Can anyone explain what could possibly be good about legal or illegal gambling?

TerryBanto: Can anyone explain what could possibly be good about legal or illegal gambling?
I’ve never heard of any person anywhere who is proud to say they are a successful gambler who has won thousands and thousands of dollars and who intends to keep gambling and keep winning money, year after year. With all of the problems our society faces, serious problems, how can someone put any faith in predicting numbers on a wheel, who will win what games, and what cards the other guys are holding. I don’t believe in outlawing gambling at all. But isn’t it all such a colossal waste of time and money and energy for most people?

Answers and Views:

Answer by KC
You can bet on horse races which would be boring without the bets. Anyway, horses are a large part of American culture and their still doing something.

Answer by Joanne Scrabble-Rouser
The profits from legal gambling help pay for the public hospitals here in Australia.

Answer by Natasha’s Ghost
I can’t even go into a gambling hall without getting freaked out. It’s the conditioning that I think gets to me. A similar experience would have been when I first moved to the bible belt and they had a concert at my high school. I went and about half way through everyone started to act really weird in the crowd and then I noticed they were all jerking about and talking in tongues. It literally was the most terrifying experience of my whole life just short of a run in with a bob cat lmao.

Those kids were conditioned to behave in that way under those circumstances and it’s similar with gambling. It’s a form of operant conditioning that works to get people hooked by varying the schedule of reinforcement/reward. The fact that it is varied vs.a fixed reinforcement schedule actually keeps people hooked longer. It is a very well thought out form of manipulation with a final verdict of theft in my opinion.

But hey, the people gambling only seem to be motivated by the same sorts of things those that make the machines and run gambling establishments are, so I just quietly excuse myself and go to the lake. I was going to say that some people may enjoy it for something other then the reinforcement but whenever I have gone with someone to a casino I have been hard pressed to find someone who actually looks happy. There is always an oppressive, anxious energy that surrounds everyone. I seem to be sensitive to this because five minutes in a gambling hall gives me an anxiety attack.

A good thing…might be that gambling halls have created a one stop shop for the observation of people who are intimately, operantly conditioned?

Do you think that when most people vote now in the US it is something like operant conditioning? We have two numbers, one of which will win. We grow up and are taught certain things by our environment and some of us pick a side and bet on it. The reward cycle is also varied, vs. fixed and the subject matter is actually manipulated just as a gambling machine maker would manipulate their machines.

Anyway, it is a colossal waste of time to forsake our free will and allow ourselves to be so easily controlled under any circumstance. Well I better get ready for work. It’s not a variable reward unless I don’t show up 😛

Answer by Pressurespot
Legal gambling, if you lose, you are out the $ $

illegal gambling, if you lose, you skip town and don’t own the money until Bubba is breaking your legs with a sledge hammer.