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Notes -
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?
Yeah, losing $5K gambling and having it actually sting is basically a sign that someone is just a complete fuckup. Really, that's true of any sum of money. Gambling is fine and losing a decent bit can be a funny story, but betting money you can't afford to lose just means you're a degenerate loser. I lost $800 on a day of football bets and was irritated, but not genuinely upset. I watched a buddy roll up to the $100 blackjack table at Caesar's, go up $2K, then proceed to lose that and the $1K he walked up with in the first place. That one stung a little because he could have walked and bought us steaks - what an asshole!
I have a hard time picturing chance financial losses that genuinely damage people's lives that are generally well-arranged, because deliberate exposure to excessive risk is just a stupid thing to do. That said, I would feel great empathy for anyone who had their business collapse, even if it was a small business and their business plan didn't seem all that great to me. I suppose that's generally going to mean at least a six-figure loss, but at the end of the day, it's more about the loss of labor, pride, and self-worth. For the standard W-2 guy, I have a tough time figuring out why they don't just not spend more than they make.
Where I disagree, or maybe I'm just making a different point, is that at a large enough sum of money the story becomes interesting to me. Obviously the gambler that loses a fortune is more degenerate than the gambler that loses a small amount, but I'm more interested in the story of how it happened. Take the film The Donut King, where (spoilers for a documentary) the Cambodian refugee protagonist comes to America penniless, builds an empire of donut shops, makes millions, only to gamble it all away in Vegas, leaving his family destitute. That's obviously worse in every way than losing $5k on online slots, but it's interesting, it's a great topic for a documentary (Highly recommend the movie, actually, the guy lived at least three fascinating stories in one).
Oh, sure, I'm not saying that degenerate losers are necessarily boring.
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