Tales of a Gambling Addict

I am an addict.

It's not easy to say these words. I -- am -- an -- addict. A screw-up. A sucker. A sicko. I cannot be trusted. I need help. I cannot help myself.

These were a few of the topics kicked around recently when my wife and my father came at me with a sort of mini-intervention -- like a surprise party, but with self-help books instead of balloons. There were cups of tea involved, a lot of whys and how could yous. There was talk of "healing" and "support." It would have been laughable if it weren't so final.

See, I didn't want to stop. Didn't even want to think about it. But I didn't have much choice in the matter. I'm an addict, and addicts don't choose.

I used to feel a certain amount of pride in being a gambler. I imagined it gave my life a touch of glamour, a bit of danger. And I loved it. Some of the happiest nights of my life have been spent in Reno and Vegas and Deadwood, South Dakota. I have visited ratty two-table shanties and wandered the glistening halls of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun. I have dreamed of shooting craps in Monte Carlo, a martini in hand, a mountain of multicolored chips before me. I would register massive shifts in fortune with a cocked eyebrow. Maybe I would draw a crowd.

Even penny-ante games get me going -- the rounds of cribbage, gin, and liar's poker at my local bar. I have gambled on soccer matches, horse races, card cuts, coin tosses, and games of pool. I once bet on who could hold a lit match the longest. The game doesn't matter, nor the venue, nor the stake. What matters is the chase, pitting myself against the unfathomable forces of luck. It's almost a spiritual thing.

My office contains a little of shrine to gambling. I have ashtrays and cocktail trays emblazoned with hearts and diamonds, clubs and spades. I have an antique roulette wheel. A mug with a picture of a guy chasing a donkey: I LOST MY ASS IN VEGAS. A key ring that says CRAZY FOR CRAPS. I have Bakelite chips, novelty playing cards, and dice, dice, dice. One Christmas, my mother-in-law bought me a book, The Quotable Gambler. I already owned it. Gambling isn't just a passion, it's part of who I am. It's me.

Despite all this, the gambling never felt out of control. At least not until I started playing scratch tickets. That was when I set out on the road to feckless, lolloping loserdom. That was when I started jerking my friends around -- standing them up because I'd lost all my money, or borrowing cash, or cadging drinks. That was when I started lying to my wife. Scratch tickets ate up the rent money and earned me a reputation as a flake. Scratch tickets had me banging my head against walls, gurgling with remorse. Scratch tickets.

Monte Carlo seems a long way off now. I'm a scratcher, and there's not much glamour in that. Ever see James Bond huddled in the corner of a 7-Eleven, working away at a Bonus Millions? Omar Sharif nicking the surface of a Set for Life? Did Fyodor Dostoyevsky sneak out in the middle of the night to procure a bundle of Rubles Galore? Of course not. Scratch tickets are a mug's game. And I am the mug.

There's a hierarchy in the gaming world -- a gambler's caste system. People who play poker look down on people who play blackjack who look down on people who go to the track who look down on people who play slots who look down on people who play Keno who look down on people who play scratch tickets who look down on ... bingo players? Perhaps. As a scratch addict, I'm pretty much at the bottom of the heap. Hey, Grandma, why don't you play a real game?

But as David Nibert points out in his recent book Hitting the Lottery Jackpot: State Governments and the Taxing of Dreams (Monthly Review Press, 2000), scratch tickets are a particularly insidious game. They are lovely to look at, they are easily accessible, they allow rapid-fire betting, and, as Nibert writes, they offer people with limited prospects "a new opportunity for individual economic advancement."