How Gambling Can Ruin Your Life
- Filed under: Betting
- Date: Mar 15,2010
Gambling is described as betting or wagering that must result either in a gain or a loss. Gambling is neither, risk taking in the sense of speculation nor investing. Gambling in certain parts of the world has grown at an unprecedented rate over the last decade and is an increasingly popular recreational activity. A person gambles whenever he or she takes the chance of losing money or belongings, and when winning or losing is decided mostly by chance.
While gambling was once illegal, or viewed as a disreputable activity, social norms have shifted. Gambling is now a multi-billion dollar industry in places like Canada, and its growth is likely to continue. Surveys indicate that the general population favors funding charities, health care and other important initiatives through the funds that are raised from gambling.
While some may consider gambling only to be associated with casinos and racetracks, there are countless activities that are considered gambling. There are different reasons why people choose to gamble. Individuals may be gambling to win money, to socialize, for excitement or to pass time. For some people, gambling may become a serious problem that affects all aspects of their lives. And as gambling becomes more accessible, the number of people affected by problem gambling also increases.
Of course, there is a likelihood that the individual chooses to be impulsive. When you go into a casino or sit in front of a slot machine and you get reinforced and re-energized, then you’re going to start anticipating money coming your way. Now, there are several types of learning.
One such type of this kind of learning is if you went into a casino and sat at a slot machine and you won every single time and then suddenly you stopped winning and you kept on losing, you could walk away from that slot machine because you would say to yourself “well I was winning then and I’m not winning now, there’s no reason to continue or to hope for a turn of events”.
Another sort of learning is where every time you went to the slot machines and you put your coins in and you never won, well chances are you won’t become addicted. This is just another form of learning where they purposely make the slot machines pay out a certain percentage of the time. What happens over time and the casinos are aware of, is called variable reinforcement. So you don’t know how often or even when that next pay off will happen.
The more they can teach you or you can learn that you cannot predict the pattern of when you’re going to when to win or know when to pull out and take your money the better for them. So you’re going to stay there and stay on until some point when you have to leave because you’ve been taught if you just hang in there that slot machine that card game will eventually pay off. This is the form of learning that converts normal people into gamblers. They become hooked by this variable reinforcement principle due to the fact that they are unsure of their next win. The anticipation is what drives them and keeps them going. They are salivating waiting for the reward.
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