Are we going the way of Greece and Rome? Is there a menace in the
rapid increase of wealth in the United States? Are we allowing the
moral tone of society to sink?
The present tendency is toward speculation, even from childhood. In
most cities the child barely able to walk can find slot machines in
candy stores and drug stores from which he is made to believe he
can get something for nothing. Is this the proper training to give
children? Is it right to get something for which no return of money
or labor is given? And is it right to thus lure children when adults
know that their pennies more than pay for what they get--premiums and
all?
Children in school should be taught to calculate probabilities as a
part of their course in elementary arithmetic. Then they would know
better than to play slot machines or buy prize packages. And when they
grew up they would shun the bookmaker, the lottery, and the roulette
wheel.
The ordinary gambler speculates partly because he loves the excitement
and thrill of the game, but mainly, he will assure you, as he assures
himself, he is buoyed up by the hope of winning. He does not stop
to figure out his chances. If he sees a hundred to one shot he will
play it, seeing only that by risking a dollar he has a chance to win
a hundred. If he had been taught in school to see that really the
chances were 200 to 1 against him, and that he was betting a dollar
against fifty cents, he would keep his money in his pockets. Of course
the man who plays the races knows the odds of the book are against
him. He prides himself, however, that he is a wise reader of the "dope
sheet," and that can overcome the odds by a superior cunning.
He knows that he can't win on his luck, for this "breaks even" in the
long run.