Gambling: Mapping the American Moral Landscape

7 Gambling and Morality A Neuropsychiatric Perspective

175 7 Gambling and Morality A Neuropsychiatric Perspective ♠ Marc N. Potenza Evidence of gambling can be found across cultures and throughout time. Hebraic, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman civilizations engaged in various forms of gambling, and the Mahabharat, a central book of Hinduism, describes a gambler who wagers and loses his kingdom and his wife.1 The persistence of gambling for millennia suggests that the behavior may be particularly rewarding at an individual level or important in sociocultural functions. Suggestion of the former can be found in work from over a century ago in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler. In this book, as well as in his personal letters of the period (Dostoyevsky himself had a gambling problem), the thrill of gambling is poignantly described as an exciting and anxious state that his nature desires.2 The incorporation of gambling in social and cultural institutions (bingo sponsored by churches, lotteries sponsored by governments) also dates back centuries, with major institutions (e.g., Harvard University) originally founded in part with lottery proceeds. Thus, historical accounts suggest that complex reasons contribute to the societal maintenance of gambling. 176 Marc N. Potenza Gambling and Morality Morality has been defined as a doctrine or system of right, virtuous , or ethical conduct.3 The term, derived from the Latin word moralis, initially described a consensus of manners or customs within a social group, and has been used throughout the past several centuries in efforts to identify universal principles that should guide the behaviors of humans.4 Gambling has been described as immoral for millennia. Greek philosophers like Aristotle are reported to have grouped gamblers with thieves and robbers and denounced gambling as wrong and immoral.5 This sentiment was voiced in other cultures throughout time. In an article on the history of gambling published in England in 1756, gamblers are described as “cheats” and “felons,” and the author states that society would be better off without this group of “harpies .”6 Personal accounts of “degeneration” related to excessive involvement in gambling were described. In 1882 Mason Long described his personal struggles with excessive gambling, drinking , and tobacco smoking, culminating in his religious conversion and confession of his sins.7 Other works from the same time period similarly describe gambling as a sin or a vice.8 The relationship between individuals’ emotional states (as described by Dostoyevsky above) and gambling appears to contribute to gambling being conceptualized as an immoral behavior. For example, when discussing in 1902 the moral qualities of gambling in The Ethics of Gambling, MacKenzie notes that the uncertainty about a wager “contributes largely to the gambler’s pleasure, and it is around this that the emotions gather with such unnatural concentration so as to produce in some a kind of moral or spiritual inflammation which we call the gambler’s craving or passion.”9 That is, the seeking of an immediate reward in an emotional or passionate manner to the extent that it might interfere with family , work, or other areas of functioning seems salient to the consideration of gambling as immoral. Over the past half century in the United States and elsewhere, individual liberties and the ability to make personal decisions about recreational and leisure activities have received high priorities. Within this context, legalized gambling has seen considerable expansion, with legalized gambling estimated to have grossed approximately $85 billion in the United States in 2005.10 As compared to prior conceptualizations Gambling and Morality 177 of gambling (particularly when done in excess) as a sin or a vice, one current conceptualization of gambling sees it as a personal choice of a recreational activity within a public health framework ,11 and when performed in excess, as a mental health condition .12 Nonetheless, some of the same elements described over one hundred years ago in relationship to gambling and morality (emotion and craving and their relevance to decision making in gambling) are currently being investigated from neurobiological and medical perspectives. Medical Model of Excessive Gambling: Pathological Gambling The majority of adults gamble, with a minority demonstrating problems with gambling. The Gambling Impact and Behavior Study estimated that approximately two of every three adults in the United States had gambled within the past year, with less than 1 percent meeting the criteria for pathological gambling.13 Pathological gambling is the formal diagnostic term adopted by the American Psychiatric Association to define individuals who develop substantial problems related to their gambling. The disorder was...