Betting to lose

The emergence of Internet gambling should give us cause for alarm, especially in light of suggestions that on-line casinos are an increasing threat to stability in marriages.

The Irish bishops’ marriage support group Accord in a recent report found that high levels of Internet usage was putting strain on marriages, with excessive online gambling a particular problem.

In South Africa, Internet use is not as ubiquitous as it is in Ireland, but the number of television commercials for on-line casinos suggests that gambling on the Web has taken a hold here too.

Accord warned: “The media image created by the gambling industry is that Internet gambling is engaged in by smart, competent card sharks who pit their wits against each other. However, the reality in the counselling room is of a marriage scourged by addiction, mistrust and major financial loss.”

Gambling in any form can be addictive. For many the Internet casino is a constant temptation which doesn’t even require the gambler to leave home. Online gamblers don’t see their money draining, because Internet transactions do not involve cash. It is fair to assume that the likelihood of a gambling addiction is heightened by the conveniences afforded by on-line casinos.

The Catholic Church does not regard gambling as intrinsically evil. Games of chance, an occasional flutter on the horses and even the weekly lotto can be agreeable recreational activities, while parish bingo events and school raffles are benign forms of fundraising.

For most people, a little wager is an ephemeral diversion. For many others, however, gambling represents an existential threat. The Catechism of the Catholic Church warns that games of chance “become morally unacceptable when they deprive someone of what is necessary to provide for his needs and those of others”. It warns that “the passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement”.

The gambling industry, for all its promises of glamour, tends to target the poor and vulnerable. In urban areas, casinos tend to be built near low- and middle-income residential areas, because it is from there that the desperate will come with a dream of that fugitive stroke of luck that might change their fortune and release them from the mire of poverty or debt.

For very few of them, these dreams may come true. The rest continue to feed slot machines in rooms that have neither clocks nor windows, perpetuating and exacerbating their poverty. Not a few spent more money than they can afford on their elusive dream. Many raid household budgets, default on repayments or school fees, sell possessions and incur debt to feed their compulsion.

Likewise, excessive expenditure on lottery tickets in a bid to shorten impossible odds can put a great strain on the family’s finances.

As the economic crisis bites ever deeper, the desperation to take a gamble on the chance to make quick money will infect many who had considered themselves immune to this temptation. The convenient, permanent availability of unregulated online gambling, where no stigma can be exposed, will tempt many burdened by debt and lack of access to credit to seek what they falsely believe to be an easy way out of financial difficulties.

It is said that the house never loses — only the vulnerable whom the industry exploits and their families. Gambling is not only a private but also a social problem. Compulsive gambling can lead to financial ruin, the breakdown of the family, and even to suicide.

While not all gambling is intrinsically wrong, we must be beware of its morally and materially corrosive potential to individual, family and society.