I was having a conversation about gambling with two young men and one of them said gambling is not for the poor people, that it has the proclivity to favour rich people much than with the poor, and the examples he gave made me to come close to endorsing his interpretation.
His argument is that the rich people gambling do not have to pack a lot of odds as in parlay bet to accumulate a high odd size that will give a satisfying potential win. The rich has the money to risk huge amount to a single game for instance 2 odds staked with $1 million to win $2 millions, but the poor staking with $100 to win $2 million has to pick multiple legs to accumulate odds to get such potential win. It hence decreases the gambling winning chance whilst the rich gambler chance remains increased.
Well, something like this have been discussed here on this forum and on this board before, and indeed, majority who participated in the discussion concluded that gambling does favor the rich much more than it favors the poor, and the example you gave is a clear testament to that fact, though I would like to correct you a bit there,
The poor man will be staking $100 to win $100,100 and not $2million like it is for the rich man, but we discover that getting $100,100 from gambling with a stake of $100 is still not an achievement that is easy to accomplish, this will still require the poor gambler going for multiple legs betting with really high odd which greatly reduces the chances of winning, even in games like slot and casino games where there are no pre-determined odds to bet on, it is still pretty hard to win up to $1m with a $5 to $10 bet per spin, this is if the poor man can even afford to bet this much on each spin while playing slot game for example.
So, indeed, the rich are more favored when it comes to winning and making good money off gambling, but the also risk losing more money, far more than the poor man can afford.
Gambling really tilts in favor of the rich just because of the flexibility their bankroll gives them a rich person doesn’t need to chase crazy parlays or dream jackpots to see a big win since doubling a million with a simple 2 odds bet already makes life-changing numbers while the poor gambler with a hundred bucks has to stack risky legs and pray for luck just to reach something even remotely close. And that’s the key difference the odds of hitting a multi-leg parlay or slot jackpot are way slimmer than winning a single even-odds game so the poor person is mathematically forcing himself into lower probability bets while the rich can stay conservative and still come out with massive returns.
But at the same time the impact of losses is where things flip the rich can lose huge sums and shrug it off because their lifestyle isn’t destroyed but a poor man losing his $100 can mean rent or food money gone so even though the rich gamble with bigger amounts they don’t really feel the pain like the poor do. So in a sense the rich are favored not because gambling changes the rules for them but because their money gives them a safer path with higher rewards the poor are basically boxed into chasing long shots and that’s why most of the time gambling ends up hurting them way more than it ever hurts the rich.