The Case Against Ludo Bagman/blackmail and gambling

[cynthiaanncoe at home.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 25616

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Susan Hall" <shall at s...> wrote:
> Cindy said
> 
> >What
> information could F&G have that would make for an effective
> >blackmail?  It must be the bet on Harry.  It can't be just that
> Bagman didn't honor his bet with F&G.  That hardly seems substantial
> >enough to support a blackmail threat.
> 
> Then Susan said

I don't agree.  A senior civil servant makes a bet in serious money (a
> galleon is worth £5 according to JKR) with the minor children of a 
junior
> civil servant and then welshes on it?  Pretty serious - until 
comparatively
> recently in the British civil service it was a formal disciplinary 
matter
> for a senior to *borrow* from a junior civil servant.  

This blackmail/gambling plotline is difficult.  Initially, I said 
Fred and George must have known about Bagman's bet on Harry, and that 
is what they are discussing when they speak of blackmail.  The text 
is: "we've tried being polite; it's time to play dirty, like him.  He 
wouldn't like the Ministry of Magic knowing what he did --".  But 
that can't be right.  If Fred and George knew Bagman had a bet on 
Harry, isn't that the sort of thing they'd tell Harry straight away?  
Well, they knew this well before the third task, and they didn't 
mention it to Harry until the end of the book.  So Susan has 
convinced me the thing F&G are using for blackmail must be Bagman's 
failure to honor their bet.  (But then again, it is pretty hard to 
predict what the twins will do with any information they have.  
They're pretty hard to read).

I'm not completely on board that the "blackmail" risk is just the 
gambling debt, though, because gambling appears to be perfectly 
acceptable in the wizarding world, even for minors and even among 
junior vs senior members of MoM.  When Bagman first mentions 
gambling, Arthur immediately wagers a small amount.  When the twins 
wish to join in, he frowns on this, but only because their mom 
wouldn't like it and they shouldn't spend their money that way.  No 
one seems alarmed that underage wizards are gambling. The only 
disapproval of underage gambling is when Bagman uses this as an 
excuse not to pay the debt, but he obviously says this just to brush 
them off.

Cindy
---------
"Look," he said flatly, "take it, or I'll hex you.  I know some good 
ones now.  Just do me one favor, Okay?  Buy Ron some different dress 
robes and say they're from you."  GoF