Amrish is 32 and unemployed. Yet the young man drives his own car, eats out regularly and often goes out clubbing. A few months ago, under pressure from his parents, Amrish went for a job interview at a call centre. He was offered a monthly salary of Rs 6,000. He declined because he thought the salary was ridiculously low.

?I work once a week,? he tells us laughingly. What he means is that, on Saturdays during the horseracing season, he goes to Champ de Mars, armed with ?reliable tips? from his contacts and gambles. On a good day, he comes out with average winnings of about Rs 30,000. On an average day, Amrish will be Rs 8,000 richer. On a bad day, which happens very rarely, he says, he would have lost a couple of thousands. ?Bad days are very rare, otherwise I wouldn?t play?, Amrish adds. Does he honestly think that ultimately people win at gambling? ?For sure, I am the prime example?, he smiles confidently.

Kevin is one of Amrish?s close friends. He was lured into gambling at horseracing when he met Amrish a few years back but he only rarely gambles. ?I cannot afford to lose what money I have?, he says almost shamefaced. He feels this way because Amrish is always urging him to play more because ?it?s easy money?. But he?s so scared of losing, he doesn?t like taking the risk?, Amrish says resentfully about his friend. Kevin recounts how, one Saturday afternoon, Amrish met him for a drink and ?he was crestfallen. He had lost Rs 2,000 and he kept saying those things don?t happen to him?. After a few beers, Amrish started feeling better; there was a football match the next day and he had bet on AC Milan. He started looking forward to winning on this one.

?Can?t afford bad luck?

The next day, Amrish was nearly suicidal. ?It wasn?t so much about the money. It was just the fact that you cannot afford bad luck when you are in the gambling business?, says Amrish with a big smile.

This is precisely the kind of ?negative social impact? of gambling that MPs decried in Parliament on Tuesday while debating the Gambling Regulatory Authority Bill. All agree that gambling is a necessary evil in the sense that it cannot be stopped and that the best way to deal with it is to regulate the industry so that, at the very least, some of the proceeds of gambling go into the state coffers.

MP Cuttaree argued that most gamblers are low-income earners. We met one of those. Clive is a gardener and has four part-time jobs. He earns about Rs 4,000 a month. His wife Mila is a housekeeper and earns about the same. They have three children. ?I must make ends meet at the end of the month. I know my wife worries every time I go to the races but it is the only way?, he tells us. Mila has a different story to tell. ?He gambles because he cannot help it. His gambling has never brought more money at home. Whatever he wins, he drinks?, she says resigned to her fate. Mila is especially worried because her brother-in-law ? Clive?s brother ? was such a hardcore gambler that he couldn?t pay his rent anymore and his marriage broke up because his wife was so fed up with not having enough money to feed her children. So they left him. And he is still gambling and drinking.

But gambling doesn?t just affect poor people. A very successful executive, A, earns enough to support ten people. He is still single, however, because he cannot be bothered to get married; when he is not working, he is gambling. You name it and A has bet money on it. Not surprisingly he loses more than he wins but he refuses to accept that this is the name of the game. He thinks he is just going through a bout of bad luck. Only last year, he called one of his contacts and asked to be lent? Rs 2 million. He got the money. He hasn?t paid it back yet but A is confident he will.

?I needed the money to pay back creditors. I owed them quite a bit and they started threatening me so I had to pay up.?

So to be able to sustain his addiction, A borrows money, which he has never managed to pay back. To pay the loan back, he gambles. When he loses, he borrows even more to settle a few accounts, making up more debt as he goes along. Meanwhile he is still losing at the casino, at the races, at football, at domino and at everything else. But ever so often as he starts losing hope, he wins a large sum and then his confidence level boosts up again. To forget his debts, A regularly drinks himself into oblivion as he engages in a game of poker.