Gaming

“ Whether any kind of gaming has even thus much to say for itself, I shall not determine; but I think it is very wonderful to see persons of the best sense, passing away a dozen hours together in shuffling and dividing a pack of cards, with no other conversation but what is made up of a few game phrases, and no other ideas but those of black or red spots ranged together in different figures. Would not a man laugh to hear any one of his species complaining that life is short. ”

“ We hear much of want of excitement, of ennui, of satiety; and then the gaming-table is announced as a sort of substitute for opium, wine, or any other mode of obtaining a more intense vitality at the cost of reason. Gaming is too active, too anxious, too complicated, too troublesome; in a word, too sensible an affair for such spirits, who fly only to a sort of dreamy and indefinite distraction. ”

“ The fact is, gaming is a matter of business. Its object is tangible, clear, and evident. There is nothing high, or inflammatory, or exciting; no false magnificence, no visionary elevation, in the affair at all. ”

“ In my opinion, gaming is not a sin. In what is your judgment superior to mine? Moreover, I defy you to demonstrate a wager is wrong, per se. If you find this impossible, I am free to repudiate your dogmatism. To know, also, that gaming is not prima facie sinful, we have but to define it.
The lexicographers define a gamester as “one who plays for money or other stake;” and gaming “to be the use of cards, dice, or other implement, with a view to win money, or other thing, wagered upon the issue of the contest.” ”

“ Think how many families have been plunged by it in beggary, and overwhelmed by it in vice. Think how many persons have become liars at the gaming table; how many perjured; how many drunkards; how many blasphemers; how many suicides. 'If Europe,' said Montesquieu, 'is to be ruined, it will be ruined by gaming.' If the United States are to be ruined, gaming in some of its forms will be a very efficient agent in accomplishing the work.
Some of the most common games practised in this country, are cards, dice, billiards, shooting matches, and last, though not least, lotteries. ”

“ To this polite spirit of gaming, which has diffused itself through all the fashionable world, is owing the vast encouragement that is given to the turf; and horse races are esteemed only as they afford occasion for making a bet. The same spirit likewise draws the knowing ones together in a cockpit; and cocks are rescued from the dunghill, and armed with gaffles, to furnish a new species of gaming. For this reason, among others, I cannot but regret the loss of our elegant amusements in Oxford Road and Tottenham Court. ”

“ Now-a-days, not content with carrying his purse to the gaming table, the gamester conveys his iron chest to the play-room. It is there that, as soon as the gaming instruments are distributed, you witness the most terrible contests. ”

“ Besides, he perceived that gaming was now managed in such a manner, as rendered skill and dexterity of no advantage. For the spirit of play having overspread the land, like a pestilence, raged to such a degree of madness and desperation, that the unhappy people who were infected, laid aside all thoughts of amusement, economy, or caution, and risked their fortunes upon issues equally extravagant, childish, and absurd. ”

“ These Maisons de jeu, where dupes are pitted against cheats, are filled from morning to night with those restless beings, who, in their eager pursuit after fortune, almost all meet with disappointment, wretchedness, ruin, and every mischief produced by gaming. This vice, however, carries with it its own punishment; but it is unconquerable in the heart which it ravages. It lays a man prostrate before those fantastic idols, distinguished by the synonymous names of fate, chance, and destiny. ”

“ There has always been much gambling in Paris, and up to the middle of the last century that city was the stronghold of public gaming, the Goddess of Chance wielding absolute sway in the Palais Royal, where licensed gaming-tables existed. ”

“ Thus it appears that gaming, wherever it has been practised to excess, whether by cards, or by dice, or by other instruments, or whether among nations civilized or barbarous, or whether in ancient or modern times, has been accompanied with the most violent excitement of the passions, so as to have driven its votaries to desperation, and to have ruined their morality and their happiness. ”

“ Games which exercise either body or mind have been of high value in civilization as trainers of man’s faculties. Games of pure chance played for money stand on quite a different footing; they have been from the first a delusion and a curse. In our own time, there is perhaps no more pitiable sign of the slowness with which scientific ideas spread, than to hear the well-dressed crowds round the gaming-table at Monaco talking about runs of luck, and fancying that it makes a difference whether one backs the black or the red. ”

“ On the subject of gaming a French writer has justly observed: "Quand il serait vrai que la passion du jeu ne finit pas toujours par le crime, toujours est il constant qu'elle finit par l'infortune et le deshonneur." "Granting it to be true, that the love of gaming does not always terminate in crime, yet still it invariably ends in misfortune and dishonour." ”

“ In the madness of gaming the player stakes everything after losing his money—his watch, his rings, his clothing; and some have staked their EARS, and others their very LIVES—instances of all which will be related in the sequel. ”

“ It is pleasant enough to see one of us in a gaming-house, how diligently he attends, snuffs the candles, reaches the pots, fetches cards, applauds all the winner says, and all this for a poor real or two he gives him. ”

“ After the schemer's plans have all failed, there seems only one tempting means left to obtain riches in a hurry, and that is by gaming, the most prosperous invention ever devised by the arch enemy of mankind ”

“ I have seen persons gaming whilst taking a walk and whilst travelling in their carriages. People game at the doors of the theatres; of course they gamble for the price of the ticket. In every possible manner, and in every situation, the true gamester strives to turn every instant to profit.
'If I relate what I have seen in the matter of play during sleep, it will be difficult to understand me. A gamester, exhausted by fatigue, could not give up playing because he was a loser; so he requested his adversary to play for him with his left hand, whilst he dozed off and slept! ”

“ Some may be unfitted by nature or taste for society, and for such gaming may have a powerful attraction. The mind is excited; at the gaming-table all men are equal; no superiority of birth, accomplishments, or ability avail here; great noblemen, merchants, orators, jockies, statesmen, and idlers are thrown together in levelling confusion; the only pre-eminence is that of success, the only superiority that of temper. ”

“ Whosoever goeth to the gaming-place to play, the same committeth himself to the danger of losing therein, not only his money, but his body and his life also; yea, what is most terrible of all, there can he lose his own soul. I tell thee this as news, my friend Simplicissimus (because thou sayest gaming is unknown to thee) , that thou mayest be on thy guard against it all thy life long. ”

“ That gaming was among his follies at this period he himself tells us in the journal I have just cited:—
"I have a notion (he says) that gamblers are as happy as many people, being always excited. Women, wine, fame, the table,—even ambition, sate now and then; but every turn of the card and cast of the dice keeps the gamester alive: besides, one can game ten times longer than one can do any thing else. ”

“ As a gamester, I sought the philosophy of gaming.
What is chance? How far does it influence all mankind and circumscribe their efforts? What is gambling, in the broadest sense of the term? Is gaming wrong per se: i.e., absolutely vicious? Where in human12 nature is the passion grounded? Why does the propensity exist? Is it an inevitable tendency of human nature? What is morality? Wherein does the gambler differ from other men? How should his occupation be distinguished from business generally? How far may the conduct of an individual be dictated by society? ”

“ Both find their satisfaction at the gaming table, owing to the suddenness and importance of its revelations. In concluding, it may be remarked that the extraordinary persistence of gamblers, who sometimes sit all night at the table, as if hypnotized, may be at least partly explained by the law of repetition taken in conjunction with the independent attractions of the game. The performance of the last part of a mechanically repeated action tends to lead to the production of the first part again. ”

“ On a market-day, in every part of the country where open gaming is not absolutely prohibited, men and women, old and young, form themselves into groups in the streets of the market for the purposes of play, and the attention of the stranger is soon attracted to these crowds by the tumultuary and anxious vociferation of the players. ”

“ I chose gaming: and,—because your high-flown gamesters hardly take
Umbrage at a factor’s elbow, if the factor pays his stake,—
I was winked at in a circle where the company was choice,
Captain This and Major That, men high of colour, loud of voice,
[Pg 48] Yet indulgent, condescending to the modest juvenile
Who not merely risked, but lost his hard-earned guineas with a smile. ”

“ Ward, [147] also, writing of gaming, says: 'Pray, said I, what do you take those Knot of Gentlemen to be, who are so Merry with one another? They, reply'd my Friend, are Gamesters, waiting to pick up some young Bubble or other as he comes from his Chamber; they are Men whose Conditions are subject to more Revolutions than a Weather Cock, or the Uncertain Mind of a Fantastical Woman. ”

“ Another pronounced feature of American gaming is the number of itinerant gamblers who wander about the country, infesting railway trains and steamboats, invading the summer resorts, and coming down upon country towns after the manner of a wolf upon the sheep fold. ”

“ His own methods and implements for gaming are to white men either trivial or uninteresting, though sometimes exciting. Sleight-of-hand, agility, velocity of movement, a quick eye, and supple muscles in manipulating the sticks or stones of his simple inventory serve his purpose. The working of intense excitement and passion, and the complete concentration of all his faculties in gaming show how absorbing is the occupation to himself. ”

“ The peculiar instances with which you and I are acquainted, where the long-continued habit of deep play has had no such effects, are proofs of the rooted honour and integrity of certain individuals, and may serve as exceptions to a general rule, but cannot be urged as arguments against the usual tendency of gaming. ”

“ Gaming is playing at any game, sport, or pastime for money or anything of value which is staked on the result of the game, so that it is lost or won according to the success or failure of the person who staked it. ”

“ Having been gamesters themselves they knew that gamesters are mostly knaves, and always ready to enter into any intrigue or conspiracy provided it assures them some small gain; there could not have been better judges of gaming and its consequences than they were. ”

“ Many a young man, on the other hand, spends hours and hours of precious time over the card-table - hours which he might employ in certain useful pursuits which would be at the same time a real recreation - a refreshment to soul and body.
Gambling assumes forms of great variety, from the throwing of dice or the tossing of a penny or the playing of cards for a glass of beer, or a drink of whisky in the corner sale on, to roulette and faro and other gaming devices in splendidly furnished apartments where thousands and tens of thousands of dollars are won and lost in a single night. ”

“ INTRODUCTORY Difference between Gaming and Gambling—Universality and Antiquity of Gambling—Isis and Osiris—Games and Dice of the Egyptians—China and India—The Jews—Among the Greeks and Romans—Among Mahometans—Early Dicing—Dicing in England in the 13th and 14th Centuries—In the 17th Century—Celebrated Gamblers—Bourchier—Swiss Anecdote—Dicing in the 18th Century.
Gaming is derived from the Saxon word Gamen, meaning joy, pleasure, sports, or gaming—and is so interpreted by Bailey, in his Dictionary of 1736 ”

“ What we are particularly considering in this section of the volume, Part II, is gaming as practiced in the halls, the club room and private houses in the United States. For those who, from poverty or other causes, are unable to gratify their taste for public gambling in rooms devoted to the purpose there is a multiplicity of devices, found upon fair grounds and at various other localities at which large crowds are wont to gather, which offer to the casual gamester an opportunity for gratifying his thirst for excitement at an expense sometimes trifling and sometimes costly. ”

“ Sometimes they win and sometimes they lose, but win or lose they are always ready to try their luck again.
Another gaming place I went into was situated on the first floor above the street in a building facing the railroad, and it, too, was palatial. On the ground floor was the saloon and above were the gambling rooms. A pretty tough crowd was in them at the time of my visit and the crowd was so dense [Pg 91] it was rather difficult to move about. I was jostled considerably and found it difficult to get near the gaming tables. Craps and roulette were the main games here, too. ”