Your kids (if you’ve got small ones) are going to ask you the big question someday.
“Hey there, parent/guardian…I’ve been wondering–what’s gambling?”
Once, you might have hemmed and hawed, then explained that gambling is something that mommies and daddies do when they feel like boosting state tax revenues. Now, however, you can just direct them to the World Book entry on gambling, which explains it all:
Gambling is the act of risking something of value on the outcome of an event in hopes of gain. Usually, money is both the thing of value risked by gamblers and the hoped-for gain. Common types of gambling include lotteries, poker, betting on horse races, and such casino games as blackjack, roulette, and slot machines.
Gambling dates back to ancient times. Betting on horse races, athletic contests, and other events is probably about as old as society itself. Archaeologists have discovered primitive dice that are about 7,000 years old. Playing cards were probably invented in China around A.D. 1100 and arrived in Europe by the 1300’s. People probably began betting on the outcomes of games played with these items soon after their introduction.
As you’ll see if you click through, I wrote this fine piece of scholarship. Explaining gambling to school kids was a real challenge, to say the least.
Somewhere, some kid is going to read this and decide: I want to be on the house side of these “negative expectation games.” And another career in casino management will be launched.
The entry is even more fun if you imagine Troy McClure narrating it.