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Going for Broke
Matea
Gold
and
David
Ferrell
1
Rex Coile's life is a narrow box, so
dark and confining he wonders how he got
trapped inside, whether he'll ever get
out.
孤注一掷
马泰娅·戈尔德
戴维·费雷尔
雷克斯·科勒好像生活在一个狭窄的箱子里，伸手不见五指，空间又狭小，他不知道自
< br>己是怎么陷进去的，也不知道自己还能不能走出来。
2
He never goes to the movies, never sees concerts,
never lies on a sunny beach,
never
travels on vacation, never spends Christmas with
his family. Instead, Rex
shares floor
space in cheap motels with other compulsive
gamblers, comforting
himself with
delusional dreams of jackpots that will magically
wipe away three
decades
of
wreckage.
He
has
lost
his
marriage,
his
home,
his
Cadillac,
his
clothes,
his diamond ring.
Not least of all, in the card clubs of Southern
California, he
has lost his
pride.
他从不看电影，从不听音乐会，从不躺在沙滩上
晒太阳，从不在假日去旅游，从不和家
人一起过圣诞节。
相反，
雷克斯在廉价汽车旅馆和别的嗜赌成癖的赌徒一起住，
幻想着赢
大
钱，好魔术般地把
30
年的晦气厄运
一扫而光。他失去了婚姻，失去了家，失去了卡迪拉克
牌轿车，失去了衣物和钻戒。尤其
是，在南加州的纸牌俱乐部，他还失去了自尊心。
3
Rex
no
longer
feels
sorry
for
himself,
not
after
a
29-year
losing
streak
that
has
left him
scrounging for table scraps to feed his habit.
Still, he agonizes over
what
he has become at 54 and what he might have
been.
雷克斯不再为自己哀叹，
他都输了
29
年了，
输到了在赌桌上偷
零钱以满足自己嗜好的地步。
尽管如此，他还是对自己
54
岁时的境况深感痛苦，对自己未能成就可能会成就的事业而深
感痛苦
。
4 Articulate,
intellectual, he talks about existential
philosophy, the writings
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of
Camus
and
Sartre.
He
was
once
aneditor
at
Random
House.
His
mind
is
so
jam
packed
with
tidbits
about
movies,
television,
baseball
and
history
that
card
room
regulars
call
him
Rex
Trivia,
a
name
he
cherishes
for
the
remnant
of
self-respect
it
gives
him.
resignation and sadness.
他能说会道，善于思考，
喜谈存在主义哲学，
谈加缪和萨特的作品。他曾是兰登出版社的编
辑。他脑子里装满有关电影、电视、棒球和
历史的趣闻，因此那些纸牌室的常客都叫他“趣
闻大王雷克斯”
，他珍惜这个带给自己些许自尊的名字。
“这些纸牌室里有不少雷克斯，
”他
无奈而又悲伤地低声说道。
5 And their numbers are soaring as
gambling explodes across America, from the
mega-resorts of Las Vegas to the gaming
parlors of Indian reservations, from the
riverboats
along
the
Mississippi
to
the
corner
mini-marts
selling
lottery
tickets.
With
nearly
every
state
in
the
union
now
sanctioning
some
form
of
legalized
gambling
to raise revenues,
evidence is mounting that society is paying a
steep price, one
that some researchers
say must be confronted, if not
reversed.
美国各地赌
博盛行，
从拉斯维加斯的特大型度假胜地，
到印第安人居留地的
小赌场，
从密
西西比河上的内河船，
到
街角处出售彩票的便利店，
赌博随处可见，
因此赌徒人数正在剧
增。
由于全国几乎每个州都批准某种合法化的赌博形式以增加税收，
越来越多的事实表明，
整个
社会正在付出巨大的代价，
不少研究者指出，
对此现象如果不能彻底改变，
那就必须严肃面
对。
6
Never before have bettors blown so much money
—
a whopping $$ billion last
year
—
five
times
the
amount
lost
in
1980.
That's
more
than
the
public
spent
on
movies,
theme
parks, recorded music and sporting events
combined.
A substantial share of
those
gambling
losses
—
an
estimated
30%
to
40%
—
pours
from
the
pockets
and
purses
of
chronic
losers
hooked
on
the
adrenaline
rush
of
risking
their
money, intoxicated
by the
fast action of gambling's incandescent
world.
赌徒以前从来不曾花费如此多的赌金——
去年的赌输金额高达
509
亿美元，是
1980
年
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赌输金额的
5
倍，高出公众在电影、主题公园、唱片音乐以及运动项目等方面的消费总
额。
输掉的赌金中有相当一部分——
约占
30%
－
40%
< br>——
是从那些常输的赌徒的钱包里掏出来
的，赌博带来的兴奋令他们入迷，瞬息万变的赌博世界令他们如痴如醉。
7 Studies place the total number of
compulsive gamblers at about million, about
equal to the nation's ranks of hard-
core drug addicts.
Another 11 million,
known
as problem gamblers, teeter on
the verge.
Since 1990, the number of
Gamblers
Anonymous groups nationwide
has doubled from about 600 to more than
1,200.
据研究，嗜赌成
瘾者的总数约有
440
万，与美国毒瘾大的瘾君子的人数大致相
同。另有
1100
万所谓有问题的赌徒，已濒临深渊摇摇欲坠。
自
1990
年以来，全国戒赌组织的总数翻
了一番，从
600
个上升到
120
0
多个。
8
Compulsive
gambling
has
been
linked
to
child
abuse,
domestic
violence,
embezzlement, bogus insurance claims,
bankruptcies, welfare fraud and a host of
other social and criminal ills. The
advent of Internet gambling could lure new
legions into wagering beyond their
means.
嗜赌成瘾总是与
虐待儿童、家庭暴力、盗用钱款、伪造保险索赔、破产、福利救济欺骗，
以及其他许多社
会问题与犯罪行为联系在一起。
网上赌博的出现会诱使更多的人无节制地狂
赌。
9 Every once in a
while, a case is so egregious it makes headlines:
A 10-day-old
baby girl in South
Carolina dies after being left for nearly seven
hours in a hot
car while her mother
plays video poker. A suburban Chicago woman is so
desperate
for a bankroll to gamble that
she allegedly suffocates her 7-week-old daughter
11
days after obtaining a $$200,000
life-insurance policy on the baby.
每过一段时间，总有一则令人震惊的案子成为头条社会
新闻：南卡罗来纳州一名出生
10
天的女婴被放在闷热的汽车里
几乎达
7
个小时后死去，
其间女婴的母
亲在电脑上打扑克。
芝加哥郊区一名妇女急于觅得赌资，据说，她在为她出生仅
7
周的女婴购买了
20
万美元的
人寿保险后
11
天将其窒息致
死。
10
Science
has
begun
to
uncover
clues
to
compulsive
gambling
—
genetic
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predispositions that involve chemical
receptors in the brain, the same pleasure
pathways implicated in drug and alcohol
addiction.
But no amount of knowledge,
no
amount
of
enlightenment,
makes
the
illness
any
less
confounding,
any
less
destructive. What the gamblers cannot
understand about themselves is also well
beyond the comprehension of family
members, who struggle for normality in a world
of deceit and madness.
科学研究开始揭示形成嗜赌成癖恶习的线索——
与大脑中的化学感受器有关的，即与
嗜毒、
嗜酒同一
个快感途径有关的遗传特性。
但无论对这一顽症有多少了解有多少认识，
人
们对它的困惑一点也没有减少，
它的破坏性也一点也
没有减少。
赌徒不明白自己的地方也正
是家人所难以理解的地方
，他们在一个充满欺骗与疯狂的世界中苦苦追求正常生活。
11 Money starts vanishing: $$500 here, $$200 there,
$$800 a couple of weeks later.
Where is
it The answers come back vague, nonsensical. It's
in the desk at work. A
friend
borrowed
it. It got spent on
family dinners, car
repairs,
loans to in-laws.
Exasperated spouses play the sleuth,
combing through pockets, wallets, purses,
searching
the
car.
Sometimes
the
incriminating
evidence
turns
up
—
a
racing
form,
lottery
scratchers,
a
map
to
an
Indian
casino.
Once
the
secret
is
uncovered,
spouses
usually fight the
problem alone, bleeding inside, because the
stories are too
humiliating to
share.
钱突然就不
知去向：这里用了
500
美元，那儿花了
200
美元，两三个星期之后又少了
800
< br>美元。钱哪去了回答很含糊，不知所云。在单位的办公桌抽屉里。朋友借去了。家人聚
餐花了，修车用了，借给姻亲了。怒不可遏的配偶充当起侦探，把衣袋、皮夹子、钱包翻了
< br>个遍，还搜了汽车。有时犯罪证据会暴露——
赛马小报
、刮刮乐、去一家印第安赌场的地
图。秘密一旦被揭穿，配偶通常都单独面对问题，独自
承受心头巨痛，因为这种事太丢人，
没法跟别人说。
12
Tom Tucker, president of
the California Council on Problem Gambling.
steeped
in
anger,
resentment,
depression,
confusion.
None
of
their
personal
efforts
4