JAN 23 — The RM121 million all-time highest national lottery jackpot over the weekend caught more than cursory glances from citizens.
At times it caught a few citizens on the chin, as lengthy queues out in the sun around ticket shops forced the over eager to raise their fists in capitalistic risk-taking solidarity at its finest.
For me, it brought back memories of my childhood and my dad’s fanciful wish for the right number to lift us up financially overnight. Spoiler alert: He always, always lost.
The disdain of hope, the unflattering truth about probabilities and its cruel design for the desperate was represented by the wads of rolled up failed tickets he placed on top of his closet.
Was it to remind him not to remember to buy tickets or to reinstate his belief in the theory “if you buy long enough, the tide must turn”, I was never too sure.
I am sure, however, he handed over too much to the gentlemen at Sports Toto, Magnum 4D and Sweepstakes, far more than they deserved.
Gambling culture will outlive us. It’s probably infinity plus one when competing with prostitution and politics, edging out even the ultimate heavyweight vices.
But why? That, remarkably, is easier to explain rather than the fixation the poorer, like my family members have about lotteries.
It always gets another throw of the dice
Kedah Mentri Besar Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor obviously felt Malaysia being 45 gaming outlets fewer would rid itself of the vice when his state banned lottery shops in November 2021. However, the courts opened the doors last year for a potential constitutional overturn.
Does Sanusi win at the end as in humanity forgoes its gambling passion? The odds are against him, but he won’t care. He’s more a believer than a counter.
Undeniable gambling is ubiquitous in culture, literature and history. From the Mahabharata to Kenny Rogers’ Gambler, stories of it stir interest. It reflects dominant values, the gambling instinct natural to man since he walked out of the cave.
Nations and kingdoms are acquired from gambles, at times the reckless kind. From the Battle of Agincourt to Longewala, or even Mao’s Long March, the line that fortune favours the brave resonates.
Nobility and the ruling class claim between wars it is necessary to allow games of chance and risk, to train the young to rationalise risk and for gentlemen to be gentlemen.
Nothing like a friendly wager among friends to keep things interesting. To ensure competitiveness. Done right, it keeps even the comfortable on edge, like combat training.
The rich enjoy gambling as a hobby. Robert Merton’s Constant Relative Risk Aversion (CRRA) explains the marginal utility of wealth dips as the rich get richer.
In short, billionaire Jeff Bezos focuses on the game element rather than the reward, since another million from a poker table offers less excitement for him. It’s the game that needs to thrill him. The wager is fuel, not the destination.
This is when you have visions of luxurious casinos on yachts or artificial islands resplendent with unimaginable opulence.
Why deny people of playthings?
Investing capital for profit is central to the free market. Invest is a safe synonym for gamble. The difference between a compulsive 4D ticket buyer and a man who invests his life-saving in a kebab eatery in a bakso-consuming migrant slum is hard to tell.
Both punts on random sets of digits or holding on to slabs of expired beef in lieu of customers easily lead to penury. Foolishness is a choice one is entitled to.
Gambling benefits from the business lobby enamoured by its high margin of profit. It benefits the state through gambling taxes, building hospitals and schools which translates to votes. Business and political support power it on.
A pot of gold and rainbows
When the Sports Toto jackpot hit its record, the quantum went even higher — as buys accelerated — till it was won.
At the start of the year, with Chinese New Year less than a week away, to many to not buy a ticket is criminal.
How to test luck if tickets are not procured?
Where should gambling sit in Malaysia when discussing those who gamble to get out of the rut?
Firstly, people gamble, whether legal or not. Collecting gambling debts is as old as gambling itself. One of my uncles drove himself to bankruptcy and his wife to a different faith. Families are dragged in.
Yet, addictions are not the sole basis to ban things. At least in a functioning society. It is a reason to have engagement and treatment as present for all other addictions.
The Internet and globalisation open up betting highways. Twenty years ago, there’d be password protected shop-lot doors, leading people to makeshift gambling dens. Today, as they say, it’s all in the cloud.
Fluid online actions and transactions bring all us a few clicks away from a wager.
Ten ringgit for a meal rather than a lottery ticket seems sensible. Except that filling meal is not fulfilling.
This brings us back to Merton’s CRRA. To win thirty thousand ringgit is a year’s pay for many. It excites just to think about the possibility of winning. As it did for my late father for decades.
In any society where the chances to elevate oneself several social classes within a lifetime is low regardless of effort and dedication to the mission, the draw to gambling is high.
Is Malaysia the land of opportunities?
Perversely, gambling breeds opportunism. The not wealthy dream about winning. Every time a friend mentioned to me about the party he’d throw if his number comes up is bittersweet to me. It lifts his spirit for a short while and articulating the odds of victory to the said friend is the worst thing to do at that point.
So, here is the ode to gambling. To remain mystifying and divisive, yet so basic to our needs. Every attempt by authorities to stamp out gambling only forces underground and not out of the hearts of punters.
And the thing is, the real thing, all of us are punters.
My father, myself and Sanusi are in the same boat, with the same financial downsides attached to betting. To go against the odds.
Sanusi chose PAS over Umno despite the USM graduate knowing that he picked the harder fight.
Many of us bet against the house all the time and show contempt for the odds.
Which explains very little about gambling and more about us as humans. Gambling is a societal mirror. Even if my father could have got so many more things with his failed tickets, he did get to dream every week.
