The Ancients Are Unhelpful In Present-Day Gambling Politics

Do the Ancient Greeks and Romans have relevance for present-day gambling politics? The Conversation published an article that argued so.

The piece, penned by Konstantine Panegyres, a lecturer in ancient history at the University of Western Australia, described the popularity of gambling games in those societies. In some places and times, gambling carried stigma, and authorities tried to establish rules against it. Often, people still gambled among themselves.

Panegyres concluded:

“Authorities in Greek and Roman times tried hard to put a limit on gambling. The methods changed – social disapproval, laws and religious penalties – but the basic problem did not. People kept gambling.

“Perhaps that is the uncomfortable ancient lesson. Governments can restrict gambling, shame it, tax it or suspend the rules for special occasions. What they have found much harder to control is the mostly futile hope that keeps people playing: that the next throw, the next bet or the next game might turn everything around.”

Archaeological research published earlier this year dates gambling at least 12,000 years ago in what is now called North America. Gambling probably served social and subsistence purposes.

Gambling today, as it’s experienced most commonly, comes through the concept of a product. Gambling is manufactured or processed, ready for consumption by people (consumers). This mass-produced product is sold by corporations through sophisticated systems, including marketing. Nothing comparable existed in the ancient world.

What we have now is radically different from what Panegyres described.

People still gamble among themselves in various ways, and that would not go away unless under an oppressive police state of some kind. But what gambling reformers typically argue is for tighter regulation around gambling products, not for draconian laws around, for example, a poker game between friends or a bracket pool among coworkers.

Private wagers are not the targets of reform.

There are also the gambling product abolitionists, who argue that you can’t reform such an industry because it’s intrinsically exploitative and harmful. In theory, a gambling industry could exist without severe addiction, but that’s not what happens in the real world.

Ultimately, the apparent failed attempts by the Ancient Greeks and Romans to rein in gambling have remarkably little to do with the political issue of gambling in our present era.

Yes, humans will always gamble, even if money didn’t exist, but the political question is whether there should be predatory gambling products or not. Let’s not look at ancient history for much help on gambling in our times.

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