怪天气：气候变化及其对赌博的影响

　　你知道他们说什么，你有没有人要怪，只怪天气。很多事情，特别是在过去十年中，气候一直备受指责。由于天气有关的自然灾害，经济形势在下降，成千上万人甚至失去了生命，最受影响的要数旅游业。这个周末，因为一个飓风警报我被困在英国的一个酒店房间里，我开始思考气候在过去几年是如何影响赌博行业的。

　　如果你到现场赌博去看看，就会知道，热闹的赌场也会因为糟糕的天气而变得冷清。我想，天气的确是一个影响赌博的重要因素。许多赌场的赌客数量下降，直接或间接的原因可能来自坏天气。世界各地的许多自然灾害，阻碍了游到达自己喜欢的赌博目的地，所以导致赌场的游客数量下降。如果你在一些洪水和风暴发生地，特别是在美国，你会看到许多赌场不得不关门歇业，有的甚至遇到洪水的袭击而遭遇重大损失。显然，损失了很多钱以后，需要几个月时间才能重新开张运营。如果造成的损害相当惨重的话，也有可能导致更大的问题——破产。

　　但在另一面，你可以很容易地看到，极端天气条件是如何以积极的方式影响网上赌博。 就以我为一个例子。不想冒着户外的狂风，我选择了留在我的酒店房间，登录到一个在线扑克网站，享受一些快节奏的扑克在线比赛，不管外面的天气如何糟糕。我甚至可以在凌晨与我的弟弟一起玩扑克，我的弟弟那个时候正坐在飞往洛杉矶的飞机上。

　　那么，当天气不好时，为什么不如何选择玩在线老虎机游戏或其他赌场游戏呢？你不再是被迫留在室内，网上赌博的想法更诱人。怪天气或许能影响你飞往赌博目的地，而在线赌博却让你丝毫不受怪天气的影响。

　　译文：

　　Blame it on the Weather: Climate and its Impact on Gambling

　　You know what they say – when you’ve got nobody to blame, blame it on the weather.  The climate has been blamed for many things, especially in the past decade.  Economies have crashed because of weather-related natural disasters, thousands of lives have been lost, tourism has risen and fallen and world travel has been effected.  This weekend, stuck in a hotel room in the UK on the back end of a hurricane warning, got me thinking how the climate has impacted gambling in the past few years.

　　If you look at live gambling, I suppose that the weather probably had a direct and indirect affect on the fact that numbers at many casinos dropped.  Many natural disasters around the world – more than usual in the grand scheme of things – meant that tourists may have not been able to arrive at their favorite gambling destinations, leading to a drop in the number of visitors.   If you look at some of the flooding and storms that took place around the world, especially the United States, you’ll see that many casinos had to close their doors, with some even experiencing flooding due to rising rivers.  Obviously, a lot of money was lost and it would take months to get a place up and running once more if damage was caused – leading to even bigger problems.

　　But on the flip side, you could easily see how extreme weather conditions would affect online gambling in a positive way.  Take lil’ old me as an example this weekend.  Not wanting to brave the howling winds outdoors, I opted to stay in my hotel room and kept myself entertained for hours by logging onto an online poker site and enjoying some fast-paced tournaments – snug and warm while the weather battled outside.  I even got a chance to play poker against my brother who was sitting up in the wee hours of the morning in LA!

　　So how many more people opt to play online slots or other casino games while the weather is bad?  The longer you are forced to stay indoors, the more tempting the idea of gambling online is – at least for me!  So, when push comes to shove, if you can’t find anything else to blame the growing popularity of online gambling on, blame it on the weather!