全新版大学英语5(第二版)UNIT 7课文翻译

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 5

4 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 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. "There's a lot of Rexes around these card rooms," he says in a whisper of 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 $50.9 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%——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 4.4 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1200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 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