Then we will suppose you win the toss, and thus acquire half your friend's property; what happens then? When the morrow arrives you can only say, 'I am fifty per cent. better off to-day than I was yesterday.' That is just it. If you lose, your losses have amounted to as much as you still possess, whilst, if you win, your gains amount only to one-third of what you possess. The plain facts of the case, then, are simply that the moment you and your friend have made the bet referred to, you have considerably reduced the value of your joint possessions. Not in actual amount, it is true, but in actual fact, nevertheless; for whichever way the bet may go, the loss sustained by one represents a future deprivation to that one far greater than the future proportional advantage gained by the other. The mere fact of one having gained precisely as much as the other has lost does not affect the ultimate result in the least. The inconvenience arising from any loss is always greater than the convenience resulting from an equal gain.
No man in his senses can be excused for making a bet of this kind, even if one merely considers the injustice inflicted upon himself; whilst in the case of a man who has others dependent upon him, such a proceeding could be nothing short of criminal. If by this time you do not see that gambling, in any form, means a possible loss of more than can be gained, all I can say is that you should turn socialist, being totally unable to protect or even recognise your individual interests. Civilisation is wasted upon you. Properly speaking, if you gamble fairly you are a flat; if you gamble unfairly you are a sharp: one or the other you must be. To be a wise man, and an honest man, you cannot gamble at all.
Some of course will meet me half-way, and admitting the truth of all I have put forward, will say, 'Yes, that is all very well, but no gambler ever does stake half his possessions upon a single bet; therefore the proportion which any individual wager bears to his entire property is infinitesimal.' That, again, is perfectly true; but I cannot see nor have I ever met with any one who could show me what difference can possibly exist between a small number of bets for a large amount, and a large number of bets for small amounts. Then comes in the third fallacy I have mentioned. 'The chances,' some will say, 'are bound to equalise themselves in the long run, and then one can neither win nor lose.' Dear, good, simple-minded souls! The proportion of gains to losses, I grant, will become more equalised in an infinite number of bets where the probabilities are always equal; but the amount which may be lost, and the proportion it bears to the belongings of the bettor, may ever increase with the infinity of the bets.
Suppose, for instance, two men toss up a coin ten times, and stake a pound upon the result of each toss. We will say that one of them loses nine times, and wins only once. He has lost four-fifths of the amount he has staked in the aggregate; but what does it amount to? Merely eight pounds. But suppose they go on tossing for ten thousand times, and that the same player loses only a hundredth part of the amount he has staked during the whole time, he wins ninety-nine times for every hundred losses. The proportion lost is infinitely less than in the former case, yet the actual amount is one hundred pounds. Let the throws be continued to a million times, and suppose the player loses only a thousandth part of what he has staked from beginning to end, his losses will amount to exactly one thousand pounds.
To talk of an infinite number of bets equalising the chances is sheer nonsense; it simply equalises the ratio of the gains to the losses. The actual amounts won or lost may increase indefinitely. At the same time the player's original wealth does not vary; and the man who has a thousand pounds may as well lose it in one throw as in a million—better, in fact, as he will waste less time over it.
I have tried to make this point somewhat clear, because it is one upon which even the most scientific gamblers—if one may use the term—are more or less befogged. They all think that, if they only keep on long enough, they are sure to win, or at any rate to recoup their losses: but the life of any man is too short to be certain of any such result, even in fair gambling—and most gambling is not fair. The punter, of course, after the manner of his kind, will differ from me in this last statement. He is of opinion that the odds in ordinary betting are fair. Well, if that is so, I should like to know who keeps the bookmakers. I know I don't, and I know the punter does. If he is satisfied, so are the 'bookies'; and certainly other people have no cause to complain. The bookmaker, above all people, makes an infinite number of bets, and therefore, theoretically, he should neither win nor lose; but somehow he contrives to 'live and move and have his being.' Those who assist in maintaining him should best know how he manages it, but they don't seem to realise it.
The absolute immorality of gambling—the desire to obtain money to which one has no right—in any form is beyond dispute; and the sooner this fact is generally recognised, the better it will be for the world at large. There are some, of course, in whom the passion is ingrained, and from whose natures it can never be wholly eradicated. But everyone should clearly understand that the vice is as reprehensible in proportion to its magnitude as that, for instance, of either lying or stealing.
In an earlier chapter of this book I have said that directly a man becomes a gambler he also becomes a person whose honesty is open to suspicion. This may appear to be a somewhat harsh and sweeping assertion, but I maintain that it is absolutely justified by the facts which come under my notice almost daily. As an example of the laxity (to use no stronger term) which gradually undermines the moral nature of the gambler, however conscientious he may originally have been, I may quote the following instance.
A few days ago a friend of mine, who belongs to a West End Club, was discussing the subject of gambling with a fellow member. In course of conversation he put the query, 'If you detected a man in cheating at the Club, what should you do?' To this the other replied. 'I should back his play; and then, after the game was over, I should make him give me half his winnings.' This is what gambling had done for a presumably honest 'Club man.'
With reference to the numberless systems of which one hears now and then, which are supposed to provide a certain means of enabling any gambler to win, despite the chances and changes of fortune, it may be as well to say a few words. These 'martingales,' as they are called, are always intended for use, more especially in the great gambling-houses of Monte Carlo and elsewhere.[12] Some of them, I should say, are as old as gambling itself; others are of comparatively recent invention; but, one and all, they are systems by means of which any amount of money may be won, and any number of banks may be broken—on paper. There is the trouble, they are useless in practice. They really look so promising, however, that it is very difficult to convince some people of their futility. But the fact remains that these systems have been in operation for generations, and never yet has a gaming establishment been ruined by their aid. This ounce of experimental proof is worth many pounds of reasoning. Sometimes, of course, the martingale will answer its purpose splendidly for a while; but, sooner or later, the inevitable crash comes, when the system breaks down, and the gambler is ruined. The great defect of all these devices is that, although they may promise a constant succession of comparatively small gains, there is always the chance of making a very heavy loss. This chance, of course, appears to the gambler to be so remote as to be unworthy of consideration; but, alas! that apparently remote chance is the rock upon which generations of punters have split. It always turns up eventually, and then the bank recovers all it has lost, and in all probability a great deal more.