The economic harms of gambling During the course of a year...

The economic harms of gambling During the course of a year, huge amounts of money are lost as a result of gambling, aside from the numerous man-hours that go down the drain as a result of it - even losing the enthusiasm to work during the rest of the time. For example, it has been stated in one report that in the city of Monte Carlo - one of the well-known gambling centres of the world - a person, in a gambling spree spread over a period of 19 hours, lost a sum of 4 million Iranian tumans.

When the casino shut its doors he proceeded straight towards the woods where he shot himself in the head. The reporter adds that the woods of Monte Carlo have repeatedly witnessed incidents of suicides on the part of such devoted gamblers.

The social harms of gambling Many gamblers, owing to the fact that they occasionally turn up winners and possibly pocket thousands of other people's money within a short time, are not inclined to enter into economic and manufacturing work as a result of which, the wheels of economy and production tend to become crippled in the corresponding ratio.

If we inspect meticulously, we would realise that all the gamblers and their families are a burden upon the society, not only because they do not contribute the slightest benefit to it but, on the contrary, they exploit it for their own benefit and at times resort to theft to make good the losses incurred by them during gambling.

In short, the evils of gambling are in such great measure that many of the non-Islamic nations have prohibited it by law, although they may extensively indulge in it in practice; for example, England prohibited it in 1853, the Soviet Union did so in 1855, the United States implemented the prohibition in 1854 while Germany followed suit in 1873.

At the end of this discussion it is interesting to note that according to statistics compiled by some researchers, 90 percent of all pick-pocketing instances, 10 percent of moral offences, 40 percent of assaults, 15 percent of sexual abuses, 30 percent of divorces and 5 percent of suicides are brought about by gambling.

If we were to present a definition for gambling, we would have to state: Gambling means sacrificing wealth and honour, for acquiring the riches of others by means of deception and craftiness, or, at times, for recreation - but not attaining either of the two objectives.[^1] What is music and what is the philosophy behind its prohibition?