Why People Gamble,
and Gambling Addiction

Last update: June 2024

The casino's psychological tricks

Casinos don't simply provide the games and hope you’ll play. They do everything in their power to get you to play, and to play more. Even if they know you have a gambling addiction. (See The Atlantic's "How Casinos Enable Gambling Addicts".)

One way they do this is by employing psychology. Researcher Natasha Dow Schüll charges that game makers intentionally try to make their games addictive, making her case in her book Addiction by Design. Kevin Harrigan at the University of Waterloo has done considerable research into the addictive properties of gambling games, especially slot machines. Even when game features don't result in full-blown addiction, they do get us to play longer than we would have otherwise.

Scientists discovered long ago we're more interested in something when the rewards are inconsistent. Psychologist B.F. Skinner conducted a famous experiment in the 1960s in which test pigeons always got a food pellet if they pressed a lever. When Skinner modified the lever so that it only sometimes awarded a pellet, the pigeons pressed the lever more. (The Verge) A more recent study found that "[w]hen given a choice between steady rewards and the chance for more, monkeys will gamble....And they'll keep taking risks as the stakes rise and dry spells get longer." (Live Science 2005) Casino games, especially slot machines, have tapped into that concept perfectly: They give inconsistent rewards, and keep us chasing the next win.

Some games, like electromechanical slots, are designed with a "near-miss" feature that frequently shows the jackpot symbol just above or below the payline, leading the player to (wrongly) think that she almost landed it. In reality, though the symbol was physically close, it wasn't mathematically close. (more on why this happens) And as you might suspect, research shows that the near-miss effect keeps people playing longer. (Psychology of Addictive Behaviors) Further, the part of the brain responsible for emotional regulation in problem gamblers has elevated activity in response to near misses, while casual gamblers don't show that effect. (source)

Video slots also have a feature that researchers call "losses disguised as wins" (LDW). That's when you win something on your spin, but it's less than it cost you to spin. For example, you bet $1.50, and won 80¢. These "wins" are accompanied by positive graphics and sounds reinforcing that you've "won". And this kind of misdirection works. As one researcher noted, "The visual and auditory stimuli were also found to contribute to elevated arousal, as indexed by skin conductance level. Problem gamblers were found to prefer games offering LDWs more than non-problem gamblers." (source)

I advocate specific reforms to prevent casinos from preying on players, especially addicted players.

Other motivations

Studies show that men gamble more for the adrenaline rush, or to bolster their masculinity, while women gamble more to be part of an escapist fantasy, or to be sociable. (Problem Gambling Institute of Ontario, Electronic Journal of Gambling Issues)

Inexplicably, often when someone wins a huge jackpot, say $1 million or more, they immediately go right back to playing slots! I don't mean the next day or the next week, but just minutes later, like the person who won $2.9 million on the Wizard of Oz slot in December 2010. (LV Review-Journal) The question becomes, why were they gambling in the first place? It can't be that they were chasing a big win, because once they got the big win, they didn't act like they'd achieved their goal.

Something else I've witnessed: people playing slots without any hint of emotion, just spin spin spin. Even when they hit a nice payout, they don't get happy or excited, they just wait for it to tally up and then they immediately continue to spin spin spin. That's not entertainment, that's compulsion.

Here's my rule of thumb: If you're smiling when you're playing, then it's entertainment. If you're not smiling, then you're not really having fun, and ought to consider quitting, or at least taking a break.

Gambling addiction

For years it's been fashionable to blame addicts for their addiction. "I can control myself," the thinking goes, "so why can't they?" Well, the difference is that the way some people's brains are wired makes them extremely susceptible to addiction. The reason you're not an addict isn't because you're the paragon of self-control; you're not an addict because you got lucky biologically. Other people haven't been so lucky.

For years the research focused exclusively on what prompts people to gamble too much. More recent research has focused on why people can't control their behavior. It turns out that in people with addictive behaviors, the part of the brain responsible for limiting reckless or impulsive actions is underdeveloped or not working properly. This discovery could mean we're one step closer to offering better treatments to people who suffer from all kinds of addiction, not just gambling addiction.

Related to this, certain prescription drugs encourage gambling behavior, especially those used to treat Parkinson's Disease. A friend of mine with not much gambling history suddenly became a compulsive gambler after he started taking medicine for Parkinson's. It sent his life into a downward spiral, which tragically resulted in his engagement to the woman he loved being called off. (Fortunately, once he realized the connection to the meds, he switched to different medication and now has been completely gambling-free, but sadly it was too late for his relationship.)

Even if you're inclined to blame a gambling addict for his or her situation, how do you blame the innocents affected by the addiction? It's not just the problem gamblers' lives which get ruined, it's their families' lives as well. College funds drained, retirement money vanishing, divorce, suicide, you name it. These are devastating results to the spouses and children of the problem gambler. Sometimes a gambler's employer is negatively affected: More than one small business has folded because of an employee embezzling money to feed a gambling habit.

The good news is that it's definitely possible for individuals who gamble compulsively to stop. (American Journal of Psychiatry, Natl. Center for Responsible Gaming) Here's some online help for gambling addiction.

Short list of innocents hurt by someone's gambling addiction

2022. A beloved daughter took her life because she couldn't control her gambling. (Daily Mail)

2021

A nun embezzled nearly a million dollars from the school where she worked, partly to fund her gambling habit. (NPR)
A woman stole nearly a million dollars from her employer, Tasmanian Veterinary Hospital, in order to gamble with it. (The ABC)

2020. Investors lost $6M when Gino Accetola, instead of putting the money into building projects as was planned, instead pissed it away at the blackjack tables. (Casino.org)