Mark Topen's blog : Chasing the Thrill: Our Innate Gamble with Risk
Gambling: Why We're Hooked
""Picture this - it's 11 at night, and the only folks left in the casino are the true addicts - the ones for whom life's just a constant roulette spin. These die-hards don't really care about the glitz and glam; they're not there to soak up the fancy atmosphere. They're glued to the tables from sunrise to sunset, and heck, if you let 'em, they'd probably keep on betting 'til morning's first light.""
You can find these scenes in casinos all around the world, not just in Dostoyevsky's pages. And yeah, it's not just roulette they're addicted to anymore. The guy knew what he was writing about – he penned ""The Gambler"" in a rush to clear his own debts from betting. What I wonder is, what makes some folks keep throwing money down the drain until they're stripped down to their last dime the advantage, while others can just walk away unfazed?
Back in the day, this dude W.I. Thomas, a sociologist, believed that loving the risk was part of our growth. He was convinced that everyone's got a bit of gambler in them, a primal urge that's been around since our animal ancestors roamed the earth. And Clemens France, a psychologist from his time, thought that betting and believing in higher powers scratched the same itch – a longing for certainty bbc, a bit of hope, a touch of salvation.
These thinkers saw gambling as just a hobby, but for some, it's way more intense. By the '60s and '70s, folks started recognizing that you could get hooked on gambling just like booze or drugs. Robert Custer, a psychiatrist, noticed that a lot of addicts also had a thing for gambling. Turns out, about three-quarters of these problem betters have a case of the blues, and a scary number even think about checking out early. Custer discovered these gambling addicts were often the life of the party, smart and big-hearted, but they were also acting on impulse, living on edge, chasing the next high.
Psychology's come a long way since then, turning its focus from the mind to the brain. Alec Roy, another shrink cnn, found out that hardcore gamblers have low levels of this stress juice called norepinephrine. This suggested that they're in it for the buzz, the adrenaline rush. And there's this newer research by Henry Chase and Luke Clark that shows how the brain gets all mixed up between almost winning and actually winning.
Russell Poldrack, a brain scientist in Texas, figured out that how you feel about losing has a lot to do with this one area in your brain. And Paul Glimcher, who's into neuroeconomics in NYU, worked out that two parts of the brain light up showing how much we value a win.
Let's face it, gambling, like other bad habits, is a tangled web of brain chemicals, where you grew up, and how society's shaped you. Howard Shaffer from Harvard reckons that despite more chances to bet than ever before, gambling addiction's been pretty stable in the States for the past 35 years. There was a scary surge in the '90s, but it's chilled out since. Shaffer compares it to how a virus spreads – it goes wild at first, hitting the easy targets cbc, but then it cools off as people get wise to it.
This piece first showed up in print under ""The risk instinct"" in the Special report section. Just goes to show, some things never change, huh?
