Tirukural

CHAPTER 94

Gambling

931

Do not take to gambling, even if you can win, for your wins will be like the baited hooks that fish swallow.§

932

To win once, a gambler loses a hundred times. What a way to procure happiness and prosperity!§

933

Incessantly calling bets on rolling dice causes a man’s rich reserves and potential revenues to run elsewhere.§

934

Gambling brings on many miseries and erodes one’s good name. Nothing else ends in such wretched poverty.§

935

Desiring to win everything, those who love the dice, the gambling hall and their lucky hand lose it all.§

936

Gambling is Misfortune’s other name. Fools ensnared by her will suffer an empty stomach and distressing sorrows.§

937

Spending time in the gambling hall squanders ancestral wealth and wastes personal worth.§

938

Gambling will consume a man’s wealth and corrupt his honesty. It will curtail his benevolence and increase his torment.§

939

Those who take to gambling’s fickle gain forfeit these five: raiments, riches, rations, renown and erudition.§

940

The gambler’s passion increases with the losses incurred. Even so does the soul’s craving for life grow with the griefs suffered.§