Gambling is not an economic activity. Addiction to gambling can have serious effects on ones life. CNYAKUNDI.COM does not support gambling.
A Kenya argues how gambling is deadly addictive, socially accepted drug that should be made less attractive.
Hi Nyakundi,
It is a glittering rattlesnake. It is a sweet cake whose ingredients include rat poison. A real poisoned chalice.
It is a matter of grave concern to learn that 70% of the Kenyan youths are addicted to gambling. They have adopted it as an easy means of livelihood.
Yet, gambling should be a pastime, a hobby for those with money to play games with. For the Midas Kenyans who I hear play games where they compete to shoot money from guns. The one who shoots most notes is declared the winner. The notes shot from the guns are collected by the blessed spectators who put them in their pockets.
Gambling should not be for the youth unless we are using it to cripple their thinking and working abilities; nless we are providing them with an escape route for their idleness.
Gambling is killing them because human beings are so only because unlike animals they work. They work and sweat to earn their daily bread. Our African religious heritage and Christianity and other religions followed in Kenya prescribe hard work for self improvement economically. Not gambling.
The effects of gambling on the gambler and the rest of the society are a great cause for concern. The gambler becomes an addict just like or worse than a heroin and cocaine addict combined. The gambler becomes a social liability as he/she pursues their addiction. They steal from close family members. They gamble secretly sometimes borrowing money to gamble. They use their salary if employed to gamble thereby neglecting their financial obligations. They use money meant for rent and domestic use thereby affecting their families negatively. Once a gambler has no money to gamble with they use violence like piga ngeta to get money from Wananchi. What about when they lose? They become our problem when they get depressed and kill those close to them before committing suicide. The gambler unwittingly feeds the greed of the owners of the gambling houses. They are gullible to believe that there are Father Xmases out there who want to make them rich. They allow other people to insult their God-given intelligence. Now if you are a gambler who has become a Bill Gates through gambling please let us know. What did that Mzee from Ukambani for example do with the 33 million he won two years ago? Kindly winners let us see how rich you have become after winning so much. LET US MAKE GAMBLING LESS ATTRACTIVE.
Below are the way we can do to make gambling less attractive: The Prizes should not be instant. Let all of them come after a month. Let the Prizes be moderate. The highest should be 100k. To set the prize at high figures attracts many gamblers. It also makes gamblers to use a lot in the hope of winning. In most cases luck alone does not count. One is supposed to have played many times. So the gambler can take an emergency loan of let us say 100k to gamble in the hope of winning 10 million. Let the gambling be charity-based. Towards such worthy causes like Cancer funds or funds for the disabled. The gambling houses should be prepared to give 40% of their prizes to the charitable institutions. No it is not much. If the KPLC can bleed 40% of my hard won money when I, a domestic consumer, buys tokens then it is not too much to ask 40% from people making easy money. Yes, I mean 40%. Last week I paid KPLC Kshs. 1000 for tokens. They gave me tokens worth 597 and pocketted sh.403 as levies!! I am a small consumer using 3-4 units a day. So let the gambling merchants give back more. After all what is the cost of production of their mega wealth? Just get it right if every hour there are a million gamblers each paying only 10 bob it means 10 million per hour! Which other business can raise that much with negligible costs? We had better save our youth and ourselves from the effects of gambling.
By Shosh.