22. Gambling Away the USA
A few weeks ago, we did a show on the Maternal Instinct and talked about the “love hormone,” oxytocin, and how it was released not only by a birthing mother to care for her newborn but also by the father, grandparents, and even foster parents who had no biological connection with the infant. Although we did not find evidence of a maternal instinct, the release of oxytocin sustained dutiful parenting. The euphoric feelings when oxytocin is released, although self-fulfilling, propel selfless acts always directed toward other humans, even when released during sex.
As good as oxytocin is at binding families and promoting parenting, another hormone, dopamine, is destructive. If oxytocin is purely good for humanity, dopamine is purely evil. Dopamine is released when an actor repeats the use of a destructive substance such as alcohol or drug abuse, or repeats a certain behavior like anorexia, overeating, internet addiction, or gambling. Whether it's a substance or behavioral addiction, the behavior becomes a central part governing a large portion of the addict’s life. The release of dopamine gives the actor a false feeling of pleasure, satisfaction, and motivation. While it's true that oxytocin gives the actor a feeling of “liking,” dopamine gives the addict a feeling of “wanting,” and the behavior is endlessly repeated.
Gambling is a dopamine-induced addiction. This piece will endeavor to discuss the explosion of gambling in America and how it is changing the nation. I imagine you could make the argument that repetitive behaviors are socially productive and welfare-increasing, like repetitively hammering nails or laying bricks, or changing oil; however, these behaviors don’t result in the production of dopamine and therefore do not induce addiction. Unfortunately, addictive behaviors are always destructive to the addict as well as those close to them.
After leaving college in ’71, I worked a number of jobs. When I returned to school in ’78 at nights, I was a mason’s apprentice for my day job. That’s when I started to notice lottery stubs on the floor of the seven-eleven when I went in to get coffee in the mornings. State governments, always looking for money and unable to print money like the Federal Government, had plunged into gambling. Governments in a wide variety of states had approved gambling, and all of a sudden, funds poured into state governments' “general accounts” from widely sold lottery tickets, depriving citizens of any oversight of where the millions of dollars would go and instead focusing the gamblers on the numbers on a little indiscreet piece of paper.
In the past, when state politicians needed funds for schools or roads, there was transparency, and citizens would vote yes or no on the ballot. With legal gambling, the money was no longer accountable and merely poured into the general fund. After 2000, I was married and had my own family. When I went into seven-elevens to get a morning coffee, the floors were littered with little pieces of paper with random numbers from the state lottery. Construction workers, instead of buying bread and milk for their families, had become addicted to the morning lottery ticket. The long-standing moral and ethical inhibitions that prevented legal gambling had been reversed under the rational “if the government can do it, it must be okay.” This opened the door for a huge expansion of public gambling.
In 2012, Maryland opened a casino outside of Ocean City. I had a friend, Fred, who owned a rooming house. He said, “When the casino opened, things started going missing in the rooms when the maids were cleaning.” I went out to the casino to see for myself and saw a woman in her fifties with a jar of quarters in a jug on her lap mechanically feeding quarters into the slot machine. She looked stressed. I watched her until she ran out of quarters. Afterward, she just sat there. Her dopamine level was likely still high.
Gambling is as old as abortion, but ethically, before 1973, there were strong inhibitions against it. I remember being at Winston’s in 1969 and meeting an old man in a bowtie named Nick who proudly told me that he used to walk to the White House gate during football season and bookie President Kennedy’s football bets. The odds of winning were better with a bookie than with state-run lotteries, but the states succeeded in destroying the moral inhibition against gambling over time. The states set in motion a process that over time has swelled into the private sector, creating tens of thousands of gambling addicts who wager repetitively until they destroy their personal and family wealth, and the political system and private companies who hugely profit, know it.
Today, we have become a gambling society with almost no inhibition. The airwaves and the internet are full of gambling solicitations from a myriad of companies: Bet365, Draft Kings, FanDuel, BetMGM, the list is endless. Put up $5, and we will give you $200 if you just open an account. How many young adults and teens are being sucked in? The huge monies received through government lotteries prevent politicians from stopping this destructive behavior. By conveniently removing visibility and accountability, the politician is freed to spend without disclosure, and the public loses important visibility over the elected officials' spending.
We have become a society reliant on the addictive hormone, dopamine, whereas we were a society reliant on the ‘love’ hormone, oxytocin. Although I have never been accused of being overly religious, if there ever was a time like the biblical period of Sodom and Gomorrah, sadly, I believe we are there. There should be outrage that the government has caused a gambling epidemic.
Have a blessed week.
Tony Christ