Ethics of gambling

THE ETHICS surrounding the gambling issue, both in theory and reality, is surprisingly complex. In 1996, Congress formed a commission to examine the gambling controversy, particularly its impact on America during the previous two decades. For two years, the commissioners held citizen meetings around the country to gather opinions from every segment of society. The commission's conclusion? More study had to be done. This is not a case of government trying to self-perpetuate itself. According to the commission, "Gambling is an ephemeral subject; the study of it is frustrated by the apparently solid repeatedly slipping away."

The report goes on to describe the complexities of the gambling industry as well as of ethical positions toward gambling. The segments of the US gambling industry include: commercial casinos, tribal casinos, state-operated lotteries, Internet gambling, pari-mutuel betting (horse and dog tracks, jai alai), sports wagering, charitable gambling, and video lottery terminals. People's views of gambling range from prohibiting it to permitting all forms of it with no governmental interference.

Between these extremes lies a multitude of opinions on what types of gambling the government should permit and where it should be allowed to take place. Discussion of gambling forces public policy makers to deal with issues as diverse as addiction, tribal rights, taxation, senior living, professional and college sports, organized crime, neurobiology, suicide, divorce, and religion.

It is this complexity that makes the ethics of gambling so fascinating and challenging. Over the past 40 years, gambling has spread across America with astonishing speed. In 1964, New Hampshire started the first state lottery. In 1978, the first casino outside Nevada was opened in Atlantic City. Today, 27 states have some form of casino gambling, 38 states have lotteries, and all but two states have some form of legalized gambling. Revenues from gambling activities have leapt from $1 billion in 1980 to over $70 billion in 2004. The amount spent on gambling far surpasses the amount Americans spend on other forms of entertainment such as recorded music, movies, theme parks, and video games combined.

Despite gambling's growing popularity, the majority of literature takes a position against it, either categorically or conditionally. Even the gambling industry recognizes the addiction problem associated with gambling. Yet, given the predominance of antigambling sentiment by the educated elite, 86 percent of Americans report that they have gambled at least once in their lives and 68 percent report that they have gambled at least once in the past year.

How can one explain the popularity of gambling when there is so much written against gambling activity? Can it be attributed to simply a national moral failure or weakness of will? What are the reasons people gamble? Can any good come of it?

Antigambling activists maintain that gambling is inherently wrong. They argue that it is against human nature and nobility. A gambler violates his or her conscience in yielding to greed. Gambling becomes the irrational effort to maximize chance against reason. It also destroys the will, since intentionally maximizing risk "is the will to have no will."

The pro-gambling position sees the central dilemma of gambling as a tension between the desire to permit free choice and the fear that such choice may lead to harm either to the individual or to society. Consistent with this stance, the pro-gambling forces would like government to enact policies that promote "greater freedom" for mature adults, but adds "tighter controls on the freedoms" of children and "vulnerable consumers."

These policies include limits on the size, hours of operations, and location of gambling establishments. They take the view that the state should respect the right of the individual to behave as he or she wishes, provided there is no harm to others. They also argue that most regulation of such activities as drinking, smoking, and pornography represents a compromise between freedom and prohibition.

So why has gambling become so socially acceptable? It would seem that the pro-gambling argument is the ethical norm that the majority of the population embraces. As long as an action doesn't harm another person, it ought to be permitted.

It certainly highlights how the rights of the individual trump any claim of the common good in 21st-century America.

Richard A. McGowan, S.J., is a professor at the Carroll School of Management of Boston College and author of the upcoming book "The Gambling Debate."