As holiday advertising surrounds us with impossibly beautiful people offering costly products as a route to love, joy, and the perfect family celebration, credit card debt sky-rockets. Growing economic inequality makes those who can least afford gambling the most vulnerable to pursuing it. Increased spending power for some pushes up prices for all. Lottery tickets, Bingo, casinos, and race tracks begin to look like the only light at the end of a tunnel of debt. That light is misleading.
Most people lose.
Each new millionaire becomes so at the expense of millions who have lost. Wealth is not a guarantee against problem gambling. Internet day trading and business buyouts are among the costly traps which can break those with much money, and those around them. Like alcohol use, the line between social gambling and problem gambling is not always clear. Some people do gamble for fun and are able to stay within careful limits they have set for themselves.