Gambling: An Odyssey Through Chance

Written by: Lye Jae Vir (22-I1)

Designed by: Dhanya Kumar (23-U1)

Gambling. The term may conjure up images of vice and sin in your mind. You may think of opium-ridden dens, or maybe just your local lottery store. Yet, unlike other vices like prostitution or drugs, gambling still persists in a moral grey area -legitimised by society, yet still being frowned upon publicly.

Despite its apparent moral ambiguity, gambling’s persistence in our collective imaginations begs the question: why?

There is a saying that dogs are man’s best friend. An organic constant intertwined with humanity’s growth as a species since its earliest days. Even so, the first action to domesticate and adopt dogs can be seen as a game of chance; a game of risk; and a gamble. 

Indeed, dogs were first domesticated about 23,000 years ago. But the earliest traces of gambling - knucklebones - have apparently been dated back to the Paleolithic, a lot more than 23,000 years.

Dogs are man’s best friend, but gambling was man’s first friend.

From scientific innovation to entertainment, gambling has traced our development and existence as a species - past and present.

Some very old dice from a Viking Museum, NorwaySource: Me

Some argue that humanity’s development is driven by a struggle to be master over nature. From skyscrapers to aeroplanes, these were attempts to be lord over earth and sky. Yet, one last factor remains unconquered, the final boss in men’s march to godhood - chance. Dangling right before us, yet ever elusive, our fixation on factors external and beyond has captured our popular imagination.  From dice to game theory, these developments evince our struggle to master and understand nature itself. Adam ate his fruit and Buddha achieved Nirvana, yet neither of them still managed to power over Chance. Buddha condemned gambling.

In view of all these, our complex history - beyond this article’s scope - of regulation and innovation with gambling and chance evinces our desire to tackle the question of the uncontrollable.

With that, this finally brings me to the purpose of this article (I haven’t even defined gambling). After an entire monologue that mirrors Mr Burns’, the reader - you - may be thinking, what am I even trying to say? 

Source: The Simpsons.

Well, gambling presents itself as the troubled sibling your parents never knew how to handle. You can get rid of it, but you still love it too much to discard. Rather than focusing on complex questions of ethics and morality, there is still much to be said about its role in our lives and for humanity as a whole. But, for the record, this does not amount to condoning gambling.

In humanity’s past, there have been many responses to the perennial issue of chance in our fixation with it. Some choose to fear the unknown, others seek to control it through notions of numbers and theory. Yet, rather than fear or a struggle, gambling can be seen as an answer to the unconquered divinity of Chance - tacit acceptance, even to the point of love. Gambling, as defined by Wikipedia, features three elements: a wager, chance and a prize. Clearly, the whole concept is built around the idea of randomness. And in extension, the thrill of the unknown reward. From Blackjack to d20s, the submitting of oneself to chance can be seen as a form of liberation, from the ordered predictiveness of human life. Giving yourself up to a higher order, throwing fate into its hands. The salarymen, whiling away their time - the eager glint in their eyes as the roulette spins. Some seek gods to bring order; some seek gods to bring chaos to an ordered world. The gentle respite, escapism from the crushing predictiveness of human systems.

Even so, humanity’s use of chance as one of its oldest forms of entertainment can be seen as its taming. Some things you try to understand, others to laugh at. From casinos to nursing home bingos, gambling has turned chance into humanity’s plaything. Yet, our fixation on it still suggests its supremacy over us. 

With all that, gambling’s role in our lives is clearly a complex one. The reader - you - may be wondering: what am I supposed to take away from all this? I suppose recognition, an expanded awareness of the things we do and why we do them. Subconsciously, in the quiet hour of the day; in the liminal spaces between places. Catching yourself flipping a coin, or perhaps even finding yourself in front of a screen of cards as you walk along the corridors.

The screen of cards in question - SolitaireSource: Microsoft Klondike

In extension, an awareness of the omnipresence of Chance. The different ways we respond to it; the different ways it has impacted us. Yet, you still likely won’t take away much from this, not for me at least. But as you share a laugh with your friends over a dice roll, as you pull your hair over statistics - maybe you will now notice something in the corner of your eye (glaucoma?). And perhaps, from an article long ago, vaguely recall: an odyssey through Chance.