The moral case for gambling

From Guardian The shaming of Australian gamblers is relentless. Alcohol causes more deaths, and yet no one is demanding that we picket shiraz. I saw my first pantomime aged seven, in the hall of a Returned Services League (RSL) Youth Club, sometime in the 1980s. It had a dashing hero and heroine, a man in a ballgown, flying handfuls of lollies and that leap-out-of-your-seat raucousness that exhilarates children. There were hundreds of us. The supervising adults maintained respectful distance and when the curtain finally came down on the dastardly villains, everyone was given a showbag full of treats. It was…