Have you ever had the thought of visiting a local gambling spot before, or have you been there before? I had to go there days ago. The place is characterized by old men gamblers and this board game which we call it in our place, is called draft in the local dialect here, some call it Okwe, and others call it different names in their various languages.
I noticed something there, the old men who play this game together always play with fun irrespective of the fact that they gamble, they laugh, talk, and make fun of themselves while they gamble without anyone noticing that they are gambling. Although I have been around them a few times while they play, I never had any idea they gambled. They do that maturely, and you would never understand they do so.
It is never like this when the young ones are playing that game. They always end up shouting match, fighting and quarreling, and making it obvious to people that they are gamblers, which is not appropriate. At first, the environment where they sit to play the game is very rowdy, which is not like that of the older men; they are well-coordinated and mature while playing. This is what the local gambling spot looks like in my country, and it has been going on like that from time to time without any thought of change from the young ones who engage themselves in the game. I have also asked them, just as I did to the older men, but the narrative is quite different from what the older man told me. The younger ones are desperate to get the money, which has made them gamble and forget so soon the tenets and principles of gambling.
The older men gamble, but maturely, and when they gamble, they make fun of the games played, and in some cases, they correct themselves while playing. Despite the fact that they gamble, they point out lapses and errors their counterparts made while playing, laugh over them, and do not mind if money is involved in the game they play.
Have you visited the traditional gambling sport in your place? How do the traditional gambling games and spots in your country look? Have you gambled the local way? How was your experience, then?
Kinda noticed this too, and at first I just attributed it to the atmosphere since I always presumed the atmosphere of an organized gambling platform like a casino takes away at what little fun you can scrape from gambling but as it turns out, it's just the people really. I noticed that when older people gamble, it's literally just all fun and games, it's like they knew gambling for what it is and never made attempts at reinventing the wheel or incorporating profiteering into it which definitely did wonders for their mental and overall community togetherness, younger people like us tend to make everything about ourselves especially nowadays where solidarity is outshadowed by the individuality that social media and the society is making us portray, which gives us this false sense that everyone's out to get us and the only ones that we can really trust is ourselves. Or maybe I'm just digging too deep into it lol.
But at the end of the day, it's quite true that when older people gamble, and in my opinion (I'd still die on this hill lol) when no organized gambling facility is involved, they can have fun and enjoy the atmosphere without looking for profit or to one-up the other guy.
