chance. When staking was added we really moved to playing with risk. That progression is, if you notice, from a consideration of what may "come up" to one of what may "go down". Either way, stimulation is what we are after. The strength of the stimulation may increase and its significance may modify as staking grows in importance and, if it does, control must be maintained or the game is spoiled. Where stakes are added, loss of control can be dangerous or even destructive. Can there be a sub- stance involved in all this? Can there be, even, an addiction to adrenalin?

At this point I believed I had reached the conclusion of my quest. I f I had it right, the roots of gambling do lie deep in our general human experience. Further, its value, for those who enjoy it (and perhaps its dread for those who do not), is the experience of controlled stimulation it provides. That enjoyment may be diminished by losing or enhanced by winning. It is certainly destroyed by loss of control. Indeed, to be real enjoyment the experience has to be savoured in retrospect as well as in prospect and in the event.

Some will no doubt say: but what sort of value is t h a t ? - t h e enjoyment of controlled stimulation while gambling! The answer is, simply, it is a value people enjoy, and not only in gambling, not only in other forms of play, but also in following many generally approved pursuits, at work or in leisure, which provide chance/risk, win/lose situations.

A "value" has value for those who appreciate it, however trivial or wrong it may seem to others. For some time I have been convinced that, if we are to help those with destructive problems which arise from loss of control over an activity, we need to understand for what satisfaction the activity was originally adopted and is still pursued-- i t s value for that person.

GORDON MOODY 51

THE LEGALISATION OF GAMBLING

The gambling law is, perhaps, properly a sub-branch of a whole body of law designed to encourage us to develop a mutual or corporate self-control in matters where we are dealing with risk and chance. For instance, our enjoyment of, or involvement with, real life risks can be so great that we are tempted sometimes to make a game of them. For example, when I am driving, and overtaking (or passing) one vehicle while keeping my eye on another approaching me in the other lane, I tend to become again a rugby football player, running with the ball and endeavouring to avoid, in one manoeuvre, the tackles of two players coming at me from different directions. However, I keep cool, for two reasons: I want to avoid an accident, and I know that the law deals severely with reckless drivers.

The law has to be applied to gambling for similar reasons because, while it starts as play, it can have real life adverse consequences because the stakes are real money. For that reason, governments, when legalizing gambling, generally consider it to be their duty both to ensure that it is fairly and properly conducted under license by fit and proper persons and to safeguard gamblers from exploitation. The United Kingdom Parliament, for instance, from 1960, endeavoured to follow the advice of the Royal Commission on Betting, Lotteries and Gaming 1949/51 which considered that " . . . the object of gambling legislation should be to interfere as little as possible with individual liberty to take part in the various forms of gambling but to impose such restrictions as are desirable and practicable to discourage or prevent excess." In my opinion this was, generally speaking, successfully ac- complished. Excesses which have been suffered in other countries have been avoided. The jurisdictions which experience the greatest difficulties in this regard are, I believe, those in which the principal objections to the proposed legislation come in the form of a strongly expressed moral condemnation of gambling itself. When that barrier is broken few restraints appear to remain.

The question of how to guard against the encouragement of individual excess gives legislators their greatest problem, although it is a matter of great importance to those concerned with the personal and social consequences of gambling. There are practical difficulties. En- couragement to "have another bet" is often an unavoidable conse- quence of the way gambling operates. In a drinking bar individuals


and groups decide for themselves when it is time to have another drink. It is not quite like that, however, in a betting office or parlour of the off-course premises of a totalisator. There, bets are placed in accor- dance with a programme of races, and the information from the course (if provided) or the clock reminds punters that another event is about to take place and that it is time to bet again.

There are other difficulties. One is that some controls which are by general consent desirable are politically difficult. Another, perhaps, is that most legislators, along with their advisers, are not gamblers and, being prudent people, find gambling and gamblers difficult to understand. I believe that gives rise to misconceptions of which I want to mention two.

This is the first misconception. It is often said that there are gamblers of two kinds: those who are controlled and who need no help from the law, and those who are uncontrolled and cannot be helped by it. That view appears to me to be inadequate, as I shall try to explain.

I am convinced that there are uncontrolled gamblers and I agree that they cannot be helped directly by the law. An attempt to save them from themselves by restricting the general freedom to gamble would, I believe, not only fail but also produce a bad law. Those who recover do not ask for such protection. Problem gambling can and does flourish when gambling is conducted illegally. I believe that the principal responsibility of legislatures with regard to uncontrolled gamblers is to encourage and promote an understanding of their condition and provide for the recovery and rehabilitation of those who seek it.

My first reason for saying this is that I am sure that, in uncontrolled gamblers, excess of stimulation, which leads to loss of control, is self- engendered. I believe that, both because it was true of my own bouts of excessive stimulation, and because the self-revealing confessions it was my privilege to hear in Gamblers Anonymous confirm it for me.

M y second reason for saying it is that I have come to realize that problem gambling is a complicated matter which has meaning in the gambler's life outside as well as inside the gambling environment. Listening to hundreds of members of Gamblers Anonymous describing their experiences, I realized that none came only because of excessive gambling. All come when they have been brought to ruin or to the fear of ruin by the feverish activities of borrowing, deception and crime which accompanied their gambling.

GORDON MOODY 53

It is important to understand the relationship between the gambling and the reckless living. For a long time I saw them as two separate things, closely related. I accepted the explanation I was given, that gamblers deceived and stole just to get the money to gamble. Then, hypothetically, I imagined a gambler being tempted, for the first time, to do this. Being the first time, there would surely have to be a pause for consideration and a deliberate decision. Might not just the willingness to get into debt or into crime distinguish problem gamblers from other gamblers? I put that to a member of Gamblers Anonymous and he replied at once: "But, Gordon, it is all one thing."

So I reflected again on gamblers' accounts of their gambling careers. I remembered how they took each other through episodes of gambling, of obtaining money by deception, manipulation and theft, of more gambling and so on, all in one progress, almost one breath, certainly one experience, all "one thing." Then I saw the point, to practice deception and commit crimes is to create chance/risk, win/lose situations which would generate the same strong emotional arousal as gambling, and, if deception is to succeed, the same "dreamworld" capacity to believe your own story.

So it is all one continuous activity, whether gambling on horses, machines, in the casino, or with the security of their homes, families, jobs, their whole well-being. That realization gave me a new hypoth- esis: problem gamblers are those who are so obsessed with gambling that they see life as a gamble and live accordingly (Moody, 1990, p. 34). The gambling law cannot control that.

Notwithstanding all that, uncontrolled gamblers can be and are adversely affected when additional forms of gambling are legalised. For instance, those who first attended Gamblers Anonymous in London, from 1964, had developed their problems long before betting offices and gaming clubs opened in 1961 under the 1960 Act. Even so, with the new facilities, which multiplied their opportunities to gamble, the incidence and development both of their gambling and of their difficulties increased. Further, uncontrolled gamblers might marginally be helped by any measures adopted to assist controlled gamblers--a matter discussed later.

I am quite sure also that there are safe gamblers because I have seen them in action and, on the rare occasions when I take part, I am one of them. Their prudence and thrift keep them paddling in the shallows,


indulging in small occasional bets, limiting their losses to what they can well afford, and enjoying titillation rather than stimulation.

The case is very different for those we can call "controlled gamblers," who plunge right in. For these, stimulation begins at the point where it requires control. They share the knife-edged risk-taking of the Kenyan airmen, the sailors, pot-holers and climbers and the "empire builders" we discussed earlier. These could be called controlled risk- takers, though that means, not that they never lose control, but that the risks they face demand the constant maintenance of control. That, I believe, puts t h e m - a n d controlled gamblers-- in danger of losing control.

The stimulation controlled gamblers enjoy builds up. They experience it on leaving home in the same manner as those feel it who set out for the theatre or a sports stadium. It increases as the venue is approached and on entering the gambling environment. It peaks with participation as it does when the theatre curtain rises. Thereafter its intensity is determined by the progress of the game. If, for controlled gamblers, tension is never intolerable, or control severely tested or even broken, the session may have been disappointing. It is therefore a fundamental part of being a controlled gambler to avoid becoming involved in games where control is likely to be too severely tested, however drawn to them he or she may be. Because controlled gamblers take pleasure in being at risk I would expect them sometimes to lose control.

By "losing control" I mean exceeding their own self-imposed limits and suffering both financial and emotional embarrassment. It is then that the experience fails the test of true enjoyment, which is to say that it can be savoured in retrospect as well as in prospect and in the event.

All that applies, let us remember, to those who gamble at privately arranged parties. It is the base line of risk and stimulation for those we call controlled gamblers. For those who use the services of a considerable gambling industry there is more to contend with. That industry, like any other, sets out to maximize its business and profits. That means always attracting more people to use its facilities and stimulate them to risk and lose as much as possible. That is simply the applica- tion of commercial acumen but its implications should be observed.

Those who use commercially provided gambling facilities need to be stimulated by them and those who provide the facilities must stimulate the users if their enterprise is to be successful. Those needs

GORDON MOODY 55

are both complementary and conflicting as are the needs of the sup- pliers and supplied in all kinds of transactions. Purchasers guard themselves against the blandishments of providers and providers seek to overcome resistance in purchasers.

In this case, however, the purchaser has also to be on guard against himself. Both the stimulation he seeks and that to which he is subjected are intended to lead him to maximum participation, with the ever-present danger of excess. In general, at least, I am sure that those who provide gambling facilities do not desire that end. No doubt, they like patrons to leave losing more, rather than less, money. But, simply as businessmen, they do not want them to depart in a state of emotional or financial embarrassment. It is, however, difficult for them always to avoid that because, while they stimulate the players generally, they cannot direct stimuli of appropriate strength at each individual.

That leaves a sort of"no man's land" where the danger of excess is greatest. It is the responsibility of legislatures which legalise gambling under license to occupy that ground. They cannot entirely eliminate over-stimulation, exploitation or excess. If, however, they acquaint themselves with the situation, they can improve it, at least marginally, for all parties, by implementing, enforcing, and above all by keeping up to date, relevant and effective controls.

Matters tend to be made worse, however, when legislatures legalise betting and/or gaming in order to use them as revenue providers. The take-out rather than the public demand for gaming facilities becomes the principal object of the exercise. The casinos of Atlantic City are a prime example of this.

Much the same result can follow when third parties are given an interest in the money staked. For instance, the horserace betting levy in the United Kingdom led to an arrangement of horseracing events designed to stimulate maximum participation in betting at off-course betting premises. In 1970 I personally observed the wealth generated by banks of "poker" machines for members' clubs in New South Wales, Australia. I found few people who shared my conviction that funds of such proportions could not be raised unless a significant number of players participated excessively. Generally, people applauded the considerable benefits that, as a result, were provided for members and their families.

Oddly enough, it is the "mild" lottery which tempts legislatures to go to the most extreme lengths in stimulating gambling. States have a


direct interest in the success of their own lotteries, launching them to support projects of a kind which it is their own duty to fund, at least in part. They often overestimate the unstimulated demand for tickets and underestimate the potential demand for shares in the proceeds. As a result, in some countries, the mode of the lottery has in recent years changed until it has taken on the excitement of video gaming devices.

In the United States, it has been found that lottery managers, to achieve success, have to be devoted to constantly increasing sales with little thought of public welfare even though purchasers, in the main, tend to be among the poorer people. Although the average spent per head in lottery states was U.S. $110, in fact the $2 a week player was atypical, and the hardcore is relatively small. The top 20 % wager 65 % of the amount spent (Clotfelter, 1989). It is essential to keep the interest of the heavy players and to attract new ones.

In 1994 a National Lottery is to be launched in the United Kingdom to provide funds for the arts, sport, charities, the national heritage and projects to mark the year 2000. This will be the responsibility, not of the Home Office, the guardian of public order, which is generally responsible for gambling legislation, but of the Department of National Heritage, which has the duty, quite apart from the lottery, of encouraging the activities listed above. It will have a considerable interest in the success of the lottery, and to achieve that it may have to follow the American example. After all, public demand for a lottery may be met long before its yield can begin to satisfy the expectations and meet the needs of the vast number of organisations whose activities are included under the five hea~s named above.

Legislators do not will such ends. The use of lotteries as "voluntary taxation" (and the very expression ought to raise our suspicions) arises, I believe, from the second of the two misconceptions.

I have in the past heard some members of the United Kingdom Parliament say such lotteries would put to a good use some of the proceeds of gambling. This seems to imply that gambling is a wasteful activity and that the losses incurred accrue to form a store of money ready to be appropriated for other purposes.

There are, however, no such "proceeds" from gambling. Consider this. Years ago, a friend of mine, from his first floor bedroom window, would on occasion hear the voices of a group of men who were gambling in the street below. Each took a number from 0 to 9 and, as each vehicle passed, the one whose number matched the final digit on

GORDON MOODY 57

the number plate received a penny from each of the others. Pennies changed hands continually but, when the party broke up, each penny was in somebody's pocket. No "proceeds" were left.

That is so in any private gamble where each party to it commits his or her stake knowing that, if it is lost, it will go to the winner or winners. That situation is not fundamentally altered when a cut from the stakes pays for the provision of commercially provided facilities. It is not altered, either, when a deduction is made for general taxation. Beyond that, I believe, there should be nothing for anybody else on the grounds that (in my opinion) to exploit gambling for third party interests leads inevitably to the exploitation of gamblers.

Of course, steps already taken in that direction cannot at once be retraced but, if legislators wish to enable people to gamble as they choose without being encouraged to excess they might otherwise avoid, two things are essential. First, that must be their explicit aim. The intention must be to meet the needs of gamblers, not to use gamblers as providers of funds for other purposes. (Is there any other activity, for which there is so popular a demand, which legislatures tend either to make illegal or to legalise provided it is used to generate funds for other purposes?) Second, they must understand the overwhelming importance of stimulation to all who, in whatever capacity, are involved with gambling, so that wise and balanced controls may be applied.

Over time, if experience shows that errors have been made, they may be corrected. In any case, I suggest that the duty of legislatures in this matter is to provide, in law, for those forms of gambling for which there is sufficient demand among their populations. That would in- volve a system of licensing which should ensure public order and fair play and also act as a kind of umpire watching the interests, when they diverge, of those who provide and those who use gambling facilities. That law will need to be overseen, in its operation, by a knowledge- able, discriminating, unbiased and effective regulatory body, with powers to recommend such changes in the law as are from time to time seen to be necessary. The law itself should include provision for such changes to be made.

From all the above it will be seen that legislators need help when dealing with gambling and there are reasons to hope that they and their officials may be better served in the future than they have been in the past. Too often, they have had to sift the truth from contentious as well as conflicting advice from various lobbying parties. For more than two

58 J O U R N A L OF GAMBLING STUDIES

decades now, members of all these groups have gathered under one roof, sometimes in one room, to discuss the various aspects of gambling.

The most influential body for such gatherings is the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming, with its headquar- ters at the University of Nevada, Reno. It was largely the creation of Professor William R. Eadington, from his series of National and then International Conferences on Gambling and Risk Taking which date back to 1974. The National Association for Gambling Studies in Australia was formed in 1985 following a conference in Canberra in 1984 called "Gambling in Australia". Its main purpose is to disseminate information about gambling to all interested parties.

The oldest, the Society for the Study of Gambling, was established in the United Kingdom in 1977 from a series of conference on compulsive gambling which I had the privilege of convening from 1967 as part of my work with the Churches' Council on Gambling. After the Coun- cil ceased its activities the National Council on Gambling was set up to take o+er part of its work. In 1993, the European Association for the Study of Gambling was formed.

Among those who attend the meetings of these bodies are legislators, regulators, commercial interests, academics, professional medical and social workers, lawyers, prison officials, along with individuals whose interests in gambling are many and various. For some time the reserve, even the suspicion, with which members of the various groups regarded each other could be felt. More recently, it has been evident that personal contact and knowledge is engendering mutual respect and trust. I get the impression fhat the various parties are ceasing to feel that they are in opposing camps.

They will never all say the same thing. If, however, as seems likely, this development continues, the several groups, being less on the defen- sive, may more simply and clearly express their own case, thus helping legislators to see the situation as a whole and make a better judgment.

REFERENCES

Clotfelter, Charles, and Philip Cook, (1989). Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Cohen, John, and E.I. Chesnick (1970). "The Doctrine of Psychological Chances", British Journal of Psychology, pp. 323-334.

G O R D O N M O O D Y 59

Cohen, John (1960). Chance, Skill and Luck: The Psychology of Guessing and Gambling. London: Penguin Books.

Harte, Bret (1896). The Writings ofBret Harte, Vol. 2, pp. 66-83. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Holroyd, F. & CoUings, S. (1990). The calculated risk. In J. Dowie (ed.) Risk and rationality.

Milton Keynes, United Kingdom: The Open University Press. Lorenz, Konrad (1952). King Solomon's Ring. London, Methuen & Co. Moody, Gordon E. (1985). "Playing with Chance", in William R. Eadington (ed.), The Gambling

Studies: Proceedings of the Sixth National Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking, Vol. 3, pp. 317- 329. Reno: University of Nevada.

Moody, Gordon E. (1988). "Living and Playing with Chance", in William R. Eadington (ed.), Gambling Research: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Gambling and Risk Taking, Vol. 3, pp. 83-92. Reno: University of Nevada.

Moody, Gordon E., (1990). Quit Compulsive Gambling. London: Thorsons. Moody, Gordon E., (1992). "Perspectives on Gambling", in William R. Eadington and Judy A.

Cornelius (eds.), Gambling and Commercial Gaming: Essays in Business, Economics, Philosophy and Science, pp. 441-448. Reno: Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming, University of Nevada.

The roots, significance, value and legislation of gambling

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