Cerebral Facts about Gambling

For some chronic gamblers, just the thought of gambling is enough to make them salivate. Fantasies of winning a mountain of chips or credits flowing into their online accounts shoots their adrenaline to the highest levels.

Where is all this coming from? What is the rationale behind the gambler and the game?

THE MENTAL NEED FOR GAMBLING

The gambling process could be sophisticated but the inner need to gamble is a primitive one. That's because everything we learned in life were taught through gambling.

When we were little children, we took the risk in touching a hot oven. Once you get burned, you learn not to touch it again. It's just like losing a gamble.

During our teen age years, we gamble on a lot of things like dating someone, taking the lead in a school play or trying out for the sports team.  If we suceed in any of these activities, we keep doing them over and over again.

MENTAL CONDITIONING

When a certain behavior is rewarded, this encourages the repeat of that behavior. This process is called conditioning and it is widely practiced even in animals.

You can recall Pavlov's experiment where he rang a bell and provided food for his dogs. The dogs were conditioned that everytime they hear a bell, they receive food until they continued to drool at the sound of the bell even if there was no food provided.

Learning how to gamble pretty much works in the same way.

When you get lucky during gambling, you get financially rewarded. So you continue to gamble, returning to the same tables until you are drained of your money.

THE INTELLECTUAL BEHAVIOR OF CHRONIC GAMBLERS

The logical explanation to chronic gambling, even after several failed attempts in winning, stems from intermittent conditioning. Normally, when a player is continuously rewarded then experiences a losing streak, the urge to gamble is extinguished because the person learns that the rewards are no longer given.

On the other hand, if rewards were given intermittently, like when the players receives it then he doesn't, the urge to gamble will be prolonged long after rewards are no longer given. The thought of the possibility that he  can get a reward at an undetermined time fuels his hopes and that makes him gamble more.

This explains why gamblers get hooked to the game. Whenever they play online casino games, they never know  when they will hit the jackpot so it becomes difficult for them to stop gambling.