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https://www.thecut.com/article/gambling-addiction-casino-world.html
I saw this article this morning, with the online headline "My $5,000 Bender in Casino World"
And my reaction was... Befuddled. $5k? That's it? I'd be modestly interested in hearing a friend tell me about losing $5k gambling. But as the subject of a whole article? Come on. With inflation the way it is, I think you have to lose at least $30,000 before it's interesting. Listing $5k might hurt a lot of people, but the real problem was their prior destitution/poor decision making, not the $5k lost gambling. Just, like, get a job?
I had a similar reaction to would-be academic Kierkegaard's changing his name and moving country to dodge a $10k judgment. Come on, what formidable person can't just pay that off? Tighten your belt for six months and you should be fine.
Maybe it's just seeing the world through privilege, but I feel weird being asked to respect these people. It's an ethos argument: if you don't have your life organized such that you can handle a minor financial setback, you're not a substantial person.
What do you think is, in 2023 first world countries, a large enough financial loss to be interesting, or to force a life change on someone, for a person you would respect?
Desperate situations make people do objectively stupid things.
For example, Fred Smith, the founder of Fedex, gambled $5,000 in 1973 because he was unable to secure a loan from a bank and was desperate. In this case, his gamble paid off and he managed to win $27,000. Adjusted for inflation it is a much larger sum, roughly around $33,000, but blackjack has an expected negative net return.
It's hard to say how much this gamble is the reason he was able to turn fedex around considering the company was $11 million in debt at the time, but it's likely that if he lost that gamble the entire company would have 100% gone under.
Would the impact of the story be less if it was $5,000 in today's value? Maybe, but I think the intention and situation around the gamble make the story more interesting than the amount. I know you're asking specifically about the loss here, and maybe you're more interested in how the loss impacted/changed a person, but I think the situation/circumstances that led to the gamble are more interesting. I'd also argue that if the amount he gambled was much larger, say $500,000, it be harder for me to accept that it was a desperate situation versus a stupid impulsive decision, even if you win with that larger amount.
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