A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

A Historical Perspective on Gambling

I just finished watching Rep. Leach’s CSPAN interview and I would like to make a few points. First, I want to say that I’m a professional historian and am currently finishing up my dissertation (at a major research university) on the history of lotteries in eighteenth-century France. As a professional historian who studies gambling, I have read much of the leading scholarship on gambling in many fields, including psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology, and history, of course.

One of the things that Leach mentioned was that all societies have sought to regulate gambling. That is simply not true. Anthropologists have found many examples of societies that have readily embraced gambling. Clifford Geertz, probably the most famous and noted anthropologists ever, has documented this in his path-breaking “Balinese Cockfight” article (path-breaking for anthropology more generally, not necessarily for gambling studies).

But ultimately some societies embrace gambling while others do not because gambling is finally a cultural construction—every culture and society understands gambling differently. Even the very definition of gambling is murky and contested. Gambling is generally defined, fairly universally across time and space, as taking some kind of risk or chance for a possible material gain. That seems simple enough, but what does that really mean? Many people refer to the stock market as gambling. Buying stocks is after all risking money for gain. Is investing in stocks gambling? Should we outlaw internet stock trading? By the way, in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, people who bought and sold stocks were indeed considered “adventurers,” and there were numerous attempts to outlaw trading in stocks. Likewise, the morality of insurance companies was debated. After all, an insurance company is trading in the risk market, right? For every dollar that someone gives to an insurance company, they loose equity—that lost equity is the profit for insurance companies. But ultimately insurance companies risk going broke if they face an overwhelming amount of claims. Early modern Europe was still getting used to complex financial markets, so they often defined anything relating to financial markets as gambling. But as Europe’s economy developed, people began to accept “gambling” in finance. Today we obviously consider insurance and stock markets as integral parts of our free market system, not as gambling. In fact, most people would probably consider early modern Europe’s defining of financial markets as gambling as “backward.”

My point is simply that gambling is ultimately cultural. There’s no intrinsic definition, expectation, or understanding of it. How you see gambling is determined by your moral and cultural view. I point this out because people like Rep. Leach would have people think that gambling is a universally accepted evil when in fact it is far from it and far more problematic and complicated than that. Many of the arguments that Leach makes are the same ones people have made for centuries (it destroys families, causes crime, etc.). Though people have been making these claims that gambling is destroying the fabric of our society, I do not know of any society that has had major social problems because of gambling. I guess my concluding point would be that there is no right or wrong. If the Congress should pass the bill, it is simply choosing to force its cultural and moral values upon the country—not eradicating an intrinsic moral or social evil. After all, numerous other societies around the world, indeed most others, allow online gaming, including Great Britain (our closest ally in almost every way). I don’t think too many people would consider Britain to be backward, but many Britons are completely dumbfounded by this American debate on online gaming.

Re: A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

Very interesting, thanks.

I remember thinking that Rep. Leach could not possibly be right when he claimed that every society had tried to regulate gambling.

It gets harder and harder to know what these guys believe themselves.

Re: A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

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but many Britons are completely dumbfounded by this American debate on online gaming.

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As are many americans. Good article btw.

Re: A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

Nevertheless, commercial gambling operators have always needed a license in the US, from one of the US states, to offer gambling to the public.

No internet gambling site has ever obtained a license from any US state to offer gambling here.

From that perspective, there's nothing unusual or revolutionary about HR4411. It simply restates what's always been the law in the US - you must have a license from the state to offer games to the public.

Re: A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

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Nevertheless, commercial gambling operators have always needed a license in the US, from one of the US states, to offer gambling to the public.

No internet gambling site has ever obtained a license from any US state to offer gambling here.

From that perspective, there's nothing unusual or revolutionary about HR4411. It simply restates what's always been the law in the US - you must have a license from the state to offer games to the public.

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I wasn't trying to show that there was anything revolutionary about it. Far from it. I was actually trying to put it in historical context to show that many societies and cultures have had similar debates about gambling. What decisions they make are a reflection of their culture and worldview, more so than a reflection of gambling itself. That is, gambling is culturally constructed rather than an intrinsic entity.

Re: A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

Very interesting and nice work.

Re: A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

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It gets harder and harder to know what these guys believe themselves.

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True - but just remember: "If their lips are moving, they're lying".

Re: A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

Terrific post! Thanks.

Now, if we can just translate this into language that the averge elected official could understand...

Maybe something like:
"Jesus was a poker player." (Actually, I know this is true because I play with him once a month) or
"In Iraq, poker is outlawed."

Re: A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

Remember - DC is politics first, then policy.

Even a great argument in opposition to these legislative efforts won't work as well as a good political one.

Re: A Historical Perspective on Gambling
 

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Remember - DC is politics first, then policy.

Even a great argument in opposition to these legislative efforts won't work as well as a good political one.

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Though I am, of course, all for online gambling, I didn't really intend to make any argument. I simply wanted to give some perspective to people who might be interested. But I agree that the whole thing is very much political, as is almost every thing.

I can give some historical perspective to the arguments that have been made in the past. I know the most about lotteries in eighteenth-century France, so I’ll use that as an example. Over the course of the eighteenth century, lotteries expanded throughout France and the government slowly began to assert a monopoly over them to use for their own good. This ultimately resulted in the founding of the Royal Lottery in 1776. During the French Revolution, the revolutionaries often used the Royal Lottery as an example of the state exploiting and manipulating the common, credulous people. In opposition to this, conservatives fought to maintain the lottery by arguing that it was condescending and fundamentally undemocratic to tell people how they could spend their own money. Ultimately the lottery was suppressed only to be brought back a few years later.

Regardless, this seems like the most interesting argument to me—that is, that outlawing gambling is in some way fundamentally opposed to democracy. Who is to say how someone should spend their money? The government of course should ban things that harm its people, but does gambling really apply? What harms American citizens more profoundly than smoking? Should we ban smoking? After all, how many families spend thousands of dollars a year on cigarettes while facing eviction, not to mention the health implications. Of course, the bigger hypocrisy is simply allowing online lotteries and horse racing, while banning other gambling. But I think this democratic, individual choice discourse framed in opposition to an overreaching, condescending government is probably the most effective argument, especially to a Republican audience. From my own esoteric research I can say that it was the most difficult for French revolutionaries to deal with, especially since they stood for democracy and liberty.