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Lately, the addiction of humans to gambling, which is causing negative feelings for the gambling business and the people involved in it, has become one of the most popular themes of publications and talks in Russia. These problems agitate more and more minds and disturb the masses: authorities, sociologists, psychologists, physicians, businessmen, and many others talk on this theme. Some people imagine to themselves prophetic pictures of the future, when all the people would be divided on pathological gamblers on the one hand, and on greedy employees of the casino, who take their last pennies, on the other. Others worry and caution that those who spend much time in gambling establishments will lose the ability to be here and now, in the present. Still others tell of various hazards to health, which may be called professional illnesses of a gambler. And, without exception, everyone agrees that gaming business gives everything bad and nothing good to its customers.
Let's be honest. From the psychological point of view, the problem of ludomania exists. However, it is not the kind of problem that the whole world must rush to solve since there are other similar addictions, like sex, love, and work addiction, the addiction of spending money, overeating and malnutrition, various computer and internet addictions, TV and mobile phone addictions, and fanaticism in all its variations ( religious, political, or sport).
For some people, a certain kind of addiction becomes the meaning of their lives, the leitmotif of their existence. Definitely, addiction is a serious problem for this kind of people. But how often does one hear of such people - obviously, not much. Nevertheless, tens of millions of people all over the world suffer from their addictions daily. These addictions are their psychological problems. Nobody would think of forbidding someone to watch TV, use the Internet, eat at night, or watch football. The most thing that people do is give advice or explain the bad consequences of this or that addiction.
Imagine a woman comes to a psychologist and complains of her husband, who spends all his money in the casino. The man has tried to quit a thousand times, in vain. A good psychologist would advise the woman to divorce; a witty one would understand that her husband has a serious problem, ludomania. Later, the wife and the psychologist would convince the husband that he's ill. The man would agree to that and slightly stop spending his money in the casino. Instead, he would spend them in the psychologist's office, and everyone would be happy (of course, this is not to be said about all the psychologists, but many of them are like that). As a rule of thumb, one day the husband will return to the world of casino to make "only one small bet and that's it, swear by God, Devil, mother and father." And everything would start again.
That is the end of it. There is no point in demanding that all the casinos and arcades be forbidden and equaled to crime, similar to drug dealing. For, if a person has ludomania, it will obviously be his own problem, and not the problem of a casino or an arcade.
Many would say that overeating is one thing, it does not have so many consequences, and gambling is something completely different because while gambling, one may lose everything and cause himself and the family big troubles. But wait! More than two thousand people in Russia drown while fishing annually, mostly in the winter time. Is fishing under ice a kind of illness? Remember your friend, who is an eager fisherman, whose eyes glitter fanatically every time you talk about fishing- he is a real maniac! So, what shall we do - implement death penalty for going fishing under ice?
Besides, in order to understand this problem and to outline the ways to solve it, an objective and reliable information is needed, as well as the statistical data. Unfortunately, today, the statistical data is in a very poor condition in Russia, when it comes to the playing business or ludomania. Moreover, though play mania is found on the list of international diseases, there is no scientific definition of it yet; this gives a great opportunity to the current affairs of speculation. For instance, the statistics for drug addicts is based on the following formula: the number of drug addicts who define themselves as addicts is multiplied by six. But, by how much shall we multiply in the case of play addiction is not clear, since ludomans are inclined to hide their sickness. Nevertheless, there is a percent of those who want to be called ludomans. This is a kind of answer to the pressure of advertisements and antiadvertisements on the mass media. Gambling as a way of entertainment exists everywhere, and most of the people at one time or another of their lives, have played in casino, or slot machine halls, gone to races, made bets, or tried their luck buying lottery tickets. However, the number of regular gamblers is constant in most of the countries where the studies were run. This number varies from 3 to 5 % from the country's popularity, be it Las Vegas or a small city with no casino or racetrack. In fact, the Canadian authorities had been conducting studies in Windsor, the province of Ontario, where in 1993 a casino was opened. In the run of seven years of monitoring, scientists from the nearby university found out that the number of ludomans had not increased during this time, though 82% of the populations have visited the casino at least once.
The term "addiction" does not either have a clear scientific definition, and needs discussion. Most of the time, the world of casino is compared to a drug. This comparison is widely used by the mass media. Likewise, everything may be called a drug: the articles about the criminal world, soap operas, advertisements, exchange quotations, computer games, romances in soft covers, or hamburgers. In this case, the definition of "drug" that became so different from the one usually used, must be specified and reevaluated. It is so because, when used in the domestic situation, addiction becomes "the feeling of being used to something." Addiction and the feeling of being used to something are two completely different things. Addiction means that a certain object, which you are in contact with, is aggressive to you, and you become addicted to it no matter what you think about or feel towards it. Such objects are very few; they are often referred to as psychoactive substances. The simplest example is a narcotic substance, like heroin. You may think whatever you like of it, but if you come into contact with it, you are sure to become addicted to it. Being used to something is a completely different thing. There is a term "nonchemical addiction" that psychologists use among themselves. This term means becoming used to something, which does not have any effects on you chemically, like drugs do.
All the kinds of addictions mentioned earlier are, in essence, nonchemical addictions, or simply, bad habits. One can become used to anything: coffee, warm rain, Mexican soap operas, or the criminal news. One can become used to gambling too. Its effect on you is as natural as a tasty soup that your wife has always been cooking for you, and you became used to it.
People try to make advertisements interesting; soap operas adventurous, news- breathtaking, coffee- delicious. Whether one becomes used to them or not is the person's own business, it depends on the person's tastes, worldview, his organs of sense and on his feelings. Otherwise, with time, everyone would drink coffee, watch soap operas and sit in casinos, even those who call everything of the above-mentioned things, drugs.
There is an interesting fact: everyone talks about ludomania, but almost noone complains of it. Frankly speaking, the complaints are constant, but they mostly come from observers. So, shall one rescue the drowning person? What shall one do if this person does not feel that he is drowning, but feels well? It may be that before concluding that a person is drowning, one must come closer and ask him whether he is really drowning. And only after that may he think that it is very serious and the drowning person must be rescued.
Gambling does not attack or enslave you. Most of the casino players simply love this world, the world of the azartous play. They become used to it and feel uncomfortable if they are far from it. This is as natural as it would be with any other field of one's life. People become used to something, then they aspire to repeat everything that is dear or of value to them. And if the person feels enslaved by gambling, then it is, obviously, his own problem and not the problem of the play.
Once, when Churchill was giving a speech before journalists, he said, "Capitalism is a very bad social order of the population. The only excuse to it is that communism is worse." The same thing may be said about gambling. It might have been better if gambling has never existed and humans have never known about azartous plays. Nevertheless, azart is an integral quality of human nature. That is why "casinos may be good or bad, but illegal gambling houses are worse."
Closing playing establishments is not a solution; there exist other ways and methods. Gamblers, as they are, do not cause harm. Play mania becomes a serious problem when the gaming business spreads quickly at the expense of quality. Products of high quality and quality service are genuinely the missing parts in the gaming business in Russia. In all, any strong passion which verges with mania, including ludomania is the testimony of the poor culture and the lack of the clear idea of what the play may lead to: azart, pleasant passing of time, intellectual entertainment, refined rest, and not the blind race for the bean counter. Ideally, the best preventive measures from ludomania is increasing the players' level of culture and education, and offering them a kind and comfortable atmosphere. These may give the players a great chance to feel how refined the rest and the play in casino may be. To make this happen, gaming business must be taken just as any other life phenomenon. There is no point in blaming it and trying to forbid it, just as there is no point in ignoring its problems or not trying to solve them. However, if one decides to solve these problems, we must do so with the understanding what to do and why, one must not rush to destroy everything, good and bad. Shortly speaking, playing business needs to be taken with a normal attitude.
Referring to the things said above, there was one incident that is connected to the company "SET-Production". The company is well known in Russia, as well as abroad for its high-quality products for the gaming business that are produced on its own factory in Saint-Petersburg.
Last winter, a letter from a handicapped pensioner living in Sochi reached the company's office. In this letter, the man wrote about his dream of visiting casino and playing on roulette wheel. Since he was poor, he asked "SET-Production" to grant him "the smallest and the cheapest model with a roulette wheel and the accessories for it" to have the opportunity to play at home. So, on the 5th of May, 2006 in Sochi, in the gambling hall "Zero", the company granted a small roulette table (an exhibition model) to this retiree, thus answering his strange request. This was not an advertisement, but a normal reaction of ordinary people to the request of help.
The company does not spend great sums of money on advertisement, neither does it shout about itself in every corner. It does not either vote for forbidding or letting something be. It just does its business well and is responsible for everything it does. For more than 15 years the company has been producing high quality products for casino, provides its employees with interesting and well-paid jobs, invents new things and optimistically looks into the future. In one word, it plays the key role in the optimal development of the gaming business in Russia. One opinion can exists, most of those who are related to Russian gaming business and its problems are in need of this kind of attitude.
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