
What goes wrong in the brain chemistry of a gambling addict? - pmcpinto
http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/addicted-to-anticipation
======
ajankovic
I hate gambling but observing some recent changes in my behaviour this
sentence strike a chord:

> The high is in expecting an outcome, desiring it, imagining it, not in its
> fulfillment.

I am staring at unfinished side projects of mine and they are staring back at
me.

~~~
MichaelApproved
Jared Tendler[1] is a poker coach and has a great line that stuck with me,
beyond my poker playing. It goes something like this

Visualizing your win is important to help you stay focused on a goal but
equality important is not to get carried away with the visualization. If you
imagine yourself winning too often, you'll feel like you _already achieved_
that goal and won't be as motivated to follow through. After-all, what's the
point in doing the extra work, if you already think you've won?

He's got a lot of other really good insights. If you're a poker player, I
highly recommend his audio books which are available on audible.

[1]
[http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/tmgp1and2/](http://jaredtendlerpoker.com/tmgp1and2/)

~~~
kaffeemitsahne
Reminds me of that bit about people being less likely to actually follow
through with their plans if they've already told people about what they're
going to do, versus keeping it silent.

~~~
nzjrs
Wait what?! I've heard literally the opposite advice - the idea being people
don't like to be made a liar of, so publicly promising you will do something
makes you more inclined to do it

~~~
throwanem
There's a difference between making someone a promise, and just talking about
something you intend to do.

------
js8
"But since addiction is defined as compulsive behavior that continues in the
face of punishment, punishment is clearly not the best way to deal with it.
Dozens of studies show that shame, confrontation, and humiliation are
ineffective and can backfire when used in addiction treatment."

I suspect this is case with many things, that punishment is ineffective.
Punishment ultimately assumes people are acting rationally, and they often do
not.

~~~
M_Grey
Whenever I talk to people about the death penalty and harsh punishments such
as torture, I like to point out just how irrational criminals often are.
People do not commit a crime (most times) expecting to be caught, and so the
penalty phase isn't a factor. There are many reasons why people act that way,
but the bottom line is that they do.

The result is that the only way to impress upon people that crime "doesn't
pay", is to make the rate of solving crimes in general much higher. That's...
REALLY hard, expensive, it's nuanced and it takes time. Making punishments
more draconian is easy, stroke of the pen easy, and it makes angry people feel
good. They can't imagine that harsh punishments don't send some kind of
message, because to them it does.

Sadly...

~~~
corin_
> _The result is that the only way to impress upon people that crime "doesn't
> pay", is to make the rate of solving crimes in general much higher._

There's actually two sides to it: you can lower the upside to crime, or raise
the upside to non-crime. Things like better education, job creation, better
social security benefits, etc. all contribute to lowering people's need/desire
to commit crimes.

~~~
taneq
Exactly. The criminal justice system is designed to control people _who have
something to lose_. The penalties they can apply have far less impact on
people with very little to lose. For some reason, not much airtime is devoted
to discussing how we could motivate people to obey the law by _giving them_
something to lose.

~~~
M_Grey
That's not hard to understand for a few reasons. First, it's not a simple 10
second sound bite, it doesn't get ratings. Second, a _lot_ of people don't
want to hear it, they're still into the fantasy of "bootstraps" for everyone.
Finally, the vast majority of media is owned by large companies who want no
part in spreading such a message even if it did get ratings and appealed to
their audience.

Which it doesn't.

------
bwanab
I heard a lecture from a guy who'd made a fortune on a trading desk then got a
Ph.D in psychology. Many of the same characteristics are going on with
traders. But there's a twist. Since there's an arguable logic to trading, once
a trader makes a good trade and experiences that high, in order to achieve a
similar high the next time, the trade has to be more extreme. Each time he/she
is convinced in their own intelligence. This pattern continues unabated (in
the absence of meaningful oversight which is rarely given when someone's on a
roll) until the trader blows up completely.

His further commentary was that while the trader is going strong, huge rewards
accrue to the trader and management. When it blows up, often, instead of
instituting any meaningful oversight, the trader and management are fired, new
people hired who have no institutional memory of the previous problem.

~~~
appleiigs
Yeah, the incentives on wall street hugely promote risks. You'll get paid a
huge bonus if your bet pays off. And then downsides are limited to just losing
your job, in which case you just go get a new one.

------
frankosaurus
Walking past senior citizens whiling away hours at Vegas slot machines, I've
often wondered how things would be different if they'd grown up in a time of
ubiquitous video games.

Will today's generation, who spends time playing free mobile games, been as
keen to spend money for slots when they get older?

~~~
chadgeidel
I'm not quite a senior citizen so this is purely anecdotal. (I also have no
desire to gamble whatsoever, so this probably makes it even more anecdotal) I
grew up with video games - modern slots and "video poker" hold absolutely zero
appeal to me. They are worse than the most horrible 2600 games from my youth.
They simply aren't "fun" and a casino owner would get way more money from me
with a Galaga or Pac-man arcade machine (not my favorite games by far) than
any fancy "video slot machine".

~~~
cloudjacker
I was inclined to agree, until I found the gloriously cheesy Centerfold slot
arcade and a few others that are pretty fun rides when they choose to take you
on one.

My first time trying out the actual "pull down the slot handle" machine was
mindnumbingly boring.

------
appleiigs
I've gambled a lot with poker and sports betting (where you're against other
people), but always felt like a dumb ass when I played those casino games
(blackjack, craps). Such a strong negative feedback loop to me. I never
understood how people could get addicted to gambling.

I can imagine drug addiction, you get that high right away - positive feedback
loop.

Interesting that just expecting the outcome in gambling can cause addiction.
For the serious poker players, they train themselves to ignore the results.
Being results-oriented is a bad thing. Making the correct decision before the
result is the focus. Educational article for me.

~~~
r00fus
Dunno, for me, blackjack was great for meeting others - I was always having
interesting side discussions with people I was with, or I wanted to get with.
The gambling and drinks were just social lubricants.

Of course, I always limit myself with a set amount of cash, and leave the
cards in the room... if I win, great. If I don't that's my price for the time
spent (at the lowest buy-in tables).

------
M_Grey
This was an entertaining read, but it seems like fairly old information in
regards the role of the dopamine reward system in addiction in general. We
already know with a pretty high degree of confidence, that chemicals and
behaviors which act to "hijack" that system are almost inevitably addictive.

What isn't so well understood is why some people are so much more vulnerable
to that process, and others so resistant, not to mention the continuum between
them. Unfortunately as far as I can read, this article doesn't offer any new
information on that critical issue.

~~~
restalis
As far as I could observe, on myself and others alike, it's about wether the
transition happens under the radar or not. Being warned at the right time,
forced to look at one's own condition and admit the degree of danger it
carries if left as is, is usually enough to save the victim. There is more
than that, of course. It all boils down to the amount of available willpower,
which can be affected by a lot of factors. That willpower is also what
prevents one's relapse, which an obvious fact for everyone, I suppose. What
I'm not sure everyone is aware of is that willpower can be trained, the best
starting from an early age. (Also, the willpower is not the same as
discipline. Discipline is taken care of in schools, willpower training not so
much.)

~~~
projektir
On the other hand, this doesn't align with my experiences or what I read at
all. Alcohol seems to be extremely dangerous for certain groups of people,
which is why they often choose not to drink at all, ever. While many other
people can have the occasional drink and it doesn't go beyond that.

In fact, that's a pattern I've noticed: there are people who will often not
touch certain substances, activities, etc., for fear that they will get
addicted to it. It seems to take less willpower to just not do it compared to
doing a moderate amount of it.

Meanwhile, I don't seem to get addicted to anything whatsoever and I don't
think awareness or willpower has anything to do with it. The key thing is just
that I don't develop much of reaction and I can easily forget about the
substance/activity. It just doesn't stick. It's not that I'm actively
resisting a desire, /I just don't have one/. Another thing that doesn't stick
for me? Habits. I wonder if these two are related. Most people seem to develop
habits much faster and better than I do.

> What I'm not sure everyone is aware of is that willpower can be trained, the
> best starting from an early age.

I'm very curious what you're basing this on. I would say that is quite a claim
to make. And how far? For whom? Is there a cap? Does it depends? Last time I
tried to look up willpower trainability, hoping for some solid resources, I
came up short.

I haven't observed that my willpower ever increased. If anything, it decreases
over time if I try to apply it to the same thing. If I went to do something
for a month, it's harder to do it next month. I can make a given activity take
less willpower. I can become more efficient at it. I can apply motivational
tricks. But the amount of actual willpower seems to stay roughly the same and
relying on it is a recipe for disaster in my case.

Willpower trainability is in the same bucket as things like ego depletion and
stereotype threat and smiling causes happiness and all those other things that
I would take with a pound of salt due to the complexities of studying such
things.

~~~
restalis
_" The key thing is just that I don't develop much of reaction and I can
easily forget about the substance/activity. It just doesn't stick. It's not
that I'm actively resisting a desire, /I just don't have one/."_

That's exactly the end result of the actively trained willpower for me.

 _" I'm very curious what you're basing this on. I would say that is quite a
claim to make. And how far? For whom? Is there a cap? Does it depends?"_

All I can give you for sure are my own experiences and the methods my parents
used in this regard. However, these are close to what I've seen in martial
arts training and other domains. Since my childhood years my parents were very
watchful for my instincts and urges and intervened most of the time. They made
me aware of my impulses and what triggers them and when I failed to control
myself they actively pushed me to slip into a harsh or painful lesson. I
remember one of them when I had a definite plan for my hard raised money and
they exposed me to a good salesman. I knew what salesmen do and they warned me
that that one was better than the others and I had to resist or risk my money
on some overpriced unimportant thing for me. I lost, but the lesson stood and
now I'd say it worth both the money and the bad feeling that came after. I had
many lessons, starting from addressing the appetites for sweets (like any kid)
to resisting the provocations for violence (where I had to consciously know
when it is or isn't necessary), but usually it didn't come to the hard part.

I think the most important bit was that I developed a sense of my own
willpower resistance and its limits. Of course there is a cap, but I kind of
sense when I'm about to slip, and I routinely test those limits in a
controlled environment. The willpower is not there to be abused, it's there to
buy you some time to change course when you realize you're going to be
trapped. And yeah, it depends on a lot of things.

 _" I haven't observed that my willpower ever increased. If anything, it
decreases over time if I try to apply it to the same thing. If I went to do
something for a month, it's harder to do it next month. I can make a given
activity take less willpower. I can become more efficient at it. I can apply
motivational tricks."_

I think here you confuse willpower with motivation. Willpower is the ability
to exert self control regarding your urges, when you have them. What you
describe here is a case where you don't have any urges at all. It may involve
willpower if you abstain from something when you push yourself to do something
else, but it's not used directly. Motivation is another thing that it's
addressed enough in our society.

------
jomamaxx
I wonder what evolutionary pressures caused humans to have these qualities?
Surely the dopamine response in a crude way - but can we link the actual
'gambling-like' elements to human behaviours that might have been beneficial?

'Fear' keeps us away from Bears and cliffs ... but risk and gambling? Tricky
one.

~~~
toasterlovin
In most forms of organized gambling, the odds are against you, so the behavior
only has negative outcomes. In real life, this is not always the case. Lots of
the most successful people you're aware of (CEOs, VCs, actors, musicians,
politicians, etc) probably took a series of pretty insane risks at some point
in their life. If they had not, they would just be normal people. But they
did, and they got a huge payoff. That's why risk taking is wired into many of
us.

~~~
ssharp
> In most forms of organized gambling, the odds are against you, so the
> behavior only has negative outcomes.

I think lottery jackpot winners would disagree with that. You're only
guaranteed a negative outcome in these types of games when you've iterated
enough times to reach a statistical conclusion. In the meantime, short-term
luck in the game's variance could earn you a lot of money or lose you far more
than you'd expect. If the expected value of $1 bet in blackjack is $0.99, the
return of a single hand will never be that; it would be -$1, $0, $1, $1.50,
etc.

------
lintiness
not sure why, but the use of the word "wrong" just bothers me. why can't a
gambling addict be an experimental variation that MAY result in something
game-changing (i'd bet a lot of the greatest entrepreneurs are basically risk
addicted gamblers).

~~~
phillc73
Maybe, with relation to entrepeneurs, but I think there are fundamental
differences between business (and sports betting or poker) compared to casino
games like slots and roulette.

Regarding the former, hard work and study can affect the outcome. The latter
are machine programmed and can't be beaten.

I don't know, but wouldn't be surprised if these two types of gambling
attracted different types of people.

~~~
Relys
Math is the difference. Casino games are a tax on people who can't do math.

~~~
phillc73
Perhaps that is true for poker and sports betting (although I don't believe
tertiary level mathematics is a pre-requisite), but you don't necessarily need
to be good at maths to be successful in business.

Dedication, vision, relationships and a whole host of other factors combine in
successful business management, which can go a long way towards mitigating
risk.

------
Lio
For those in the UK or with access to BBC iPlayer, Panorama just broadcast
this reportage programme on fixed odds betting terminals which briefly
mentions how they exploit brain chemistry in gambling addicts.

[http://bbc.in/2cRJ9j0](http://bbc.in/2cRJ9j0)

It also speculates why there are suddenly so many betting shops clustering in
UK high streets.

Spoiler: it's because the number of terminals per shop is legally limited and
the bookies want to get a large number in a small area.

------
randomgyatwork
When I didn't have much else going on with my life, the excitement of getting
a high score on a video game made me feel better and gave a sense of
accomplishment.

------
shadowfax80
How about the brain chemistry of asian compulsive gamblers? You can be in the
middle of Ohio where it's 99% white people, step into a casino and it's
chinatown.

~~~
Kadin
That probably has to do with cultural preferences for the type of gambling
that's happening in the casino. I'd suspect pretty strongly that if you looked
at other forms of gambling (lottery tickets, scratchers, bingo halls, etc.)
you'd see a more representative cross-section of the population.

