If there’s any activity that runs counter to everything self improvement stands for, gambling has got to be one of them. There’s way too much rooted into gambling that can really blow up in your face. It seems harmless at first but like a wildfire, it can get real out of control, destroying your financial future, marriage, relationships with others.

Look at the underlying basis of gambling.

Getting money for doing nothing. Getting money for being of absolutely no service, value, or help to others. Relying on chance instead of your own personal responsibility.

The act itself is rooted in greed.

By constantly gambling, you constantly think – let me try to get something for nothing. When you lose the money you’re gambling, what do you do?

Ask other people for money.

Another form of getting something for nothing.

When that option runs out, what do gamblers do?

They start stealing to support their gambling addiction.

Another form of getting something for nothing.

And here’s what most people don’t seem to notice about gambling.

The people who gamble because they need money – they lose it.

Why?

Because they’re too emotionally invested.

They’re too attached to the money they’re gambling with.

The people who “win” at gambling are the ones who ALREADY have a ton of money and don’t need the money they’re gambling with and as a result, can be a bit more objective and take more chances liberally.

But even if they win, it plants that seed into their mind that they can get something for nothing and that can start them down a very dark path. You don’t want that kind of thinking constantly going through your head.

But let’s say you don’t have a ton of money but by some long shot, you win anyways.

You still lose.

Why?

Because you’ve missed out on the opportunity to BECOME the kind of person who can find a way to serve people and earn that money instead. You miss out on developing the traits of patience, focus, vision, persistence, service, action, etc., and that in it of itself is worth more than any amount of money, to develop yourself to your highest potential.

Notice how the lotto winners, the majority of them lose it all because they have NOT become the kind of person who has developed to the point where they can handle the money. They blow it all away. They have no patience, self control, delayed gratification, etc.

Avoid gambling at all costs, even the little forms such as betting on a game with friends, poker night, scratch off tickets, because it’s so easy to make an exception and start slowly sliding down that hill, taking on more serious forms of gambling, getting a bookie, going to Vegas, etc.

And if you see ads here on gambling, before you accuse me of hypocrisy, know that it’s just Google Adsense’s algorithm doing its thing. It sees the word gambling a lot in here so it assumes I talk about gambling and displays ads about it.

Avoid the easy way out trap that gambling takes the form of.

No matter what, you will always lose in the long run, even if you win.