Rosengren begins his article “Losing It All” by introducing a man named Scott Stevens. Stevens, at age 52, was consumed by his addiction to casino gambling, forcing him to end his own life. This man, as Rosengren explains, couldn’t control himself from gambling away up to $4 million; most of this money was from stealing company funds (Stevens worked at an investment firm). Rosengren tells the story of Scott Stevens to emphasize the destructiveness of gambling addiction. The author asks the reader a question after completing the story of Scott Stevens, “Did Scott Stevens die because he was unable to rein in his own addictive need to gamble? Or was he the victim of a system carefully calibrated to prey on his weakness?” Rosengren provides the history of …show more content…
Rosengren quotes from a gambling-addiction therapist that, “A lot of the so-called cognitive distortions were actually caused by the machines, not [because the users] were making errors in thinking. Most of them are making correct conclusions based on deceptive information. It’s the lie of the technology that’s the problem.” The problem is also the casinos themselves as Rosengren asserts. Many casinos will give promises of their earnings going to the community but this overshadowed by the estimated $3 million in social costs for every dollar donated. Casinos are, as Rosengren puts it, “a social negative.”
There have been many lawsuits made against casino gambling throughout history. Rosengren gives evidence of this claim through the Stevens case (his wife sued the casino industry), which was made famous publicly to lawyers. “Soon enough,” Rosengren hopes, “lawyers everywhere will be smelling the blood in the water.” Rosengren abruptly ends this article by dramatically detailing the last moments of Scott Steven’s life, with the very last sentence as his successful suicide