THE GAMBLING MANIA

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 3, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 31.

THE GAMBLING MANIA.

SO PREVALENT has become the gambling mania among salaried persons, persons occupying official positions, that it has become a matter of deep concern to the companies that have stood sponsors for these persons.

Agents of bonding companies have begun to cancel surety bonds in all directions on account of the prevalence of gambling on horse races. In some instances men occupying responsible positions in large mercantile houses have been found to be addicted to the turf speculation mania.

“We are canceling bonds all the while,” says the agent for the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company. “The race-track habit is bad. We keep track of our patrons by secret service. When we receive a bad report concerning the movements of a person we have bonded, we drop him before he causes us loss.” “When a man starts to play the horses, he becomes an extra hazardous risk for a surety company to carry,” says the agent for the Bankers’ Surety Company. The testimony of the agent for the National Surety Company is this: “If we confirm some of our suspicions, there will be many cancelations. We do not care to carry any person who is addicted to gambling or speculation in any form. Betting on horse races seems to have reached a mania stage in Chicago.” The secretary of the Guaranty Company of North America has issued a circular letter to large corporations asking their co-operation in suppressing race-track gambling among their employees, and giving warning of cancelations of bonds.

These concerns whose business is becoming surety for persons occupying positions of trust and responsibility, and who are required to make good any embezzlements or defalcations committed by the persons whose surety they are, are being called on so frequently and for such large sums that their very existence as business concerns is threatened. They have seen no way to save themselves but by warning their patrons and cutting off their list all who persist in the gambling habit. This saves the company, but it does not necessarily stop the individual’s gambling propensity. Having formed the appetite, it is as difficult to break away as to give up some other debasing practices.

One of the worst features of the situation is the growth of the gambling mania among women, hosts of whom are seen at every race-track. They stake their money on the horses as readily as do some of the men. They patronize the coursing park, and bet on the hares and hounds; and they win and lose at the card tables in their own homes, where the young of both sexes become familiar with, and imbibe, the gambling spirit.

Thus is the new generation educated into the gambling habit, ready when they go out into the world to follow the habit formed at the fireside. It is this gambling in the home that is making of this generation a generation of gamblers, and undermining the moral stamina of the race.