Free Essays on Gambling

Gambling One of the many definitions of the word monster is: a threatening force. Having some personal knowledge of the subject, today I will talk to you about gambling. It used to be that if you wanted to gamble, there were very few places it could be done. It was either you bet on horses at the neighborhood OTB, hopped on the bus to Atlantic City, New Jersey, or flew out to Las Vegas. In 2004, it is the complete opposite. It seems that most Native American reservations have casinos on them, as the casinos are the major revenue resource for the reservation. The Mississippi River Delta seems to be overflowing with gambling boats. On these floating casinos, one can play slots, blackjack, or any variety of games. There is also the Internet for people who want to gamble from the confines of their own home. Along with the many opportunities for gambling come many opportunities for addiction. One of the many definitions of addict is as: To cause to become compulsively and physiologically dependent on a habit-forming substance. Compulsive gamblers must place bets as frequently as possible. They are convinced that the big payoff is just around the corner. Before they know it, they have lost thousands and thousands of dollars. Like alcohol or drug addiction, compulsive gambling is considered an illness. According to Dr. Robert L. Custer of the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery, the progression of gambling addiction has three phrases, which are the winning phase, the losing phase, and the desperation phase. The winning phase is exactly that. The gambler has accumulated some winnings and starts feeling good, so they increase their bets, because they think â€Å"Hey I can’t lose.† This leads them right into the losing phase. The losing phase is when they start reflecting on their past wins, and how they can get more money to continue their gambling. They often gamble alone and lie to their families to disgu... Free Essays on Gambling Free Essays on Gambling The Uncontrollable Disease of Gambling In the US today, as gambling is becoming more popular so are gambling addicts. As the states institute legalized gambling, their income increases dramatically. Compulsive gambling needs to be recognized and medically treated before it is too late for the gambler. The only way to treat the disease of compulsive gambling is absence from gambling. Therefore, compulsive gambling must be considered and uncontrollable disease. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, compulsive means an irresistible (uncontrollable) impulse (Mish 166). A disease is defined as being an abnormal bodily condition that impairs functioning and can usually be recognized by signs and symptoms. Uncontrollable means incapable of being controlled (Mish 222). Pathologic gambling has been defined by the American Psychiatric Association â€Å"as a chronic progressive failure to resist impulses to gamble, and gambling behavior that comprises, or damages personal, family, or vo cational pursuits† (Glazer 2). How can it be determined if an individual is a compulsive gambler or not? According to the American Psychiatric Association you are a pathological (compulsive) gambler if you exhibits theses traits: (1) you have â€Å"preoccupation with gambling; (2) a need to increase the excitement produced by gambling; (3) restlessness or irritability when unable to gamble; (4) repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop gambling; (5) gambling in an effort to get back money lost during gambling on a previous day; (6) gambling in an effort to escape† an unpleasant â€Å"mood; (7) lying to cover up gambling; (8) jeopardizing a significant job, relationship, or educational opportunity by gambling (9) engaging in illegal activity to finance gambling; and (10) going to someone else to relieve a desperate financial situation produced by gambling. An individual who fulfills five out of the ten criteria is diagnosed as a pathological gambl... Free Essays on Gambling The casino operators know the laws of probability very well. They know, for example, the odds against getting any one of four possible Royal Flushes in a hand of poker are 649,739 to 1; they are aware that the odds of drawing any one of 624 possible hands of - four of a kind, that is four 2’s, four 10’s, etc., are 4,164 to 1; that in a roll of two die, the odds against a single roll of 2, are 36 to 1. They know if you throw a six faced die once, the chance of getting a 1 or 6 is 1/3, getting an even number is  ½, getting a number less than three is 1/3 and getting a number less than 5 is 2/3. In terms of gambling is the more money you have to wager, and if you pace yourself in betting, the longer you can stay in the game and thus the greater your odds for winning. The less money you have, and the larger your bets, the shorter the length of time you can play and thus the greater your odds for losing. All professional gamblers know this, but I’m not certain they all know why they know it. The lesson to be learned being that if you must gamble, and have a small amount of money, wager small amounts so you can stay in the game longer and thereby improve your odds of winning. Mathematical probability can therefore be said to be proportionate possibility. The mathematician’s definition of what is probable is concerned with what may happen, and is relevant to calculations of practical value only in so far as circumstances warrant the belief that events occur with corresponding frequency in real life. For example, in the game of roulette, the odds of a bet on black winning as opposed to red is 50 - 50. This leads to a paradox in the theory of probability resulting from the fact that the outcome of a croupier’s throw is not causally related to the outcome of previous throws. The longest series of black coming up was 28 straight times in a row. Never-the-less the chances of black turning up on the 29th roll was still 50 - 50. A... Free Essays on Gambling The Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution in the Bill of Rights respectfully states â€Å"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people†. (Gerald Murphy, Cleveland Free-Net). This Amendment states the individual’s choice about how to spend ones money. There are a few reasons that the Government should not involve themselves in this situation. First and foremost the constitution does not authorize the federal government to obligate itself in the gambling and the gaming industry. Second citizens who live in a free society and under democracy and the constitution should be able to spend their money in any democratic way they want. (Will Congress Nationalize Gambling). Gambling involves only willing participants. Unlike taxes, the citizens living in this democracy are given the equal opportunity to purse any means of happiness they wish. People who gamble may win hefty amounts of cash and be content, or on the other hand they can take the chance to lose ample amounts of money and be miserable. But that is the responsibility of the people and the Government should trust and respect that. Spending money in a casino is no different from spending money in a tavern or a sports arena or even at a political fundraiser. The governmen t should not engage themselves in this type of situation. The gambling industry has supported many different types of organizations and involves themselves financially in numerous associations. To support the Goverment the Republican and Democratic Party’s receive hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the gaming industry. According to the Center for Responsive Politics the total number of money contributed from the gambling industry to politics in the last presidential election was 6.7 million dollars (Metrobeat). Much of the gambling industry’s rapid expansion i... Free Essays on Gambling In a world fraught by deadly ecological problems, the idea of discussing the future of gambling may seem frivolous. Yet it is far from that. As a fundamental human activity, it deserves to be studied without cultural or religious bias for the key that it may provide to survival. We have been fed a lot of myths about our wish for homeostasis, which is really a state of bovine contentment. To attempt to achieve this state we consume mountains of pills and rivers of alcohol. Somehow we seem to feel that if we can deny our essential humanity long enough, we can solve our problems. When we attempt to grow, we are considered mentally ill, masochistic, or naive. Outworn Freudian or Skinnerian approaches to human behaviour are pushed at us, and we seriously consider the nightmare possibilities of Beyond Human Freedom and Dignity. If we are to design for a healthy future, we must remove our blinders and examine the total human personality from the point of view of health, not sickness. Consider gambling. It is a fundamental human activity that is, people have always gambled, are gambling now, and will continue to gamble, in the future. Yet we are told that it is masochistic, sexually sublimative, and aberrant. Gambling has been ubiquitous in human history, and the gambling impulse has served us well. It is part of "the adventurer within us" that part of ourselves which lusts for change, the wooing of the unknown, chance, danger, all that is new. It sends us to the gaming tables and the moon, the laboratory and the numbers man. It is part of what makes us human. Studies show that, contrary to popular belief, gambling is by and large beneficial to the gambler and increases rather than decreases his efficiency. It is beneficial in that it stimulates, offers hope, allows decision making, and, in many cases, provides the gambler with "peak experience," that godlike feeling when all of one's physical and emotional senses are "go." ... Free Essays on Gambling Gambling One of the many definitions of the word monster is: a threatening force. Having some personal knowledge of the subject, today I will talk to you about gambling. It used to be that if you wanted to gamble, there were very few places it could be done. It was either you bet on horses at the neighborhood OTB, hopped on the bus to Atlantic City, New Jersey, or flew out to Las Vegas. In 2004, it is the complete opposite. It seems that most Native American reservations have casinos on them, as the casinos are the major revenue resource for the reservation. The Mississippi River Delta seems to be overflowing with gambling boats. On these floating casinos, one can play slots, blackjack, or any variety of games. There is also the Internet for people who want to gamble from the confines of their own home. Along with the many opportunities for gambling come many opportunities for addiction. One of the many definitions of addict is as: To cause to become compulsively and physiologically dependent on a habit-forming substance. Compulsive gamblers must place bets as frequently as possible. They are convinced that the big payoff is just around the corner. Before they know it, they have lost thousands and thousands of dollars. Like alcohol or drug addiction, compulsive gambling is considered an illness. According to Dr. Robert L. Custer of the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery, the progression of gambling addiction has three phrases, which are the winning phase, the losing phase, and the desperation phase. The winning phase is exactly that. The gambler has accumulated some winnings and starts feeling good, so they increase their bets, because they think â€Å"Hey I can’t lose.† This leads them right into the losing phase. The losing phase is when they start reflecting on their past wins, and how they can get more money to continue their gambling. They often gamble alone and lie to their families to disgu... Free Essays on Gambling Over the past twenty or so years, great wealth and improved economic and social conditions have been promised to the communities that have embraced legalized gambling. However, with twenty years of experience it is time to look back and analyze whether this is true or not. It could easily be said that gambling is as American as apple pie. Gambling has shaped American history since its beginning. Lotteries were used by The First Continental Congress to help finance the Revolutionary war. Many of our founding fathers, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, have sponsored private lotteries. It has been said that "Our founding fathers were just numbers guys in wigs" At one time baseball would have seemed to be the American pastime. This is not so now. In recent years, the attendance at casinos has nearly doubled the attendance at all major league baseball games, with close to 130 million people visiting casinos every year.1 With so much money at stake, the average gambler does not stand a chance against this big business. The casinos go to every length to analyze what makes a gambler bet, stay longer, and loose as much money as possible. Gamblers who come to casinos with the intention of winning money are habitually disappointed. As casino crime lord, Meyer Lansky’s universal gambling truth states; "Gamblers never win, the house never loses"2 Slot Machines and most table games allow players to make bets where the probability of winning is relatively high. Frequent wins are characterized by low payouts. These frequent wins encourage further gambles with low payouts. Frequent winning, low paying games are not the only way casinos get people to keep playing. Nothing less that psychological warfare is going on at casinos across the country. "The days of shaved dice, missing face cards and rigged roulette wheels are long gone. But the pursuit of profitability in the corporate era of gambling has turned the ...

Washington Irving

Washington Irving Washington Irving was the first American to make a living as an author and during his prolific career in the early 1800s he created celebrated characters such as Rip Van Winkle and Ichabod Crane. His youthful satirical writings popularized two terms still closely associated with New York City, Gotham and Knickerbocker. Irving also contributed something to holiday traditions, as his conception of a saintly character with a flying sleigh delivering toys to children at Christmas evolved into our modern depictions of Santa Claus. Early Life of Washington Irving Washington Irving was born April 3, 1783 in lower Manhattan, during the week that New York City residents heard of the British ceasefire in Virginia that effectively ended the Revolutionary War. To pay tribute to the great hero of the time, General George Washington, Irvings parents named their eighth child in his honor. When George Washington took the oath of office as the first American president at Federal Hall in New York City, six-year-old Washington Irving stood among the thousands of people celebrating in the streets. A few months later he was introduced to President Washington, who was shopping in lower Manhattan. For the rest of his life Irving told the story of how the president patted him on the head. While attending school, young Washington was believed to be slow-witted, and one teacher labeled him a dunce. He did, however, learn to read and write, and became obsessed with telling stories. Some of his brothers attended Columbia College, yet Washingtons formal education ended at the age of 16. He became apprenticed to a law office, which was a typical route to becoming a lawyer in the era before law schools were common. Yet the aspiring writer was  far more interested in wandering about Manhattan and studying the daily life of New Yorkers than he was in the classroom. Early Political Satires Irvings older brother Peter, a physician who was actually more interested in politics than medicine, was active in the New York political machine headed by Aaron Burr. Peter Irving edited a newspaper aligned with Burr, and in November 1802 Washington Irving published his first article, a political satire signed with the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle. Irving wrote a series of articles as Oldstyle over the next few months. It was common knowledge in New York circles that he was the real author of the articles, and he enjoyed the recognition. He was 19 years old. One of Washingtons older brothers, William Irving, decided that a trip to Europe might give the aspiring writer some direction, so he financed the voyage. Washington Irving left New York, bound for France, in 1804, and didnt return to America for two years. His tour of Europe broadened his mind and gave him material for later writing. Salmagundi, a Satirical Magazine After returning to New York City, Irving resumed studying to become a lawyer, but his real interest was in writing. With a friend and one of his brothers he began collaborating on a magazine that lampooned Manhattan society. The new publication was called Salmagundi, a familiar term at the time as it was a common food similar to present day chefs salad. The little magazine turned out to be shockingly popular and 20 issues appeared from early 1807 to early 1808. The humor in Salmagundi was gentle by todays standards, but 200 years ago it seemed startling and the magazines style became a sensation. One lasting contribution to American culture was that Irving, in a joking item in Salmagundi, referred to New York City as Gotham. The reference was to a British legend about a town whose residents were reputed to be crazy. New Yorkers enjoyed the joke, and Gotham became a perennial nickname for the city. Diedrich Knickerbockers A History of New York Washington Irvings first full-length book appeared in December 1809. The volume was a fanciful and often satirical history of his beloved New York City as told by an eccentric old Dutch historian, Diedrich Knickerbocker. Much of the humor in the book played upon the rift between the old Dutch settlers and the British who had supplanted them in the city. Some descendants of old Dutch families were offended. But most New Yorkers appreciated the satire and the book was successful. And while some of the local political jokes are hopelessly obscure 200 years later, much of the humor in the book is still quite charming. During the writing of A History of New York, a woman Irving intended to marry, Matilda Hoffman, died of pneumonia. Irving, who was with Matilda when she died, was crushed. He never again became seriously involved with a woman and remained unmarried. For years after the publication of A History of New York Irving wrote little. He edited a magazine, but also engaged in the practice of law, a profession which he never found very interesting. In 1815 he left New York for England, ostensibly to help his brothers stabilize their importing business after the War of 1812. He remained in Europe for the next 17 years. The Sketch Book While living in London Irving wrote his most important work, The Sketch Book, which he published under the pseudonym of Geoffrey Crayon. The book first appeared in several small volumes in American in 1819 and 1820. Much of the content in The Sketch Book dealt with British manners and customs, but the American stories are what became immortal. The book contained The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the account of schoolmaster Ichabod Crane and his otherworldly nemesis the Headless Horseman, and Rip Van Winkle, the tale of a man who awakens after sleeping for decades. The Sketch Book also contained a collection of Christmas tales which influenced the celebrations of Christmas in 19th century America. Revered Figure at his Estate on the Hudson While in Europe Irving researched and wrote a biography of Christopher Columbus along with a number of travel books. He also worked at times as a diplomat for the United States. Irving returned to America in 1832, and as a popular writer he was able to buy a picturesque estate along the Hudson near Tarrytown, New York. His early writings had established his reputation, and while he pursued other writing projects, including books on the American West, he never topped his earlier successes. When he died on  November 28, 1859 he was widely mourned. In his honor, flags were lowered in New York City as well as on ships in the harbor. The New York Tribune, the influential newspaper edited by Horace Greeley, referred to Irving as the beloved patriarch of American letters. A report on Irvings funeral in the New York Tribune on December 2, 1859, noted, The humble villagers and farmers, to whom he was so well known, were among the truest mourners who followed him to the grave. Irvings stature as a writer endured, and his influence was widely felt. His works, especially The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle are still widely read and considered classics.