ジャッキーの これ、どう思う？ While we're on the topic ...

When I left my office job and decided to go to film school, I went "all in," which is an expression from poker that means I bet everything I had on this plan; I don't have a backup plan, I invest everything I have in it. It's risky, but with great risk comes great reward — nothing ventured, nothing gained. There seem to be so many sayings encouraging this kind of risk-taking. Maybe we're addicted to risk. But of course, there's a dark side to risk-taking ...

A few years ago I was invited to a friend's birthday party at a casino. I thought it was a strange place to have a birthday party, but it was her choice, and they served drinks, so I thought it would at least be an interesting night, if perhaps also a waste of money.

I decided to buy $20 (¥1,600) worth of casino tokens and use them up. I decided only to continue playing with whatever I earned off of that $20. Unfortunately, it took me only 15 minutes to squander all my money. Then I just wanted to get out of there. There were other people in our party who were having fun, but not me.

The casino just made me sad, for a few different reasons. One, I felt sorry for some of the people there. A lot of people seemed really unhappy, sitting in front of slot machines like zombies, pulling the handle down over and over again, staring at the flashing lights. I wondered what they got out of this interaction, if it made them happy.

Another reason I felt sad was the desire I sensed inside me to play more, to break my promise to myself and spend more money. This kind of feverish lust for winning scared me. Gambling, especially the kind where you are alone at a machine, invites a certain kind of intellectual numbness. If it's just you, your money and a machine, the only thoughts are PLAY and STOP PLAYING.

The casino also unexpectedly reminded me of an unpleasant memory from when I was a teenager. When I was in junior high school, my best friend's dad had a gambling problem that got out of control. I think it started with him losing his job and gambling to make ends meet. It didn't take him long to gamble away his family's savings. My friend's family was big — there was a mom, dad and five kids. None of the children knew anything about their father's problem until he had lost everything. It was a scary time for my friend and her family, and it reinforced for me that gambling addictions can take over people's lives and rip families apart.

I don't care if it's a casino or a pachinko parlor, I think gambling, especially "slots" or any kind of automated gambling, is terribly sad. It's a failure of humanity. I think making these machines, owning them and operating them is like taking a huge vacuum, turning it on and sucking up people who are down on their luck or unable to resist the temptation, people with the false hope that they can win big and all their problems will be solved. The whole industry seems predatory to me.

I would welcome someone to write me with an experience that is really positive about these kinds of automated gambling machines, because I just don't believe there is such a thing as a positive way to interact with them.

I'm not going to argue that they should be illegal, but I wish we were able to evolve beyond them. It's fine for people who are able to establish safe boundaries around their activities, but the problem is that most people aren't. And the more desperate a person becomes, the more likely they seem to believe that gambling is the only way to solve their problems. It's a vicious cycle.

I wonder if my experience at the casino that night, and the bad taste it left in my mouth, would have been different if I had won $100 (¥8,000) instead of losing $20. The answer is probably yes, but I also think that it would have frightened me a little. I generally like to take risks in my life, although mostly in professional or romantic arenas, so I think there's a part of my brain that knows to stay far, far away from casinos. Maybe it's my survival instinct, or perhaps it's just that I prefer to only play games where the odds are stacked in my favor.

Next time: My topic is ... fashion