The Ethics Of Gambling

Using Macau’s gaming industry as an example, this PhD thesis seeks to examine ethicsof gambling from three levels: individual, corporate and government. On the personallevel, it focuses on an overlapping area between gambling and traditional Chinesevalues, such as work ethics and the concept of “no pain no gain.” Gambling is brokendown into basic elements, such as luck and pleasure, and they are evaluated based ondominant ethical theories. The analysis shows that gambling cannot reach an ethicalpersonal standard, given the zero-sum nature of gambling that benefits either party atthe expense of the other. At the corporate level, the gaming industry in Macau has facedethical dilemmas that have arisen from its lack of appropriate measures to deal withgaming employees’ health hazards and their proneness to gambling addictions. Inaddition, to minimize its social harms, the gaming industry is expected to deal with thesocial costs that it creates. On the government level, issues of pathological gamblingand ethics of redistribution of income and wealth are discussed to demonstrate theethical role that the government must play in regulating the gaming industry in order touphold social and economic justice. At last, the issue of developing ethical mechanismto help those are affected by the industry will be addressed. The thesis concludes with adiscussion about the prospect for Chinese gaming ethics.