When I was a teenager I had an 8-track tape of Turn of a Friendly Card, by the Alan Parsons Project, a concept album about gambling. The cover features the King of Diamonds in a stained-glass window.

Comparing a casino to a church… As a Baptist kid I got the metaphor – idolatry for the things of this world, etc. But I’ve only just begun to understand how profound gambling really is.

Motorhead – Ace of Spades. Probably my favorite song about gambling. RIP Lemmy.

There’s something mystical about it. When you gamble, you’re communicating with the universe, whether you know it or not.

I’ve been watching a lot of crime dramas lately – Peaky Blinders, Ozark, Florida Man, Sneaky Pete – shows where people are taking on great risk for a chance to move up.

And I got to thinking, why is gambling so ubiquitous? Why is organized crime always around it and why are governments so keen on making it illegal or controlling it?

Gambling is one of those activities people will continue to do whether you like it or not. Regard it as harmless or call it a sin, it’s as much a part of humanity as drug abuse, prostitution, war or religion.

Evidence for it goes back thousands of years, to the paleolithic and beyond. And, this is something that surprised me even though it shouldn’t have: it started as a form of divination. Somehow the fact that playing cards are derived from the Tarot slipped my mind.

Molly Hatchet – Beating the Odds. This one kept me from missing a trip with the high school band. There was a blackout so my alarm clock was blinking. But this song started playing with the power came on. Woke me up in the nick of time.

So it’s a form of prayer isn’t it? Challenging Fate to let us out of our lot.

The money you put down is an offering. Losing it is a sacrifice. And if you win big when the odds were against you, you get to go “Aha! Proof that life isn’t predetermined.” Unless the universe predetermined that you, specifically, would beat the odds… Then you didn’t really beat the odds.

Unfortunately, the most likely scenario when the odds are against you is, you’re going to lose. Some people can’t accept that and end up like the characters in the Alan Parsons album. Chasing something they can never catch.

I don’t really gamble. I’m too pessimistic. I’ve spent tens of dollars on friendly poker games, and once put a few quarters into a slot machine in Niagara Falls, but I’ve never felt like going to Vegas. (Thought about going to Prince’s nightclub on the off chance he might show up, but I waited too long.)

I mostly don’t care if people gamble. I have friends who do it for fun and don’t lose more than they can afford. My main complaint vs gambling is about the Lotto, which amounts to a poor people tax. Redistribution in the wrong direction.

Let people do it, don’t make them depend on it. Or think they can.