ABSTRACT
As an aside, it is curious that the major growth of gambling has occurred in societies that pride themselves on democratic freedoms. This could be explained by noting that those nations with well-established democracies also tend to be those that are most affluent and therefore their citizens are more likely to have the capacity to afford regular gambling. However, other explanations are possible. It could be that in an ostensibly freer society, when given the choice, its members actually want more gambling and accordingly seek to increase its availability. This explanation is at variance with discussions in Chapter 3 that explored how in most democracies opponents to gambling expansion tend to outnumber those who support it, and the primary impetus for expansion usually emerges from within alliances between government and gambling industries. In its place, this book proposes that something more fundamental is operating here; something associated with the nature of democracy itself.
