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This week The Casino Guru is going to talk about the constant celebration of excess that has become so common in our lives. No longer are we satisfied to simply enjoy life and try to make life better for our loved ones. Instead of living and celebrating our own lives, we are encouraged by a constant media assualt to live vicariously through others. Living under a constant state of seige, many of today’s supposed role models have been forced to live shadow lives to have any sense of privacy . No wonder so many of them end up with spectacular meltdowns.
Let’s take the case of Tiger Woods. He has the distinction of not only being possibly the greatest golfer of all time, but he is the first person to become a billionaire as an active athlete. Woods has always been an intensely private person who gives an absolute minimum of personal information out to the media. Of course, in today’s "know at all costs" environment, this only fuels deeper curiosity. The desire to know everything about celebrities has become so insane that we force them to live with bodyguards behind high walls just to enjoy a moments peace with their families. Many "A Listers" spend over a million dollars a year on security. If they want to spend a quiet evening out at a nice restaurant with the family, they are pursued by a fleet of paparazzi. The invasion of privacy by the media has become almost criminal in nature. Combined with a human tendency towards envy, many waited like vultures for any sign of a chink in Tiger’s armor. When a crack finally did appear, the inevitable explosion that followed was awesome. Within hours, the internet was filled with comments and stories making all sorts of claims of Tiger’s infidelity. Suddenly private behavior between consenting adults was more important than 15 years of outstanding golf. Granted, we are not party to any morals clauses in Mr.Wood’s endorsement contacts, but are we really entitled to know what he does behind closed doors. Until Tiger himself decides to tell us, it is really none of our business what he does off the golf course.
According to the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, "Approximately 50 percent married women and 60 percent of married men will have an extramarital affair at some time in their marriage." Why is Tiger’s behavior so special. Is it because we are morally outraged or is it because we take pleasure in seeing someone famous knocked off of his or her pedestal. Your friend, The Casino Guru, suspects that it is the latter. We should spend our time building our own lives and leave Tiger alone. Have our own lives become so empty that we are willing to spend hours of our free time to get all the latest dirt on Tiger? Should what he may have done behind closed doors have any bearing on his promoting a certain brand of gold clubs? Tiger Woods is not a different species from us. He is a human being with the same strengths and weaknesses as the rest of us. Instead of gloating over this excessive celebration of Tiger’s fall from grace, we should be leaving him alone to rebuild his own life. It is none of our business how Tiger chose to live his live to date and it is none of our business how he chooses to live his life in the future.
Next, let’s look at the example of the Gambler who lost 127 Million Dollars over the course of a year in a Las Vegas Casino Hotel. Most of us work hard to make 50 to 75,000 dollars a year and the very concept of losing 127 million dollars makes us wonder what could have possibly inspired such out of control behavior. During one of history’s all time losing streaks, this gambler actually lived in a luxury suite at the hotel where he was losing millions of his money. Gambling became his existence 24 hours a day, as he spiraled into a massive losing streak of incredible proportions. The man is actually suing the casino, in part because he claims casino employees plied him with liquor and pain medication to keep him gambling. This would be criminal behavior on the part of the casino if it is true and would reflect quite badly on legal gambling as an industry. What the truth is will eventually come out in court but the bottom line here is that this was excess at its finest. One can only wonder where his family and business associates were while this was going on?
When is enough enough? A case like this does nothing but play into the hands of those who are opposed to legal gambling. While The Casino Guru will stand behind the rights of the party involved to do whatever he wants with his own money, we still must question such excessive behavior. A man losing 127 million dollars over a year of gambling cries out as an example of someone who was seriously in the throes of gambling addiction. The casino may have had every legal right to take his money under current law but their moral behavior toward an obviously disturbed individual was awful. The casino’s financial report even mentioned that his losses accounted for 5.7% of the casino’s bottom line for the year. Common decency cries out that someone should have intervened long before the man lost 127 million dollars. It is stunning that anyone could stay holed up in a hotel for a year while losing 127 million dollars and it was just allowed to go on.
Are we ever happy with what we have or are we pushed and prodded to always want more? Do we really need such overwhelming excess to enjoy our lives? We need to think of more than just personal gratification and to exercise sanity and good judgment when we gamble. If we don’t we just become fish waiting to be caught and exploited by others. The Casino Guru is reluctant to ever tell other how to behave when their behavior is legal but this points out just how numb we have become to common sense and self control in the current era of excess. That said, all we can really ask, is that people think twice and try to imagine the effects of their behavior before they act. Try to show good judgment and self control before falling victim to the roller coaster ride of excess that leads to massive losses in the millions of dollars and the destruction of lives. Surely there are better ways to find enjoyment in one’s life than to indulge in such out of control behavior. We should try to find satisfaction within our own lives and not worry about how Tiger is behaving in his bedroom. Learning repsect for the value of a dollar is a basic ethic most of us were raised to believe in and to squander a vast fortune in a casino is truly a crying shame. We all need to remember that and gamble responsibly within our limits.
