Gambling As A Tonic

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30348, 25 January 1964, Page 15

Gambling As A Tonic

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, Jan. 24. A university lecturer from Sydney told a meeting in London last night that a little flutter on the horses could be good for people. If the gambling was kept under control, it had a beneficial effect, said Mr Charles Kenna, . a psychologist, aged 40. Mr Kenna was speaking about a three-year study of the psychology of gambling, he conducted. Gamblers, he said, fell into two camps. Half of them realised life would have been better had they not gambled. “The other half feel they have benefited by their gambling. They fee) it gave them something positive in their own way of life, something they could look forward to, something that taught them to take the reverses of life." Mr Kenna, lecturer at the University of New South Wales, said their philosophy was: “Live for today and don’t worry overmuch about the future." He said he had spent two years studying gamblers in Australia and the past year in London. He had interviewed men in prison, at betting shops and on race-

courses. Mr Kenna admitted that he bet about £lO a year on horses himself.

The ordinary gambler was likely to be a man in a humdrum job who could not count on getting much on his own merit. “The more humdrum the job, the more likely he is to gain.” Most gamblers started by being led into a game of cards at school, then, at 17, a youth gambled because he thought it was an adult thing to do. Compulsive gambling—which could be compared with compulsive drinking—often began when a man had to face up to certain adult responsibilities for the first time and needed money urgently. Mr Kenna added: “Frankly, it’s the last way out of a difficult situation.”

Mr Kenna, who was speaking at a press conference arranged by the churches’ council on gambling, called for a full investigation, possibly by Parliament, into the social aspects of gambling. He was unable to obtain any co-oper-ation from the management side of the bookmaking industry. “We don’t want our clients upset,” he was told. He spent three months standing on the pavement outside British betting shops speaking to about one in three customers. In all, he said, he approached about 1100 people in London. He persuaded 250 to take away his questionnaire in a stamped, addressed envelope, received 130 back, and found

only 100 of them completed. His studies of psychological aspects of gambling in Britain and Australia had convinced him that compulsive gambling was rare—possibly only half of 1 per cent of all gamblers. The moderate gambler, he believed, was seeking escape from his dull existence, from his life pattern. Gambling offered that "little bit of hope” and was beneficial under present social conditions.

Gambling was a denial of reality, but if it were not gambling, most gamblers would turn to something else. Housewives were not great gamblers. Often those who did bet were persuaded into it by their husbands —a form of sharing guilt Mr Kenna said that, unlike Australians, only about one-third of those replying to his questionnaire in London felt happy, carefree or expectant when they entered a betting shop. About 20 per cent felt destined to lose. 25 per cent said they felt nothing, and a small percentage felt elated the night before they went to bet. Most gamblers were generous to their wives and children if they won.

Mr Kenna was reported as saying that the English climate and social structure were responsible for the degree of gambling. “In Australia there is a great deal of available open-air recreation.