Gambling Makes Someone Money

You know what? Casinos make money.

That's not a terribly controversial statement at first glance. Of course casinos make money. Otherwise how would they continue to exist? Surely they, like all businesses, have the right to make money.

I am not going to debate the relative merits of gambling as a vice. Nor am I going to posit that casinos make too much money, or that gamblers lose too much. If you believe those things, then I don't need to convince you, and if you don't, then I have no hard evidence to offer, because I'm too lazy to look it up and as I said, I'm not interested in debating the points raised.

But think about the fact that casinos make money for a minute. Lotteries make money too, in fact; lotteries are not run by the state (or illegally by others) in order to provide cheap entertainment to the masses. They make money. The person who runs a form of gambling, one that is successful at any rate, makes money.

This means that you can't beat the house. I know that movies like Ocean's Eleven (et al) would have you believe differently, but you cannot beat the house. You can make money too, but the house will make more. Usually a lot more, but as I said, I don't have the figures to back that one up.

Someone, somewhere, spent a lot of time figuring out how to make sure that the house would never really lose, otherwise the casino would have gone bust. Someone designed the game you are playing with incredible attention to making sure that even if you win, the house still wins too. Someone probably gave it more thought than you ever will.

So think about that before you gamble. Because you're probably, whether you win or not, providing money to the establishment. If the price of the entertainment is worth it to you, then by all means, entertain yourself. But remember, gambling makes someone money, and it usually isn't the gambler.

And because I said I wasn't going to debate the relative merits of gambling as a vice, I won't mention the massive unstated cost of gambling in crime. Or waste. Or any of the numerous other hidden costs to casinos. I'm not going to mention them.