A lot of people may draw the conclusion that gambling addicts
are greedy, weak-minded or lack discipline. The key to understanding how
gambling addiction occurs is through understanding how our own instinctive inner-workings
operate, which the gambling industry knows all too well.
This page will explain how anybody can become a gambling addict
through the manipulation of a brain chemical called dopamine, and how this can
and often does lead to devastating effects on a human being.
It will also explain why extending the stake limits on fixed
odds betting terminals is very dangerous. (Some MP’s are in support of this, some
are against)
For this example, let’s say we took ten people that had
never really gambled heavily before, and placed them on fixed odds betting
terminals to play roulette. Each one of
the ten people starts with the same small stake amount of £10 and they all
spend twenty minutes playing. They are all told the odds are against them but
it is possible to win something.
From the ten people playing, five people lose, two break
even, two win £10 each, and one wins £200 surprisingly.
As expected the five people that had lost most probably wouldn’t
return to the machine voluntarily afterwards, and the chances are that the two
people that had broken even wouldn’t have a strong urge either.
The two that won £10 each are likely to play again as they
know they can win, but not as much as the person winning the unexpected £200.
For this example we will call the lucky £200 winner Mr. X.
For Mr. X, his brain will never be the same again, because of
new neurological pathways that are installed into his brain circuitry since
having the unexpected win. This is done by a method called “variable learning
re-enforcement”, which is adopted by the gambling industry.
During his win or wins, Mr. X has a massive surge of
dopamine occurring in his brain. This specific surge of dopamine will affect
how his brain makes vital decisions in his life from this point on.
The reason for this is because the release of dopamine is an
important part of our learning systems.
We get releases of
dopamine when we eat, exercise and make love to our partners, amongst many other
things in everyday living.
This is to tell your brain how to remember to survive. It is
what drives us go to work, and to cook our meals because the very first time we
received our first pay-packet or cooked our first meal, we got some sort of rewarding
pleasurable feeling. This is dopamine doing its natural work in the brain and
from those points on it will play its part “driving” you to your destination so
to speak.
The dopamine neurons are titillated because it now knows the pattern
and knows it’s on its way to a reward. There are often small peaks of dopamine
levels in everyday life, and with natural learning based systems it is
perfectly healthy.
So what happens to dopamine levels in our brains when
playing on fixed odds betting terminals?
When something as unexpected as a big win during gambling
happens, dopamine levels go through the roof.
This is because since we were young our brain has learnt the
desire for money. It has been engrained
into our brain and because of the culture and system we live in; it often comes
top of the list before food, sex and other actions of progression.
The problem with gambling (fruit machines and fixed odds
betting terminals in particular) is that they disturb the cognitive functions
of our brains, pretty much like a virus that infects a computers operating
system.
Since Mr. X has had his big win, he probably hasn’t yet
noticed that his brain has kept a track of his dopamine releases and has
updated its records in order to have a better chance of survival.
Because a reward has been achieved and has been stamp-marked
by the large surge of dopamine, his brain now registers gambling as a
progressive action that is essential to his survival.
Usually in everyday life, actions that require the production
of dopamine usually have predictable
outcomes. Mr. X’s brain knows the
pattern and releases small amounts of dopamine because it knows it’s on its way
to a reward.
But often the reward doesn’t come for Mr. X so his brain is
constantly producing excessive amounts of dopamine searching for the particular
reward.
This is what causes people to become glued to fixed odds
betting terminals for hours on end in betting shops. It isn’t merely just
because their conscious brain wants to win money, but more the fact that their subconscious
is following an engrained pattern and will keep a person doing the required
task until it achieves the reward that the pattern is linked with.
Because gamblers on fixed odds betting terminals can find
themselves playing these machines for long periods of time without the brain
getting its desired reward, these
machines are very likely to cause extremely excessive use of dopamine in the
brain.
Typical effects of a person with an addiction to fixed odds betting
terminals may include: loss of self-esteem, lack of motivation (mainly due to
gambling taking over the mind), anxiety, negative thinking (due to constant
negative cycles of losing bets), stress, family breakdown, job loss or continuous unemployment, learning difficulties and cognitive
impairments, including many with symptoms similar to ADHD and bi-polar
disorder.
Schizophrenia and many other mental health disorders are
also linked with the excessive use of dopamine flooding the brain with symptoms, including hallucinations, delusion, disorganized speech, loss of pleasure, lack of humour, inattention, and self-care
deficits.
MP John Whittingdale
is currently trying to help promote the gambling industry by making press
releases to the media stating that gambling is a “leisurely entertaining” thing
to do. He currently seems to be in support of the gambling industry pushing to
be able to have twelve of these machines in a betting shop rather than the
current limit allowed by law which is four.
