Gambling And Diminishing Marginal utility

The defenders of speculation resent the charge that it represents simply another from of gambling , like betting on the horse races or buying a lottery ticket.they emphasize that an uncertain world necessarily involves risk and that someone must bear risks.they claim that the knowledge and the venturesomeness of the speculator are chained to a socially useful purpose,thereby reducing fluctuations and risks to other.(we have just seen that this is not always the case and that speculation may indeed be destabilizing;yet,no one can deny all validity to the above claims.)why is gambling considered such a bad thing?part of the reason,perhaps the most important part,lies in the field of morals,ethics,and religion;upon these the economist as such is not qualified to pass final judgment.there is,however,a substantial economic case to be made against gambling.
first,it involves simply sterile transfers of money goods between individuals, creating no new money or goods.although it creates no output,gambling does nevertheless absorb time and resources. when pursed beyond the limits of recreation ,where the main purpose after all is to "kill" time . gambling subtracts from the national income.
the second economic disadvantage of gambling is the fact that it tends to promote inequality and instability of incomes.people who sit down to the gaming table with the same amount of money go away with widely different amounts. A gambler (and his family) must expect to be on the top of the world one day , and when luck changes-which is the only predictable thing about it-he may almost starve.