Imagine losing $76 million U.S. at a casino!

When modern Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew set his ambitions to move Singapore from third world to first, in the mid 1960s, there were certain things he mandated.

One of them was to make gambling illegal—not to mention urinating in elevators, spitting on streets and parading around your home naked.

As nutty as the rules might sound, they actually made sense.

 Drunken people in China are known to urinate in elevators from time to time, which doesn’t do wonders for tourism.

Spitting became such a habitual Singapore habit, and in China, it still is. Even in high class places, it’s recommended that you never put your bag on a restaurant floor in China—for fear of it landing in something from a murky orifice.

Then there’s the nudity. With close proximity to neighbours, one person’s condominium free zone is an impediment to young boys’ upcoming exam scores. And don’t be mistaken. Exams are important over here.

This brings us to gambling—the intoxicating activity that has a firmer grip on people of Chinese heritage than anyone else on the planet. Lee Kuan Yew made it illegal.

Yet modern Singapore shattered the earlier precedent this year by building a casino—one of the world’s biggest. They sure don’t mess around over here. …read more

But with massive casinos come some staggering individual losses, especially for Singaporeans who have always wanted to piss away millions, but never got the chance.

How about you? Do you gamble at casinos? And what do you think of people losing staggering amounts? I wonder what Mr. Lee Kuan Yew is thinking.