My father is a gambling addict in remission. He was especially addicted to betting on horse racing and football. Because of his gambling addiction in the past, my brothers and I had to help pay off huge amounts of debt. Growing up in this environment was difficult, to say the least.
When I finished school and started working, a lot of my early salary had to be used to pay off this debt. My whole family suffered for years because of my father's gambling addiction. My father is not a bad guy – he just got mixed up with the wrong crowd.
My point is, making sports gambling legal in Malaysia is going to harm our society more than it will help it. Legalising sports gambling in Malaysia will be like making heroin available for sale to all the drug addicts in Malaysia.
The predictable outcome of this is unnecessary heartache and pain for many otherwise normal families. People like me who have personally experienced the difficulties and suffering caused by gambling addiction in their family will know what I am talking about.
If the government really wants Malaysians to become more productive, creative and innovative, then introducing online gambling is really sending the wrong message. You see, gambling is a fool's activity that promises easy money in return for no meaningful work done at all. Gambling is the antithesis of being productive, creative and innovative.
The Malaysian government should therefore think carefully about what message they really want to send to its citizens and to the younger generation: Work hard and innovate new things, or try to make easy money through gambling activities?
There are other more positive ways to raise money for government coffers. For example, by implementing strong incentives and support programmes for Malaysians to develop intellectual property (look at the US, for example, which is a huge exporter of movies, music, video games, books, and software).
Making sports gambling legal in Malaysia may raise money for government in the short-term. But in the long run, the nation is going to lose out because the productivity, creativity, and innovativeness of its citizens are all going to be affected by gambling-related social ills including broken families, unemployment, and high levels of debt.
