Vice Capades: Yesterdays, Todays, and Tomorrows of Problem Gambling

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Vice Capades Yesterdays, Todays, and Tomorrows
of (Problem) Gambling

• Bo J. Bernhard, Ph.D.
• Director of Gambling Research
• University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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Yesterdays of Gambling
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The Questions

• "The ruinous tendencies of certain vices have
  already been made
• known the alarm has been sounded the war has
  been waged.
• Their abominations have been revealed and they,
  themselves, have shrunk from the scourge of truth
  and cowered beneath the scrutiny
• of indignant rectitude. But there is one Sin
  one giant Sin which
• has slain, and is still slaying, insidiously,
  its thousands and its
• tens of thousands The gambler enters his
  profane retreat and immolates money money!
  that is a mere appendage of his sacrifice
•      he immolates principle, self-government,
  humanity, reason and
• all that makes life worth having immolates all
  at the accursed shrine of greedy, baseborn
  covetousness. But who has raised against him the
  loud and protracted note of accusation? Who has
  lifted up the voice of impetuous and successive
  remonstrance? Who has assiduously burst open his
  haunt and unveiled the deeds wrought there? Who
  has brought against this vice the strong array of
  associated and virtuous hostility? 
• -- Samuel Hopkins, Pastor of the First
  Congregational Church
• delivering a sermon on "The Evils of
  Gambling," April 19, 1835

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The answer?

• The church
• Moral-religious thinkers both shaped and
  reflected the interpretations of those who
  gambled too much

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Diagnosing sinners

• Who are the men now given so fiercely to this
  mania in our city?
• Listen, I will tell you.
•  
• -- Holp, doing the diagnostic work (1887105)

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Tolerance

• Chapin (1847305-306) alludes to the young man,
  who, from spending an hour at the gaming-table,
  advances to spend the night, and then to encroach
  upon the hours due his employer.

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Loss of Control

• Beecher invokes a maritime theme to illustrate
  the concepts of the gambler's loss of control and
  progression
• The victim of excitement is like a mariner who
  ventures into the edge of a whirlpool for a
  motion more exhilarating than plain sailing. He
  is unalarmed during the first few gyrations, for
  escape is easy. But each turn sweeps him further
  in the power augments, the speed becomes
  terrific as he rushes toward the vortex, all
  escape now hopeless. A noble ship went in it is
  spit out in broken fragments, splintered spars,
  crushed masts, and cast up for many a rood along
  the shore. The specific evils of gambling may
  now be almost imagined (1844115).

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Escape

• Alexander, when speaking of the effects of this
  (gambling) practice upon individual character,
  specifically cites its distracting, dissipating
  influence (189979).
• (1756) they play only to divert themselves
  from the problems of everyday life.

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Lying

• Eventually, as Green long ago put it, the
  gamblers whole attention is taken up in
  maturing plans of deception (184718).

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Work Problems

• Comstock warns that (t)he promise of getting
  something for nothing, of making a fortune
  without the slow plodding of daily toil, is one
  of Satans most fascinating snares (188356).

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By any other name

• Lacking the medical framework to describe these
  behaviors in any singular way, writers and
  thinkers were left to their own expressive
  devices. Many were quite creative in describing
  acts that continue to challenge the vocabularies
  of social scientists today
• passion, disease, imbecility, insanity, idiocy
  (quite the threesome!), gambling germ, disease
  of the mind,
• sick, infected, contagious, excessive gamblers,
  vice, fixed, chained, doomed to the
  gambling-table, hateful habit, gambling mania,
• intoxicating, madness, caught in the gambling
  snare, chain binding one to the depths of hell,
  fatal fascination, drugged, poisoned,
• gambling craving, possessed by the gambling
  spirit, spell-bound victims of gambling
  (escape?!), terrible bewitchment,
• the lightening rush, powerful perversion, maniacs
  and misanthropes, blighting curse, the hellish
  fascination, addiction, frenzy, disorder,
  infatuation

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Yesterdays Treatment and Prognosis

• Let the gambler suffer this persecution. Lay
  upon him the biting lash of public odium. Let
  him be conscious that he must bear the
  superadded curse of unrestrained abhorrence that
  whatever else may be tolerated, there can be no
  tolerance and no courtesy for a vice so foul as
  his (Hopkins 183515).
• Hopkins concludes his tirade by making clear once
  again how we are to treat this population
• Let the gambler know that he is watched, and
  marked and that he is loathed. Let the man who
  dares to furnish a resort for the gambler know
  that he is counted a traitor to his duty, a
  murderer of all that is fair, and precious, and
  beloved among us. Let the voice of united,
  incensed remonstrance be heard heard till the
  ears of the guilty tingle (183517-18).

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What can we learn from history?

• Religion historically, moral-religious
  institutions have contributed substantially to
  the creation of the problems faced by the
  problem gambler.
• This is particularly ironic given religious
  leaders public and passionate embrace of problem
  gamblers as a current-day political cause.

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Todays On Multi-Disciplinary Work and Adding
Sociology to the Tool Chest
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A human spectrum of causes and effects
bio/chem
psychology
social psych
sociology
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Sociological Todays Useful Perspectives

• Tannens The Argument Culture
• George W. Bush approach to PG
• Putnams Bowling Alone
• Gambling Alone, Healing Together?
• Mannings Credit Card Nation
• A combustible mix

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Tannens The Argument Culture
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Sociological Todays More Useful Perspectives

• Tannens The Argument Culture
• George W. Bush approach to PG
• Putnams Bowling Alone
• Gambling Alone, Healing Together?
• Mannings Credit Card Nation
• A combustible mix

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Community Matters and Culture Matters

• Unlike studies of alcoholism and alcohol-oriented
  behavior, gambling access is a variable with a
  profound and sizable range
• If we were to all go out drinking in our
  hometowns, we would encounter relatively similar
  drinking environs and options not so with
  gambling!
• When a field medicalizes should we more
  actively resist the temptation to universalize?

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Tomorrows What to do from here?

• A few modest ideas

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A Modest Goal

• Blend best practices with local knowledge
• Incorporating cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural
  understandings and the latest in research
  findings to create programs that address the
  complex needs of PGs in a thorough and thoughtful
  manner.

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NCPGs PETER Model

• Keith Whyte, Executive Director, NCPG
• Prevention
• Education
• Treatment
• Enforcement
• Research

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Biochemistry and the Future Will There Be a
Magic Pill?

• Lessons from the Zyprexa Study

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What about a magic device? Technology and the
Future

• Nova Scotia and Techlink Entertainment
• Putting policy to the test
• The first seat belt for problem gamblers?
• A sober, modest balance between personal choice
  and protection
• Robert McNamara, The Ford Lesson

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Lets continue the conversation

• Bo J. Bernhard, Ph.D.
• bo.bernhard_at_unlv.edu
• [phone]