A recent program on the Discovery Channel stated that gambling is so attractive, that when the powerball is high, ninety percent of eligible adults buy a ticket. There is no other commodity where the percentages are this high, and there is no product just a chance of winning. The real odds of winning a state lottery are approximately fourteen million to one, the same odds as being hit by lightening seven times while waiting in the lottery line. Our parents grew up thinking that gambling was wrong, but our children are growing up with gambling is as easy as going to McDonald's. For the first time in history, gambling is available close to home and now even inside of the home with the Internet.
People can walk to and from work and gamble.
Teenagers can gamble away their future in their rooms. Governors go on television and encourage their citizens to bet and tell them how much they can win. But some citizens are caught up in an addiction as powerful as drug addiction. One third of pathological gamblers are women. Forty-six percent of pathological gamblers borrow on, or use up the cash value of, their insurance policy.