Some teach us how to be learned, others how to be rich, and others, again, how to be lucky. Gamblers have their doctrine of chances and runs of luck. Thus, if a particular number or card wins twice or thrice in succession, the chances are in favor of its winning once or twice more.
Chance is a superstition; there is no such thing as accident, no deviation from the inexorable laws of nature, any more than there is a veritable war-god, weather-god, or Great Cloud Manipulator.
The laws of fortune are not unjust nor partial because they tend to unequal favors. We may not blaspheme fortune for sending the ball into the wrong pocket, when with our own hand we forced it there ; or for giving us inferior cards, when with our own fingers we shuffled and dealt them. Like all the laws of nature and of man, the laws which govern chance are reasonable and just. There is no guardian angel or spiteful demon lurking near the cards or dice to turn them in our favor. We turn them with our fingers. The operation is purely a mechanical one. Put the dice into the cup always exactly in the same manner, and shake them always the same, and the same side is always sure to be uppermost. It is not true that the dice of the gods are always loaded. Men may load their dice to suit themselves, and blind chance be frustrated if they have the ability. That is to say, dice will fall as they are thrown and there is no chance about it.
Gambling is reprobate not chiefly because it tends to the ruin of him who indulges in it, his family and friends; not chiefly because of its evil associations and alienation from healthy pursuits, but because it produces profit and pleasure to one at the cost of loss and pain to another. It must be admitted that while many came to California to seek their fortunes, some came to seek for other people's fortunes.
We are apt to regard gambling, drunkenness, licentiousness, indulgence in the use of tobacco and the
