Topic: Should mentally unstable people be allowed to gamble? - page 22. (Read 2523 times)

Asking the question if mentality unstable people should be allowed to gamble has different dimensions, do you mean if the government should make a law that prevents mentality unstable people from gambling or you mean that the gambling attendant should stop the mentality unstable man from gambling? In both cases it will not actually be easy especially if the mentality sick man really wants to gamble. I will try to explain the two scenarios below and see how we will examine the scenarios and make proper decisions on the topic posted.

Let's say the government enacts a law that prevents mentality sick people from gambling and yet the mentality sick person want to gamble. If they insist and gamble will the gambling attendant be arrested or the mentality sick person. If the casino attendant refuses to grant him access to gamble, he might decide to cause alot of trouble in the shop and its neighbourhood. And if the government arrest such a mentality sick person, how will they arraign him?

Who can decide which man(or woman) is mentally unstable and which one is mentally stable? I guess that if a man(or woman) has a socially unacceptable behavior, he(or she) can be considered mentally ill.
The casino employees aren't licensed psychic doctors, so they can't decide who is mentally sick and who is OK. I'm sure that if a guy starts acting weird, they will kick him out of the casino.
The man is your story acted completely normal(even though he probably looked like a homeless person). He might be mentally OK. Who are you to judge people based on their clothes and physical appearance. Many people don't care about their looks, but they are completely normal.

If the person is mentally unstable, it would be better for officers or employees to refuse the person to enter and gamble at the casino. But seeing what had happened, it seemed that the person had no intention other than just gambling like other people, so the officers just let him do it. But if the person started acting out of bounds, the officers would take the person into custody and tell him to leave and never enter the casino again.

It may be a moral obligation to prohibit someone who wants to gamble but has a mental disorder. The officer in one place doesn't want any commotion at his place of work so he will supervise someone who is mentally disturbed so that they don't make a commotion.

Not everyone who is well-dressed is mentally stable. Some addicts are mentally unstable, without noticing it, despite being well-kept and feeling in control of their actions. The man in your story is not causing any trouble to anybody in the gambling house, he is only not well dressed. Which is not anybody's business, provided that the gambling attendant is comfortable with him, no problem. Secondly, he's not begging for money or aggressively disturbing his parents for gambling funds, like many other gambling addicts who suffer mental disorders do to their loved ones. He's doing his job and maybe may have been conditioned the way he looks due to the kind of work he does. Men are men, and their personalities should be respected, so far he respects himself and the people around him. Don't know how people around your vicinity judge people who are mentally ill, only through their looks? dressing, hairstyle, shoes, etc.

The world gets funny each day, does it mean that if a well-dressed person putting on a Rolex and nice shoes walks into the gambling house and starts to destroy things or yell at the gambling attendant, he'll be tagged drunk or normal because he's putting on some expensive perfumes. However, I understand your point, gambling can affect them more and they'll find it difficult to heal. But with the behavior of the man, as you illustrated, he shouldn't be barred from using the gambling house. He is like any other gambler, who gambles with their hard-earned money. If he wins a jackpot the casino betting platform will pay him big, not minding whether he's well dressed or not. I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday on a similar matter, how society neglects such people, which may lead them to gambling as a form of fun. Society cares about well-dressed people alone, whether mentally ill or not.  

I have not seen this in a any terms of service of a casino or other gambling site like bookies. If it is not there, that means it is allowed. But some people will not feel comfortable and will not allow him to gamble. There are situations that people around a mentally unstable person will interact with him and no problem, but there are situations that you can not interact with with such a person.

You could see he is not mad but probably mentally challenged which can come and go like temporary. There are people who are like that mentally that you only notice them when that moment come to them.

There is a different analysis to this story. He might be gambling before that challenge came to him which can explain why he still retain the ability to gamble and visit the gambling shop. Or he is not mentally challenged in the real sense because someone in such condition may not have the cognition to know how to gamble.


If from what the story is that he walks into a gambling shop and does what others do in peace and leaves, I don't think there is a reason to deny him freedom of association or any other if he is of gambling age. In fact he may not be that challenged mentally not to know what he is doing.

People generally enter gambling out of curiosity. However, some people who are mentally disturbed by gambling become more addicted to gambling and drugs. People in my area who are in family turmoil and always addicted to drugs are mostly physically visiting offline gambling dens. But it is quite curious that some people fall into the circle of friends and become addicted to gambling. However, if we consider the number of people who are addicted to gambling, gambling addiction is usually more from the family which had a gambler addicted to gambling in the past.

Recently I was around a physical bet shop close to my area and I observed a man who was shabbily dressed walking in the gambling house. I got into the place to observe what his intentions were. He walked straight to the gaming attendant, placed his bets in a highly coordinated manner and quietly walked out of the physical gambling house. From the way he was well organized, you will never know that he was mentally unsound apart from his dirty clothes and unkept hair and beard.

When I inquired from the attendant, she said he was a regular customer and that he usually raised money for gambling through the manual jobs he does around the area. She also told me that he has never misbehaved and acted violently in the gambling house so she was comfortable with him.

My question now is are there any moral, ethical or legal obligation to bar a person from gambling after physically observing that he is mentally unstable?