Is Luck a Lady?
By Dwight Longenecker
I was visiting Atlantic City Jersey when Tony offered to take me to lunch.
“Where do you want to eat?” he asked.
“Someplace local.”
So we went to the casino. On the drive over I said, “Tony, I have a confession.”
“ What’s that?”
“I'm a casino virgin.”
“You’re What?”
“I've never been to a casino.”
Tony stared at me, “You’re kidding me.”
“Gospel truth. I was brought up in the kind of home where we didn’t even have playing cards.”
When we got there it was obvious that if I was a virgin, Tony was a veteran. The car park attendant knew him, the gal in the bunny suit knew him. Tony gave me the grand tour. I learned how the games were played, what the odds were and how the house always wins. Tony’s game was craps. He bought some chips. We rolled the dice. We had fun. We lost.
I could see that Tony could afford to lose. He drove a nice car and I knew he owned a couple of successful businesses. Over lunch he explained that he plays for fun, not to win.
“Other guys ski, travel or have a boat. That’s their hobby. I gamble.”
How could I argue? It’s just a harmless game isn’t it? Tony’s a good Catholic. He’s a family man, and a regular guy. So he has an unusual hobby? I tried to put my home grown Evangelical Puritanism on one side. If Tony and his family are okay with it, I’m okay.
But there's a problem. Tony could afford to gamble and lose, but from what I could see most of the other folks at the casino weren't in Tony's income bracket. The place was packed with poor people. You could tell by the desperate look on their faces that the young black guys were probably gambling away their rent money. Old couples in cheap Wal-Mart clothes sat together losing not only their children’s inheritance, but the money they needed for a rest home. The casinos feed like sharks on the desperation of the poor. The fact that it’s dressed up as a glitzy game makes the whole charade even more wicked, sad and pitiful.
Gambling has become a huge industry. All across America casinos are springing up wherever a legal loophole can be found. Around the world the gambling lobby is pushing for fewer rules and more licenses. Gambling’s everywhere. Online poker, horse racing, wagers on sports, and state lottos suck up money, while at a lower level seemingly harmless raffles, games on cereal packs and Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes fuel the frenzied illusion that you can get something for nothing.
What is the hole in the soul that pushes us to gamble? First there is the childish belief that few of us can shake off-- the belief in magic. The belief that there really is a good fairy out there called Lady Luck who will wave her wand and solve all our problems. Beneath this illusion is a deeper theological malaise. Lady Luck is actually a sinister false goddess. She represents chance instead of providence.
Is it any wonder in a society worm eaten with evolutionism and relativism that so many believe in chance rather than divine providence? Epidemic level gambling is simply the economic outworking of that belief, and it doesn’t take much reasoning to see, that such an economic system erodes the motivation for the hard work, enterprise and personal responsibility from which real prosperity is built. It all goes back to what you believe.
Dwight Longenecker is the author of eight books. His Adventures in Orthodoxy is described as a ‘Chestertonian romp through the apostles creed.’ Contact him at www.dwightlongenecker.com
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