The Danger of Gambling to Our Society

The scourge of gambling remains one of the most dangerous plagues to have struck our society, threatening it at the very core. Below is a study of this subject undertaken by one of our striving ladies, Mrs. Matilda Shaoul Haik.

Many maladies assail the human mind as diseases assail the body; but moral maladies are more harmful to society than diseases and epidemics, for these injure the body and those the mind, and the affliction of bodies with disease is less dangerous than the affliction of morals. The cure of bodily ills is near at hand and easy; but if moral afflictions take root in a nation, their cure is difficult, their contagion spreads swiftly, and combating them is hard. Thus their thorn takes root in everyone, for the soul of man is prone to evil. And if the nation's morals are marred and its sons surrender to failings, then bid it farewell — for the foundation of nations is their morals.

Among the maladies that have seized hold of our morals and spread through our country to an enormous degree is the vile malady of gaming, whose calamities have multiplied and whose affliction has become general; many have groaned beneath its disasters, and it has proved a deadly disease for which there is no medicine.

For every disease there is a cure — except gambling, which has baffled the arts of the most skillful physicians of society. That is because man by his nature inclines toward effortless gain by way of luck and chance. He begins gambling in the hope of winning; and whether he wins or loses, he keeps steadily on at play, hoping to increase the winnings or make good the loss, until this gravely harmful scourge becomes a settled habit in him, against which the cries of the sincere and the counsels of counselors have no power; he is like a sick man whose recovery is past hoping for.

How many great houses have been left without shelter or support because of gaming; how many vast fortunes have been wiped out by it, their owners become wretches and... Nor is the gambler content with the degradation of his morals and his idleness: he exposes the future of his family to ruin as they follow in his footsteps, and draws down upon them woe and abject poverty...

Love of gain is what calls a man to gambling; the glitter of the ringing gold is what carries him to cast himself into this deep abyss, and hope lights up for him that pitch darkness. However heavy the losses that befall the gambler, he still dreams of winning; through hope he sees the glitter of fortune and riches.

And whoever frequents the gatherings of gamblers for the sake of amusement must in the end become a gambler.

How many onlookers have become the greatest of gamblers! Whoever has played but a single time, the disease takes root in him until it becomes a habit dragging him toward ruin.

Having seen the grievous harms of gaming — this deadly disease that kills the future of youth and drags it into many woes — we must keep far from its bane, and fight it by shunning idleness and staying away from the gatherings of gamblers, lest we be stricken with this incurable disease...

I have spoken much, but I have not yet reached the goal at which I aim, which is to warn the dear daughters of my country against gambling.

For shame!...

Honorable ladies spending their nights around the green tables!

The virtuous housewife neglects the management of her home and her children to sit with the man at the gaming table, staking her hopes upon it, neglecting for its sake her many duties and her weighty responsibilities...

Woman is a messenger of peace and concord; yet instead of denouncing this grievous scourge and turning the man back, if she could, from his error, she joins him in spreading this ill-omened spirit through the nation.

This fearful disgrace has spread among most of our refined ladies, mistresses of the great houses, and has become in some of them a habit whose rein they have no strength to curb...

Alas, then, for houses in which this ugly malady takes root; and woe to children who see their parents only at the gaming tables!!

To you, then, daughter of my country, I raise this word of mine, hoping that you will lend it a little of your attention!

Keep far from gambling, for it is among the scourges most deadly to morals and minds. If gambling is a disgrace to a man, what, do you suppose, must it be to a woman?

A great woe you bring down upon family and society by your gambling, madam.

You kill the future of your sons, and expose them time and again to abject poverty, a prey to misery and domestic wretchedness — besides which you kill in yourself your singular modesty, and take upon yourself the utmost that a lady can be made to bear of a man's treatment in such situations.

Yes — it is the man who led woman into gambling, with all the further woes it draws down upon her, and then he turns about and lays the blame on her; but woman by her nature recoils from these coarse situations.

You must, then, madam, keep far from gambling, and do all in your power to keep the man, too, away from this dreadful disgrace — if you wish to secure happiness for yourself and your kin, and a good future for your children.

Perish the false civilization that brings us these grave scourges!

True civilization settles only where knowledge advances and experience takes hold; it is innocent of this charge, and circumstance has no power to besmirch it with the brand of shame and infamy.