Chance and Luck

The object of all gambling transactions is to win without the trouble of earning. I apprehend that nearly every one who wagers money on a horse race has, for some reason or other, faith in his own good fortune. It is a somewhat delicate question to determine how far such faith makes gambling unfair. For if, on the one hand, we must admit that a really lucky man could not fairly gamble against others not so lucky, yet, as it is absolutely certain in the scientific sense that no such thing as luck which may be depended upon exists, it is difficult to say how far faith in a non-existent quality can be held to make that fraudulent which would certainly be fraudulent did the quality exist. Possibly if a man, A, before laying a wager with another, B, were to say, 'I have won nearly every bet I have made,' B might decline to encounter A in any wager. In the case of a man who had been so lucky as A, it is quite probable that, supposing a wager made with B and won by A, B would think he had been wronged if A afterwards told him of former successes. B might say, 'You should have told me that before I wagered with you; it is not fair to offer wagers where you know you have a better chance of winning than your opponents.' And though B would, strictly speaking, be altogether wrong, he would be reasoning correctly from his incorrect assumption, and A would be unable to contradict him.

If we were to assume that every man who wagered because he had faith in his own good luck was guilty of a moral though not of a logical or legal wrong, we should have to regard ninety-nine gamblers out of a hundred as wrong-doers. Let it suffice to point out that, whether believing in his luck or not, the gambler is blameworthy, since his desire is to obtain the property of another without giving an equivalent. The interchange of property is of advantage to society; because, if the interchange is a fair one, both parties to the transaction are gainers. Each exchanges something which is of less use to him for something which is of more use. This is equally the case whether there is a direct exchange of objects of value, or one of the parties to the exchange gives the other the benefit of his labor or of his skill acquired by labor. But in gambling, as where one man robs another, the case is otherwise. One person has lost what he can perhaps ill spare, while the other has obtained what he has, strictly speaking, no right to, and what is almost certainly of less value to him than to the person who has lost it. Or, as Herbert Spencer concisely presents the case: -- 'Benefit received does not imply effort put forth, and the happiness of the winner involves the misery of the loser: this kind of action is therefore essentially anti-social; it sears the sympathies, cultivates a hard egoism, and so produces a general deterioration of character and conduct.'