I think Bob is right. It's a unique reflection when you realize how impermanent our world is. A minute you are Mr Somebody, and the next minute you're gone.
(via NationMultimedia) Bob Kimmins writes:
As you drive to work every morning, are you aware that your chance of dying in a crash is 84 to 1? This means that anyone placing a Bt 100 bet on that untimely end would stand to win Bt 8400. Life is a gamble, and everything we do involves some sort of risk, from high-chance favorites such as road accidents and disease to long shots like choking on a banana.
And I wonder what the odds would have been in 1923 when jockey Frank Hayes died of a heart attack during a horserace, with his mount, Sweet Kiss, finishing first and Hayes still in the saddle. Perhaps it’s uncertainty in life that leads people into gambling—a subconscious effort to overcome fate. Anthropologists agree that gambling was in evidence 4000 years ago in China, India, Egypt and Rome. Dice dating back to 1500 BC were found in Thebes, and related writing were discovered on tablets in the Pyramid of Cheops. Thailand, too, has a rich history of gambling.
More than 1000 years ago, bean guessing was probably the earliest game of chance in the Land of Smiles, and in the 1800s King Rama III legalized gambling to generate tax revenue. That decision led to widespread debt and bankruptcy and increased crime, however, so King Rama V outlawed it again.
In a turnabout decision, just after World War II, the Finance Ministry became responsible for running legal casinos—only for the well to do. But the law was flouted by allowing all comers to play, and the resulting debts and decline in social values prompted the ultimate clampdown.
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