Gambling Series 1: How You Can Get Hooked

I didn't know anything about gambling when I first started. I hadn't watched any videos about gambling or gambling addiction. I have since done some research including watching interviews with people who have struggled with gambling.

Looking back, it's both easy and hard to understand why I did the things I did. You can get hooked on playing lottery tickets or slot machines without realizing it. And it might not even have anything to do with winning.

I hate to think how much I've lost, but it was many thousands of dollars. I went through my savings and started taking advances on upcoming paychecks. I had sworn never to go back into debt, but now I have a credit card and owe money on loans. Why did I do all those things?

I watched a series on Netflix called Money Explained and one of the episodes is about gambling. It has interviews with experts and with people who have struggled with gambling. It's a good episode to watch.

They talked about how it's the anticipation people can get hooked on, it's not even about winning. There's anticipation or excitement in the pause between placing a bet and the result of that bet. One of the people interviewed plays slot machines, and she talked about how she didn't care about winning, she got a high from the spin itself.

Whether it's slot machines, lottery tickets, table games at the casino, we can get hooked on the possibility of a win. So we want to keep going even if we're losing.

Online gambling can potentially be more dangerous, because it is much easier and faster to gamble.

It takes more time and effort to go to a casino to gamble, or to the store to buy lottery tickets. You have to get dressed, look somewhat presentable, pull on your shoes, leave the house, drive somewhere. It can be a long drive if you don't live close to a casino. All of that work can possibly save people from losing money. You don't want to gamble enough to go through all that.

On the other hand, now we have online gambling, and you only have to go to your computer, or you can pull out your phone and never leave your chair.

So if it's easier to gamble it's easier to get hooked on that moment when you're waiting to see if you won, and on a slot machine that moment may only be a few seconds.

I hate to think how much money I kept depositing once I got into one of the online social casinos. Now I understand that part of it was that I just wanted to keep playing, even though I was losing.

I also know that part of it was chasing losses. I kept wanting to win back the money I lost, but I kept losing more and more trying to do that, which is something I'll talk about more in a later video.

I'm no expert, but I do think that when some people gamble, we get this burst of excitement and anticipation in the pause between betting and the results. There's this moment when we think something amazing just might happen. That's what we can get hooked on, and it's part of the reason we keep going even though we're losing, even though we know we should stop.

In the next post, I'll talk about how gambling can narrow and shorten your thinking.

Thanks for reading.