386 Insurance and Gambling. [CHAP. xv. 



retire also, so that the aggregate and average wealth of the 

 gambling body remains pretty steady. What chance any 

 given player has of being ruined, and how long he may 

 expect to hold out before being ruined, will depend of course 

 upon the initial incomes of the players, the rules of the 

 game, the stakes for which they play, and other considera 

 tions. But it is clear that for all that is lost by one, a 

 precisely equal sum must be gained by others, and that 

 therefore any particular gambler can only be cautioned be 

 forehand that his conduct is not to be recommended, by 

 appealing to some such suppositions as those already men 

 tioned in a former section. 



14. As an additional justification of this view the 

 reader may observe that the state of things in the last 

 example is one which, expressed in somewhat different 

 language and with a slight alteration of circumstances, is 

 being incessantly carried on upon a gigantic scale upon 

 every side of us. Call it the competition of merchants and 

 traders in a commercial country, and the general results are 

 familiar enough. It is true that in so far as skill comes into 

 the question, they are not properly gamblers; but in so far 

 as chance and risk do, they may be fairly so termed, and in 

 many branches of business this must necessarily be the case 

 to a very considerable extent. Whenever business is carried 

 on in a reckless way, the comparison is on general grounds 

 fair enough. In each case alike we find some retiring ruined, 

 and some making their fortunes; and in each case alike 

 also the chances, cceteris paribus, lie with those who have 

 the largest fortunes. Every one is, in a sense, struggling 

 against the collective commercial world, but since each of his 

 competitors is doing the same, we clearly could not caution 

 any of them (except indeed the poorer ones) that their efforts 

 must finally end in disadvantage. 



