Definition of “Gamble” and “Betting”
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To play a game in which you can win or lose money
or possessions.
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To bet money or other valuable things.
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To risk losing “an amount of money” in a game or
bet.
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To risk losing “something valuable or important”
in order to do or achieve something.
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To play a game for money or property.
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To bet on an uncertain outcome.
Transitive Verb
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To risk by gambling: Wager.
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Venture, Hazard.
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material
value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning
additional money or material goods. Gambling according three elements be
present: prize, consideration and chance. Typically, the outcome of the wager
is evident within a short period.
Gambling is also a major international commercial activity,
with the legal gambling market totaling an estimated $335 billion in 2009. In other
forms, gambling can be conducted with materials which have a value, but are not
real money. For example, players of marbles games might wager marbles, and also
games of Pogs (A game played by flipping over small cardboard or plastic disks)
or Magic: The Gathering can be played with the collectible game pieces as
stakes, resulting in a meta-game regarding the value if a player’s collection
of pieces.
The term gaming in this context typically refers to
instances in which activity has been specifically permitted by law. The two
words are not mutually exclusive; i.e. A “gaming” company offers legal “gambling”
activities to the public and may be regulated by one of many gaming control
board. However, this distinction is not universally observed in the
English-speaking world. In the UK, the regulator of gambling activities is
called the “Gambling Commission” not the “Gaming Commission”. The word gaming
is used more frequently since the rise of computer games to describe activities
that do not necessarily involve wagering, especially online gaming, with the
new usage still not having displaced the old usage as the primary definition in
common dictionaries.
