Daily Lessons from Life 15-16 March 2011 - PhD Corp Governance Researcher BROKEN by Gambling?

"The Business TImes March 16, 2011 - Paying the price for a 16-day casino binge

(SINGAPORE) A governance expert who went missing has had to pay a price for his own lack of self control.

South Korean national Lee Pan Seop was last seen at the casino in Marina Bay Sands (MBS) at 3am on Feb 22. He did not show up for work that morning and did not answer his mobile phone. His worried friends then lodged a missing person's report.

The New Paper reported yesterday that Dr Lee never left the premises of MBS during the 16 days that he was missing. The 35-year-old with a PhD in international business from Korea University - who worked for the Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organizations (CGIO) at the National University of Singapore - has finally learnt the cost of his gambling spree.

Dr Lee is 'no longer under the employ of the university', a spokesman said yesterday, declining to comment further on the situation.

According to CGIO's website, Dr Lee's PhD thesis was on business network resources and performance. His thesis showed that a company's knowledge base and capability could be upgraded as a result of network participation. His research interests include inter-company network and performance, entrepreneurship and strategy."

The irony could not be lost on readers of this piece of news. Corp governance and Personal governance has much in common. If you are indiscrete, if you lost control of yourself, there is consequence.

Lessons for me are:

1. gambling can be addictive. Regardless of your educational qualification, being educated does not prevent you from getting addicted!;

2. it will be interesting to find out if he has been given any credit by the casino to enable him to gamble for 16-day! Should there be a law to require the casino to STOP such person, whether he is winning or losing, and mandate him to leave for 24 hours before returning to the table for his health's sake? :-);

3. this make for sensational reading assuming this indeed was what he did during these 16 days. More importantly, the pulic, especially those good samaritans who worried that more and more retirees may squander their life saving at the casinos should be given the statistic on: how many retirees patronized the casinos on a monthly basis, how many got into credit issue with the casino, and how many seek help themselves or through their family and friends to 'black-list' themselves as they had lost control over their addiction to gambling?

May Dr Lee picked up his life again as he is still so young! Move on. Get help on getting rid of the addiction.