• by Gord Hotchkiss , Featured Contributor, March 1, 2022

It may not seem like it if you’ve watched the news lately, but there are signs we’re balanced on the edge of a gigantic party. We’re all ready to treat ourselves with a little hedonistic indulging.

As I mentioned in a previous column (rerun last week), physician, epidemiologist and sociologist Nicholas Christakis predicted this behavior, but not for a few years yet. Christakis predicted a sort of global “letting loose” starting some time in 2024: "What typically happens is people get less religious. They will relentlessly seek out social interactions in nightclubs and restaurants and sporting events and political rallies. There'll be some sexual licentiousness. People will start spending their money after having saved it. They'll be joie de vivre and a kind of risk-taking, a kind of efflorescence of the arts, I think."

So, there is light at the end of the pandemic tunnel -- but, according to a report just out from the American Gaming Association, some of us can’t wait a couple of years. First out of the gate were gamblers. Well before we started emerging from the pandemic, they were already rolling the dice and starting the party.

According to the report from the AGA, U.S. commercial gaming revenue hit a record $53 billion in 2021. That was more than 21% higher than the previous record, set in 2019, and a huge rebound of 77% from 2020 numbers, when COVID forced casinos to shut down for months at a time.

You might think online gaming accounts for the jump, but you’d be wrong. In-casino gambling underpins this huge spike, accounting for $45.6 billion of the $53 billion total. People were saying to hell with health mandates and streaming into casinos across the country, with most of the top markets seeing significant gains from pre-COVID 2019.

While some of us might not be ready to ditch the masks and belly up to the bar, I suspect these gamblers are an early indicator of things to come. Call them a canary in a coal mine, if you will.

Because I can’t resist interesting historical tidbits, I thought I’d share the story behind this saying about how canaries ended up in coal mines in the first place. Early in the last century, canaries were used as an early warning system for poison gas in England. John Scott Haldane, who was researching the effects of carbon monoxide on humans, suggested using canaries as a “sentinel species,” an animal more sensitive to the impact of poisonous gases. They were kept in cages throughout the mines -- and if a canary died, the miners were warned to evacuate the mine.

But why canaries?

Canaries, like most birds, need tremendous amounts of oxygen to fly and to avoid altitude sickness. They actually take in oxygen twice on each breath, once while inhaling and again when exhaling. This, combined with their relatively small size, make them hyper-sensitive to the impact of a poisonous gas. Also, canaries were easy to come by in England and convenient to transport. So, they were recruited to help keep humans alive.

This makes them analogous to gamblers in the following way: Gamblers, by their nature, are built to be more willing to take some risk in search of a reward. You could say they are hyper-sensitive to the rush that comes from rewarding themselves. As such, they are the early adopters in the onrushing desire to put bad news behind them and let loose with a little hedonistic hell-raising. They are not atypical; they’re just ahead of the curve in this one respect.

Sooner or later, the rest of us will follow. Look for similar huge rebounds in the travel and hospitality sectors, entertainment, events and other industries focused on providing pleasure. The world will become one giant spring break party.

Which is perhaps only fitting, coming after a two-year-long winter of our discontent.