To Bet or Not To Bet? (with humble apologies to William Shakespeare...)
To bet, or not to bet, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the pocketbook to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous losses,
Or to take wagers against a sea of numbers
And by winning end them. To lose—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand painful losses
That betting is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To lose, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the payout:
For in that sleep of losses what wins may come,
When we have shuffled off this betting life,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long bets.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of numbers,
Th'bookie's wrong, the proud man's wager,
The gouge of payday loans, the lottery's draw,
The insolence of the lottery odds, and the spurns
That federal taxes merit of th'loser takes,
When he himself might his winnings make
With a bare playslip? Who would pencil bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary hotlist,
But that the dread of something after losing,
The undiscovere'd lottery, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those losses we have
Than fly to other lotteries that we know not of?
Thus greed does make losers of us all,
And thus the native hue of money
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of losing streaks,
And lottery systems of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose tall stacks of cash.