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(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
I mean the kind of women you would expect to see outside church selling cakes and pies for some parish activity. On second thought, they might be the second most enthusiastic group. The most enthusiastic might be graying Protestant ladies, women who could pass for Aunt Bea and her cronies on the old Andy Griffith show.
I am not a gambler myself, but not because of moral reasons. I have been to the casinos about four or five times in my life. I don’t enjoy it. (I don’t know why; I can take my losses on the stock market pretty well until recently, at any rate), but losing a hundred dollars in the casinos is hard for me to stomach. But I noticed the same phenomenon on each occasion: Respectable middle class men and women have replaced the wheelers and dealers and underworld lowlifes as the patrons at the casinos. “Gaming” has become respectable. The New York Times reported recently that in the Midwest during “the past decade, slot machines have become as common as smokestacks on the heartland horizon.” “The number of casinos in the region has jumped from 38 to 46 in the past four years, with three major outlets opening as part of an effort to revive downtown Detroit in 1999 and 2000… The region’s casinos paid $1.8 billion in taxes last year, up 71 percent from 1998. With 56,000 workers in 2001, up 30 percent from 1998, the Midwest’s commercial casinos have helped stabilize employment rates as factories close.” The Times’ story featured a picture of a bus-load of elderly women smiling merrily on their way back to Kansas City, after spending a day at the Isle of Capri casino in Boonville, Mo.
So, what is going on? Why the change in our perspective toward gambling? Part of the answer, no doubt, is the clever marketing of the casino owners. The larger casinos – at least those I have seen in Las Vegas and Connecticut – now resemble a pavilion at Disney World more than the sin-city image of old. You can roam an entire afternoon and see few scantily dressed showgirls and boozed up wiseguys.
But something else is going on too. I would argue that we are witnessing a loosening up of the old moral conviction about gambling, but one that need not be seen as a sign of ongoing moral degradation such as the growing laxity about pornography, for example. I suspect that the smiling women at the casinos have come to the conclusion that the evils of “card playing” that they were once warned about no longer apply. They see a day at the casinos as a day of entertainment, with none of the dangerous consequences once associated with gambling.
But don’t many of these “solid citizens” lose too much money at the casinos? I am sure that they do. But most will tell you that they discipline themselves by bringing with them only the amount they are willing to lose, an amount comparable to what they would spend for dinner and tickets to a Broadway play. If they enjoy the excitement of the day at the slot machines or blackjack tables as much as another revival of Annie Get Your Gun, they don’t see this as an exorbitant price for the day’s fun. I find it hard to disagree.
Most of the time, I welcome the charge that I am “close-minded” and “old-fashioned” and “unwilling to adapt to the times.” There is nothing admirable about being willing to compromise on issues such as abortion and the homosexual revolution. But there are times when we should be aware of the danger of being too unyielding on matters that are not central to Catholicism, especially of the danger of imputing heretical impulses to fellow parishioners who are more eager for change than we are. Whether, for example, it would be healthy for the Church to permit general absolution more frequently than now, grant more responsibilities to deacons, or include more Latin Masses in the Sunday Mass schedule, are issues of significant importance. But those who take the more “liberal” stance in these debates are entitled to make their case without incurring our wrath. These are matters that can be debated in good faith.
Few pious Catholics nowadays would insist that women wear hats in church or bathing suits like the ankle-to-shoulder styles popular in the early years of the 20th century. We have learned to adapt to the times. An exposed ankle is no longer considered an occasion of sin. I suspect that the growth of the “gaming industry” is in the same category, even though it was not that long ago when gambling was seen as a serious vice. I would argue that there has been an acceptable development of our perception of moral doctrine on this issue, similar to the process described by Cardinal Newman in his essay Genuine Development of Christian Doctrine.
Just one example: I can remember when I was director of an ecumenical youth center in the mid-1960s. Members of the clergy from the local churches, Catholic and Protestant, would stop by regularly to check up on how things were going and to engage in conversations with the young people. One evening, a Protestant minister came up to me in a highly agitated mood. He had found three or four teenage boys playing poker in one of the rooms where Ping-Pong tables and pool tables were provided for the young people. He insisted that I “do something.” Which I did. I agreed that the kids should not be gambling in the youth center, even though my level of concern was not close to the minister’s.
I am sure that minister has gone to his eternal reward by now. But my point is that I suspect that if he were alive today, he would not object to the sight of his parishioners lining up for the bus trip to Atlantic City or Foxwoods. In my neighborhood in Connecticut, the local senior center regularly sponsors such trips. So do nearby Catholic parishes. I see little old ladies with blue hair and sensible shoes laughing merrily as they anticipate a few hours in front of the slot machines.
I recognize that members of various gamblers’ support groups will object at this point, offering numerous stories of ruined families caused by addictive gambling. But their testimony is hard to reconcile with the smiling faces of the women on the bus coming home from the casino in the New York Times’ story. Would we deny these senior citizens a glass of wine or a cocktail because there are alcoholics in the world? Would we deny them the right to drive their cars because there are some drivers who drive at dangerously fast speeds? Isn’t it the same? Isn’t there a way to treat those who become addicted to gambling without seeking to deny people the excitement they get from trying their hand at the casinos?
In short, someone would have to show me that a significant number of those who gamble for entertainment become compulsive gamblers for me to think that the new attitude toward gambling that has developed in recent years in this country is a matter of concern. Or am I missing something? I am willing to listen.