PROBLEM GAMBLING - EXERCISE 1
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
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Quotation No. 1
"Downward they roll,
and then spring quickly upward and, handless,
force the man with hands to serve them.
Cast on the board,
like lumps of magic charcoal,
though themselves cold,
they burn the heart to ashes"
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This is a translation of a poem (or hymn).
Question No. 1
When do you think it was written?
Question No. 2
What are the things "like lumps of magic charcoal" referred to?
Question No. 3
What are the two effects these things have on man?
Exercise 1 - Teachers’ Notes
The object of this exercise is to introduce the concept of problem gambling and demonstrate that gambling and problem gambling are not new, but have been around since the dawn of history.
Answer to Question No. 1
The poem was written around 1500 BC. It is a Vedic poem or hymn. [Source: L J Ludovici "The Itch for Play - Gamblers and Gambling in High Life and Low Life" Jarrolds 1962 at page 28.]
The Rig Veda is the oldest religious scripture in the world. It is a collection of 1,028 hymns to the gods which was assembled sometime between 1500 BC and 1200 BC after the Aryan conquest and settlement of the Indus Valley. [Source: Comptons International Encyclopedia]
Answer to Question No. 2
The things like lumps of magic charcoal are dice.
Answer to Question No. 3
The two effects these dice have on man are:
PROBLEM GAMBLING - EXERCISE 2
A FURTHER HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
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Quotation No. 1
"Gaming is an enchanting witchery, gotten betwixt idleness and avarice."
Quotation No. 2
"If play hath reduced him to poverty, then he is like one a drowning, who fastens upon any thing next at hand. Amongst other of his shipwracks he hath happily lost shame, and this want supplies him. No man puts his brain to more use than he; for his life is a daily invention, and each meal a new stratagem, and like a flie will boldly sup at every man's cup."
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These quotes are from "The Compleat Gamester", written by the English Restoration gentleman Charles Cotton and published in 1674.
Read Quotation No. 1 -
Question No. 1
Why did Cotton describe gaming as enchanting?
Question No. 2
Why did he describe it as a witchery?
Question No. 3
Why did he say it was gotten between idleness and avarice?
Read Quotation No. 2 -
Question No. 4
Does Cotton regard a problem gambler as a person who is desperate?
Question No. 5
What does Cotton imply about a problem gambler's concern for other people?
Question No. 6
What does Cotton imply about a problem gambler's long-term plans?
Exercise 2 - Teachers' Notes
The Compleat Gamester was written in Restoration England by a gentleman named Charles Cotton who was a friend of Izaak Walton, author of "The Compleat Angler". "The Compleat Gamester" is notable not only because it was the first compendium of games in English giving an intimate snapshot of gaming in Restoration England, but because of Cotton's unaffected and penetrating observations about gamblers and gambling. In particular this work is noteworthy for Cotton's "enchanting witchery" definition of gambling, his description of a gaming house and his brilliant characterization of a gambler. [Comments from L J Ludovici "The Itch for Play - Gamblers and Gambling in High Life and Low Life" Jarolds 1962 - Source of texts: Charles Cotton "The Compleat Gamester" 1674 at pages 1 and 22 respectively]
Notes on Question No. 1
Gambling is enchanting, because it can exert a power of fascination over the player forcing him to succumb to its charms or allurements.
Notes on Question No. 2
It is a witchery because it is regarded by many societies as sinister and it involves the magic of chance. Note that the word used is "witchery" and not "wizardry". Luck, in western civilization, is attributed a feminine quality. The Greek goddess of chance or fortune, Tyche, was "a daughter of Zeus who gave her the power to decide what the fortune of this or that mortal should be. On some she heaps gifts from a horn of plenty, others she deprives of all that they have. Tyche is altogether irresponsible in her awards, and runs about juggling with a ball to exemplify the uncertainty of chance: sometimes up, sometimes down." The Roman counterpart of Tyche was the goddess Fortuna, the Latin goddess of fortune. Today we still refer to "Lady Luck". [Source: Robert Graves "The Greek Myths" Volume 1 Penguin 1955 at Chapter 32]
Notes on Question No. 3
Gambling is an activity which some find exciting. This excitement dispels the boredom of idleness.
The thing that makes gambling exciting is the money involved and the player's hope for gain - his avarice.
The secret of gambling is that it combines chance with risk. The Rev Gordon Moody who helped found Gamblers Anonymous in the UK writes: "Playing with chance is exhilarating and captivating. ... When stakes are added, you play with risk as well as with chance." [Source: Rev Gordon Moody MBE "Quit Compulsive Gambling" Thorsons Publishing Group 1990 at page 21]
Playing without stakes holds no interest for the gambler. Glasgow University carried out an experiment monitoring the heart rates of gamblers. In a simulated game of blackjack the gamblers' heart rates showed a tiny rise. The heart rate of the same subjects playing for money in a casino "shot up" by an average 25 beats per minute. One gambler's heart rate went from 72 to 130. [Spanier "Easy Money - Inside the Gambler's Mind" Penguin 1987 at page 144]
The importance of stakes can be illustrated by the card game Baccarat. The game involves dealing cards to a player and banker respectively to see who gets closest to a count of nine. There is no choice in the drawing out of the cards and thus no skill involved. One cards expert observed:
"To say that the actual play of Baccara is simple is an understatement. Most children's games are infinitely more complicated, and it is doubtful if Baccara played without stakes could hold the attention of any but the most backward child." [Source: Barry Hughes in The Educated Gambler quoted in David Parlett "The Oxford Guide to Card Games" Oxford University Press 1990 at page 82]
Notes on Question No. 4
Cotton paints the problem gambler as a desperate man. Problem gamblers can be viewed as going through three phases: the winning phase, the losing phase and the desperation phase. [Source: Martin C McGurrin "Pathological Gambling - Conceptual, Diagnostic and Treatment Issues" Practitioners Resource Series 1992 at pages 47 and 48]
Problem gamblers feel guilt, self-pity and shame in between their gambling. [Source: Thomas L Romney "Out of Control - An Insight Into the Behavioural Traits of the Compulsive Gambler" Victorian Relief Committee 1995 at pages 7 and 8]
The desperation stage is the third and final stage in the descent into pathological gambling. What distinguishes this phase from the second, losing, phase is that there is a frenzied acceleration in the rate of gambling. One explanation for the desperation stage is that it is triggered by a growing sense of apprehension, a sense that even the most extreme exercise of addictive behaviour may not prevent the anticipated catastrophe that the gambler dreads will happen - when gambling is unavailable, or, worse, when gambling fails to produce its previous positive effects. [Applying the theory of Durand Jacobs published in Paper 2 "A General Theory of Addictions; Rationale for and Evidence Supporting a New 'approach for Understanding and Treating Addictive Behaviours" published in Howard Shaffer & Ors (editors) "Compulsive Gambling - Theory, Research and Practice" Lexington Books 1989 at page 42]
Notes on Question No. 5
A problem gambler has an obsessive need to gamble and to do that he needs money. He thus has an obsessive need for money and will go to extreme lengths to get it. The Rev Gordon Moody, who helped start Gamblers Anonymous in the UK, wrote that the problem gambler's wife and children signified in his life merely as means to serve his ends or as hindrances to his gambling. [Source: Moody at page 26]
Notes on Question No. 6
Problem gamblers in the desperation stage have no long term plans. They are just interested in the day-to-day survival of their gambling habit and they will sacrifice their reputation and friends to maintain that activity, without any regard for the intermediate or long-term future. Romney writes:
"As long as there is some faint hope, some ghost of a chance of gambling their way out of the financial mess they are in they will lie. They will look someone straight in the eye and lie. Even if the evidence of the con or sting is irrefutable, they will lie. Even if they appear the greatest idiot of all time, they will still lie - because to tell the truth would probably result in a full disclosure of the life they have been living - an end to the thing they love most in life - GAMBLING!" [Source: Romney at page 1]
PROBLEM GAMBLING - EXERCISE 3
WIFE'S EMOTIONAL PROBLEMS
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Quotation No. 1
"...you cannot change your gambler, you cannot even control your efforts to do so. By the time things have reached an advanced stage, you will have become so frustrated by the pathetic excuses, lies, deceptions, betrayals and broken promises that even if you do try to reason with him you will be overcome by a desire to punish him, to make him suffer. Bitterness, contempt, resentment and hatred master you, and all your attempts end in screaming failure. Then your passion dies, your resolve collapses and you sink once again in shame into your usual condition of humiliating helplessness."
[Source: Moody at page 44]~~~~~~
The above passage outlines the feelings of a wife towards a problem gambling husband.
Task No. 1
Prepare a table of three columns and head the columns "feelings", "outwards" and "inwards" respectively.
feelings |
outwards |
inwards |
|
|
|
|
Task No. 2
In the first column list the feelings experienced by the wife.
Task No. 3
Indicate opposite each feeling by inserting "yes" or "no" whether it is directed outwards, inwards (or both).
Question No. 1
What has the problem gambling done to the wife’s relationship with her husband?
Question No. 2
What has the problem gambling done to the wife’s own self-esteem?
Question No. 3
Would the wife's feelings be altered if she had children to care for?
Exercise 3 - Teachers’ Notes
Notes on Task Nos. 2 and 3
The wife’s feelings include:
The point here is that the negative emotions directed at the husband are turned back on the wife and to them are added helplessness, shame and humiliation. As the Rev Gordon Moody points out, relatives of a problem gambler need help too. [Source: Moody at pages 43 and 44] This is why, as well as the organization Gamblers Anonymous, there is a parallel organization called "Gam Anon" to care for relatives of problem gamblers. (Alcoholics Anonymous has Al Anon to care for relatives of alcoholics.)
Notes on Question No. 1
The relationship between the husband and wife is destroyed.
Notes on Question No. 2
The wife’s self-esteem is injured with the loss of her relationship - the loss of her husband’s love. Her self-esteem is also injured by her feelings of bitterness and helplessness that fall back on her. If she has children, her feelings of helplessness would be increased because she would feel that she had failed them as well as herself.
Notes on Question No. 3
A wife with children has more at stake in the relationship and she feels more trapped; it is harder for her to walk away. [Source: Moody at page 104] The wife feels additional guilt at not being able to provide properly for her children. She is likely to take out her frustration and anger on the children and this increases her guilt and loss of self-respect. [Source: Moody at page 18]
PROBLEM GAMBLING - EXERCISE 4
WIFE'S FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
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"It is the wives who must contend with the bill collectors, the insistent dunning notices, depleted bank accounts. It is they who face the apprehension and humiliation of disconnected lights, gas, water, a dead phone, the unpaid mortgage installment ... It is they who somehow must magically keep the marriage and household going without strength and support, they who must maintain the facade of a civilized life despite the chaos caused by their husband’s gambling."
[Source: Walter Wagner, To Gamble or Not to Gamble" World at page 311]~~~~~~
Question No. 1
List the feelings you would experience over financial problems as the wife of a problem gambler?
Question No. 2
How would you cope with debt collectors and telephone calls demanding money?
Question No. 3
Would you ask your relatives to lend money to your husband? How would you feel about it?
Question No. 4
How would you explain to your children that you cannot afford to buy them clothes and pay for school excursions?
Exercise 4 - Teachers’ Notes
As the author of the passage notes: "Financial ruin sets in train a staggering set of special problems apart from the gambling sickness." [Source: Wagner at page 263]
Notes on Question No. 1
Problems over money matters are often brought home more forcibly on the wife as the problem gambler may be fully occupied in balancing his time between his job and his gambling. The gambler will often succeed in making the wife feel that she is a poor money manager and the financial problems are her fault. [Source: Romney at page 3, Moody at page 18]
Notes on Question No. 2
The wife will be faced with an impossible balancing act between paying rent and service fees for gas, electricity, telephone etc and having enough cash left over for food, clothing and health expenses while at the same time trying to repay outstanding debt. As Mr Micawber observed: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six; result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six; result misery." [Source: Charles Dickens "David Copperfield"]
Notes on Question No. 3
When the gambler experiences a financial crisis, often the wife will collude in arranging the bail out and suffer embarrassment and shame over her role. [Source: Moody at page 19] One definition of a bail out is given by Romney: "A bail out occurs when a person, usually known to the compulsive gambler, lends or gives an amount of money, supposedly to pay a debt the compulsive gambler has incurred." It is unusual if the compulsive gambler uses the cash advance for the purpose it was designed. Most times they will, within hours of receiving the "loan", either have lost it gambling or be in the process of losing it. [Source: Romney at page 33]
Notes on Question No. 4
Often the wife will take her frustrations out on the children and then feel remorse at the children’s suffering. [Moody at page 18]
PROBLEM GAMBLING - EXERCISE 5
THE HUSBAND OF THE PROBLEM GAMBLING WIFE
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Quotation No. 1
"Not half a dozen words did I say to any one that day, just sits dumb and dazed over the fire; not a wink did I sleep, but by Sunday morn breakfast was over I’d got my plans made.
I gets a bit of lead pencil from one of the lads, turns the children out of the room, spreads out a piece of paper , and sits myself down. Then I says to the wife, "My lass, I have never chastised thee, never; but now thou hast just got to bring me every bill and every pawn-ticket, and thou has just got to think on, and to tell me of every penny I owe, and if I find thou hast kept aught back, I shall feel fit to take off my belt and to thrash thee with it to within an inch of thy life, and if I have to go to goal for it, I’ll go.'
...
I found a deal of things that Lord’s Day. I went up to look at the children’s beds and saw the blankets was gone off them. I looks in the drawers and found them empty where they should have been full of children’s clothing and bedding. I understood that day why the two eldest girls were so long getting themselves places [jobs as servants]; they had naught but what they stood up in. Folks might say I should have looked into things a bit sooner, but I were one that always said, "If the man earned the money and turned it over to the wife, it were the wife’s place to lay it out to advantage."
...
Sorry to trouble you with such a long yarn, but I put it to you as a practical question, How am I to get out of this fix? If I go to goal I lose my work, and rent’s running on, and grocery bills and coal bills are running on, for seven bairns can’t be fed on air, .... I put it to you plain, 'What is a man in my circumstances to do?'"
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Question No. 1
What year and in what country do you think this was written?
Question No. 2
How old was the person when he wrote it? Was he a professional or a workman? What do you think of his writing style?
Question No. 3
What are the emotions the writer felt.
Question No. 4
Would you expect the same response from a husband today and, if not, how would it differ?
Exercise 5 - Teacher's notes
Notes on Question No. 1
These are extracts from a letter written to a clergyman around 1900. [Source: "Gambling Among Women" by J M Hogge MA published in "Betting and Gambling - A National Evil" MacMillan's Sixpenny Series, London 1906 at pages 40 and 41] A wave of gambling activity swept over Britain in the last quarter of the 1800s when legal loopholes and lack of law enforcement led to a proliferation of street betting with off-course-bookmakers' agents taking bets on horse races in betting shops and going from door to door soliciting bets from the house wives. Many women suffered gambling problems as a result of this activity. The police court missionary at Newcastle-on-Tyne wrote:
"I have had considerable experience of evangelistic work in slum parishes in Newcastle, and it is my opinion, from careful observation, that there is a very great amount of betting and gambling among women. I have known women sell the shoes and stockings from off their children's feet to get coppers to put on their favourite horse." [Hogge at pages 39 and 40]
And the following evidence was given at the 1902 House of Lords Select Commission on Betting and Gambling:
"Do these bookmakers solicit the women or whoever opens the door to them?
A.Yes; they go from house to house, and they get the women, in the absence of their husbands, to bet, and I have known in some cases where the money has been so short that the mother has gone and taken some things out of the house and pawned them in order to get money to bet with." [Evidence of Mr Knight, General Secretary of the Boilermakers' Society and a magistrate of Newcastle - Hogge at page 39]
The wife in this case had incurred debts in her husband's name by purchasing household goods and pawning them for ready cash which she bet on horse races.
Notes on Question No. 2
The letter was written by a navvy, a naval dockyard worker. He obviously had only a basic education yet his style is clear and very compelling.
Notes on Question No. 3
The husband's first reaction was amazement and stupefaction. This gave way to anger and a sense of betrayal. Although he had never beaten his wife, he threatened to beat her severely. Looking at the sad state of the children's bedrooms he felt some sense of guilt that he had not realized something was wrong earlier. Finally, he felt anxiety that his life's work in setting up a home and security for his family would be destroyed if he were sent to prison for debt. (Apparently the law still allowed imprisonment for non-payment of debts.)
Notes on Question No. 4
Would a husband's reaction be the same today? Australians of British descent would be likely to have less paternalistic attitudes and the reaction of the husband might tend to be of a more conciliatory nature toward the wife. The same may not be the case where Australian couples share a cultural background in which wives are expected to play a subordinate role to their husbands.
PROBLEM GAMBLING - PASSAGES FOR DISCUSSION
NUMBER SIX - FEMALE PROBLEM GAMBLERS
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Quotation No. 1
"All the girls love to play with [brand name]
All the boys love to win with [brand name]"
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Quotation No. 2
"No matter how badly depressed the male compulsive gambler may be, no matter how much havoc he has wrought on himself and his family and with creditors and the law, he still, somehow, manages to retain a 'hang-tough' combative, challenging attitude, almost a cockiness, as if he feels he is justified in what he has done, that there really is nothing wrong with him, that the problem is everybody else's fault". By contrast, the woman who comes in for treatment is "subdued, withdrawn, frightened, abject and almost cringing in her demeanour". She sees herself as an object of loathing and contempt."
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The first quotation is a jingle advertising poker machines.
Question No. 1
Why might the writer of the jingle have used different wording for male and female players?
The second quotation describes a doctor's experience with male and female problem gamblers.
Question No. 2
When do you think the second quotation was written and in what country?
Question No. 3
What emotions does the doctor say are felt by the men and what emotions are felt by the women?
Question No. 4
What reasons can you give for the different emotions felt by the men and women?
Question No. 5
Do you think this difference would be as great in contemporary Australian society? Give reasons.
Exercise 6 - Teachers' Notes
Notes on Question No. 1
The 1995 jingle advertising a gambling operator's poker machine venues highlights the difference in the motivation for gambling between women and men. Rev Moody believed that a woman's way into problem gambling is the same as that followed by male gamblers. There is, though, one difference in the motivation for gambling between women and men. Women want to be liked, accepted, wanted, loved and protected whereas men want to fight, to conquer, to overcome. [Source: Spanier (Easy Money) at page 116]
Notes on Question No. 2
The passage is taken from a book published in 1987 and the doctor referred to is Dr Robert Custer, a USA psychiatrist and pioneer in the treatment of problem gambling. [Source: David Spanier "Easy Money - Inside the Gambler's Mind" Penguin 1989 at page 115]
Notes on Question No. 3
The male problem gambler feels belligerent. The female problem gambler feels fearful, worthless and ashamed.
Notes on Question No. 4
The male problem gambler is supported by his desire to stand and fight it out in the belief that a lucky run will get him out of his problems, which he believes are only financial. The problem gambler's dream world enables him to believe that he, not the family, is the injured party. [Source: Moody at page 27] Although women follow the same path into problem gambling as men, women problem gamblers who are wives and mothers, tend to suffer more than their male counterparts. According to Custer, society applies a double standard to the woman problem gambler. People are less tolerant of female problem gamblers than male problem gamblers. This double standard is even stronger than that applied to female alcoholics. [Source: Spanier (Easy Money) at page 114]
A problem gambler who is a mother suffers because she is closer to her children. She can see, more clearly than a problem gambling father, the effect that her problem gambling is having upon them when they go without adequate food, clothing and other essentials. [Source: Moody at page 98] The mother also feels guilt if the child is forced to be an accomplice for her and lie to its father to conceal her gambling. [Source: Moody at page 98] Problem gambling fathers are generally absent at work or gambling and they feel less distress over the children's plight until their recovery. [Source: Moody at page 98]
According to Moody, the domestic crisis that ensues when a husband discovers his wife is a problem gambler is more severe, more painful and more critical than where the roles are reversed. [Source: Moody at page 98] The fear of discovery and sense of shame often prevents women from seeking help. [Source: Moody at pages 98 and 99]
Notes on Question No. 5
Moody was writing of his experience in the United Kingdom between 1958 and the late 1980s. Today, in mainstream Australia, we have a less paternalistic, more open-minded society in which women problem gamblers feel less shame and are more willing to seek help. Problem gambling is now better understood and is looked upon as a medical or psychological disorder rather than a social deviance. Also, women generally have more power in their marriage than was the case twenty or thirty years ago because of greater job opportunities for women and greater welfare support for single women.
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