"Bad Bet" Blog Post Three

Gambling is a game that has the compulsive and addicting aspect to it that keeps customers at tables and sitting at their computers for hours in hopes of eventually getting on a roll to make some money. In this book Timothy L. O'brien stated that on the basis of a Harvard study conducted back in 1997 there were 14.82 % of adolescents were considered to have a gambling problem as they were considered as active risk-taker when participating in this activity. The problem in this case here is that gambling disorders have been increasing vastly since this study was conducted around fifteen years ago and these Casinos are striving to keep these customers to coming back. The gambling industry is attacking this problem by doing everything in their power to grab the customers attention and continue to poke at these customers problems. On top of continuing to take money from these people, though they are doing well themselves they are making a negative impact on the current economy. Compulsive gamblers are taking any money that they have on them and this leads to problems being created with the IRS. These risk-takers are deciding to use their money on gambling and are not able to pay off their own bills. This creates problems with the IRS and only makes a bigger debt towards the overall debt that has topped over trillions of dollars and has added on to one of the main problems that the government is trying to deal with. The casino is not the only place that these companies are making money from, but they are also generating millions of dollars from their five-star restaurants, health spas, beauty salons, shopping center, and huge showrooms. According to this book some of the large casinos such as the Mirage are making over 2 million dollars a day and these facts were recorded in the 90's so you can only imagine that they are making even more everyday in these modern times. Hopefully one day I will have the luxury to be able to stay in one of these nice Las Vegas hotels one day and spend some money like they want me to do, but for now there is no need to be blowing any cash on unnecessary things like these compulsive gamblers are continuing to do.