Uncertainty is at the root of excitement. Human beings have added to this excitement by putting money on uncertainty. Gambling originates from this impulse. People gamble to enhance their excitement; some chase the illusion that gambling is the path to unforeseen riches; the really clever ones make a business out of gambling. The spoilsports are those that raise the slogan that gambling is a vice and hence should be banned. The most recent example of this kind of puritanism is the action of the West Bengal government against the online lottery business. Outlets peddling online lotteries have been shut down all over West Bengal and their operators arrested. The Left Front government has declared online lotteries to be a menace and has announced a commitment to wipe them out completely. The wrath against online lotteries is a trifle difficult to fathom unless one accepts the theory that the comrades have been seized by a seasonal bout of the holier-than-thou syndrome.

Gambling exists in many forms and some of these are accepted by society and the government. Horse racing is the best example. There is a flourishing turf club in Calcutta where, during the racing season, hundreds of thousands of rupees change hands and the horses are none the wiser. Similarly, a large quantum of the trading in the stock exchange is actually based on the uncertainty factor. In both these spheres, there are set norms but breaches of these are not all that uncommon. But nobody, except the dyed-in-the-wool communist, has ever pleaded that horse racing and the stock exchange should be shut down. The main reasons for this are the existence of guidelines and the stamp of legality that has been bestowed on these two forms of gambling. But there are other forms of gambling ? satta being a well-known example ? which are flourishing covertly. These are full of abuses and those who engage in them do not have any protection against fraud and extortion. They are all fly-by-night operations. Another notorious example is betting in cricket. Punters in these fields move in the shadows because they operate in an illegal field.

The distinction between the legal and the illegal is determined by a state fiat. The state in its wisdom decides which forms of gambling are legal and which are not. Thus horse racing is legal but betting on cricket is not, even though the principle on which both are based is the same. The principle is the excitement generated by uncertainty. There are people who are willing to put money on the laws of probability. As the bursar of King?s College, Cambridge, John Maynard Keynes turned around his college?s fortunes by playing the stock market. Readers of tea leaves, who have the courage to put money where their reading leads, can make money. But Keynes could do this because there was no prohibition on gambling. It is high time self-styled Indian puritans shelved their shallow morals and allowed money-making on uncertainty by legalizing all forms of gambling.