Hartley NeitaONCE UPON a time, words like drop pan and Peaka Peow were never used in polite society.
These forms of gambling were socially undesirable. In fact, a legislator proposed that he wanted Government to stop imprisoning or imposing fines on Chinese found playing the game of Peaka Peow, and to deport them from the island, without allowing them to take their belongings especially their money.
Growing up, the only permissible gambling were the Missing Ball competition promoted by The Gleaner, and horseracing sweepstakes.
Today, tickets for the numerous gambling games played in Jamaica are sold in outlets at service stations, in supermarkets and at shops in every corner of towns and villages.
Television programmes are interrupted to allow beautiful young women with seductive voices to play with the balls to discover who is the lucky fortune winner. It is now big business, sanctioned by a Govern-ment whose predecessors had walked the high road with the slogan: "You can't win your troubles away".
CHURCH AGAINST GAMBLING
There was a time, too, when bishops such as Percival Gibson and S.U. Hastings, and church leaders such as Earl Thame, Eric Bailey, Stanford Webley and others, would have stood stern vigil at the entrance to these gambling outlets, made the sign of the Cross and whispered words of condemnation which would have turned gamblers from their erring ways.
Today, I wonder if I can ever expect to see Bishops Reid, Gregory, Clarke and Blair frowning publicly and preaching against the gambling fever which has taken over Jamaica.
I confess that I buy two lottery tickets twice each week. One for me and one for a relative.
We have not won one brass farthing in all the years I have been buying. Now and then I get a consolation free ticket.
I do not buy the other gambling tickets. Perhaps because they do not offer multi-million dollar prizes.
Today you can now buy Cash Pot, Dollaz and Lotto tickets on Sundays. Imagine that!
SEDUCTIVE ADVERTISEMENTS
The advertisements are most seductive. Buy a ticket for a football match and you can drive home a new vehicle. You can win two tickets to a stage show if you answer questions about an entertainer named "Bling Dawg." Frankly, I had not heard of him before I saw the advertisements, but then I'm passe. And is there a female Bling Dawg? And what's her name?
Answer the question, what is the name of the beautiful Beyonce's first album and you can get two tickets to the concert she will appear in. I would enter this competition if the prize was a dinner and dancing date.
Buy three gallons of ice-cream and you can dip and win thousands of dollars. Buy enough bottles of a drink and get enough caps to spell the name of the drink and become a millionaire.
You can get free calls worth a Michael Manley bill, and win a house and land, and all sorts of goodies if you take a chance.
DON'T HAVE TO WORK
These goodies being offered are telling us that we don't have to work. One day we will win big and be able to enjoy all the luxuries of life like worldwide travel and months-long vacations every year vacations not from work, but vacations from
gambling.
There is one television advertisement which I think sends the wrong message to us. It shows two young men who have only about two dollars between them, which is not enough to take them to cricket. So they buy a ticket and they win and end up in the stands watching a match.
Are all these gambling games approved by the Betting and Gaming Commission? And what about the advertisements?
Surely, this advertisement about gambling your way to see cricket should be banned.
