I have always found very silly the view of a certain well-fed and well-to-do moralist, who to somebody's excuse that 'they were playing for small stakes', replied, 'So much the worse, because the greed is so petty.' As if petty greed and massive greed weren't the same thing. It's a matter of proportion. What is petty for a Rothschild is wealth for me, and as far as gains and winnings are concerned, people everywhere, and not only at roulette, are always doing somebody out of something or winning something. Whether gains or winning are vile is another question. - Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Gambler
We seem to have a mutual understanding amongst ourselves that gambling is a vice. But it is so because people tend to lose their lives to it? Or is it because gambling, among other things, is vile in itself?
If gambling is vile in itself, should the stake really matter at all? A person who gambles with a small amount of money is just as much a gambler as a person who gambles their life away.
If gambling is not vile in itself, we could say that gambling small sums of money is harmless and thus shouldn't be considered vile.
This raises the question should the scale of something be conducive to its morality? What are your thoughts?