Purpose Of Gambling

Posted on 4/7/2022 by admin

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Loitering For The Purpose Of Gambling
Purpose Of Gambling
Purpose Of Gaming Laptop

Intoxicants and gambling, dedication of stones, and divination by arrows, are an abomination of Satan's handwork. Eschew such abomination, that you may prosper” (Quran 5:90). “Satan's plan is to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer. The purpose of gambling in your life Hi,I'm new here and I want to know if you can live decently of gambling like how you see it on tv.I don't know a lot about the real world so that is why I.

Many people enjoy playing a game of chance every now and then. The risk versus reward element gives players a small rush of excitement, even if they don’t win, and more often than not it’s enjoyed as a social activity – whether it’s betting on a sport like racing or playing poker with a few friends.

But as is the case with many substances and experiences that make us feel good – like eating, shopping, or drinking alcohol – going overboard can transform what should be an occasional source of enjoyment into a mental dependence.

The brain becomes conditioned into wanting more and more to trigger its reward system, to the point where its mental wiring becomes significantly altered, and getting it back to normal requires undoing weeks, months, or potentially even years of negative impact.

When a person reaches this stage, gambling has become more than just a problem of burning through their wallet too quickly: it has become an addiction. And it’s only recently that we’ve begun to identify excessive gambling as such.

In 2013, the substance-related and addictive disorders section of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) was updated. Pathological gambling used to be regarded as a compulsion, motivated by the need to relieve anxiety.

But now it’s recognised as an addiction akin to substance addiction.

What Exactly Makes Gambling Addictive?

The answer to this isn’t as simple as ‘people love making money and love winning it even more, so they go overboard’.

Gambling excessively can lead to dramatic alterations in the way the brain sends chemical messages, and gamblers often have genetic or psychological dispositions that make them prone to gambling too much. These factors can initiate a person’s downward spiral into addiction.

What happens to the brain?

Understanding gambling addiction requires understanding a little bit about how the brain naturally works when we engage in enjoyable activities.

Our brain has a series of circuits known as the reward system. They are connected to various regions throughout the brain, notably the pleasure and motivation centres.

Rewarding experiences – such as receiving a compliment, having sex, accomplishing a task, or winning a game – cause our brain to send signals via neurotransmitters: chemical messengers that either stimulate or depress neurons in the brain.

The main neurotransmitter in the reward system is known as dopamine. When enough dopamine is released due to stimulating, enjoyable activities, we experience euphoria and pleasure, and feel motivated (particularly to do that same activity again).

When drugs are taken, they create a high by increasing the dopamine that’s released in the reward system up to 10 times more than the amount natural rewarding experiences would generate. This also happens when gambling.

Research and studies into gambling’s effect on the brain indicates that it activates the brain’s reward system similarly to how drugs do: by releasing a higher amount of dopamine.

This is why people are initially attracted to gambling: it’s a highly rewarding experience.

But the thing is: most people easily walk away after playing a few rounds of poker or putting a dozen or so coins in a slot machine, having enjoyed the fun while it lasted. Others can’t: namely, those who eventually become gambling addicts. Why? When an individual continues gambling, several other factors might be in play, and things get complicated. First of all:

Some people are more inherently prone.

Research shows that problem gamblers and drug addicts often have genetic predispositions for reward-seeking behaviours and impulsivity. The two main ones are:

An underactive brain reward system.
Less activation of the prefrontal cortex.

Having an underactive brain reward system means that the individual doesn’t experience the same level of euphoria and pleasure from naturally-rewarding experiences as the average person does. They are therefore drawn to activities that stimulate reward pathways more than usual; ones that are enough to make them feel a satisfactory amount of euphoria and pleasure – for example, the high that taking drugs or gambling creates.

The prefrontal cortex is an area of our brain involved in decision-making, controlling impulses, and cognitive control, and studies have revealed that problem gamblers and drug addicts had less activation of the prefrontal cortex than the average person.

Thus, controlling their impulse to throw the dice or pull the lever of a slot machine just one more time is significantly harder for them. Impulsivity is in their nature and they have difficulty making decisions that assess the long-term impact of their short-term actions.

These predispositions make it highly likely that the individual keeps gambling once they’ve started and experienced their first win or a series of wins. They’ve activated their reward system and got a kick of dopamine that they’re not used to getting, so they keep going on impulse to experience the euphoria again.

This is when the brain starts physically changing in terms of how its reward system responds to stimulation.

The individual builds up a tolerance.

Have you ever played a game on your phone that was really entertaining at first, but after several play sessions stopped being fun? Although this isn’t exactly the same as how a tolerance in gambling or drug addiction works, the principle is similar and gives you an idea of how the brain changes.

To put it simply: the brain ‘gets used’ to it and is not stimulated by the activity nearly as much as it was initially.

To put it scientifically: when the brain is being overstimulated by excessive drug use or gambling, the brain boosts its defensive reaction which makes the reward system less efficient. The number of dopamine receptors is reduced; less dopamine goes through the brain and therefore the level of pleasure the individual experiences is reduced.

After isolated instances, such as taking a drug once or twice, the brain eventually returns back to normal without difficulty. However, repeated, excessive stimulation leads to the brain developing a stronger, longer-lasting resistance to the stimulant.

When a person gambles excessively, they are often trying to get that same dopamine kick they got in the early days of gambling. But no matter how much they keep gambling, it won’t return, because they’ve built up a tolerance.

At this stage, the individual becomes addicted to gambling because of the way the brain’s function has been altered long-term.

Addiction occurs because gambling is the new norm.

Dopamine receptors continue to reduce and eventually the dopamine circuit becomes blunted. This dopamine deficit means that when the stimulant is absent, withdrawal and depression occurs: unpleasant side effects of the brain attempting to reconfigure itself and get back to normal.

Thus, the individual gets stuck in a limbo: they have to keep gambling to stay out of withdrawal and depression, but because of tolerance they don’t experience any dopamine-generated euphoria anymore. Excessive gambling is now necessary to stay in their ‘new normal’.

This is all assuming that the individual keeps gambling long enough for dopamine receptors to reach such a stage. Surely a person will recognise after a while that they aren’t going to win and it’s best to quit before they spend all their money, right? Well, people prone to gambling addiction don’t quite see this logic.

Firstly: as an addiction develops, the neural pathways to the prefrontal cortex weaken, which as we learned earlier controls decision-making, controlling impulses, and cognitive control. The weakened pathways make impulses and cravings even harder to fight, thus they get continuously pulled downward. Secondly:

Psychological factors compel them to keep playing.

There are five psychological factors that could affect an at-risk gambler and compel them to keep playing to the point where it becomes an addiction:

Partial reinforcement.
Availability heuristic.
Gambler’s fallacy.
Illusion of control.
Loss aversion.

Partial reinforcement

Partial reinforcement refers to when the actions a person takes aren’t rewarded 100% of the time, nor do they cause a negative outcome 100% of the time. This is why gambling makes people keep playing: the player realises they have a chance of anywhere between 0% and 100% to win. In their mind, a loss or a string of losses are just part of the process and they need to keep going to eventually win. They expect to be reinforced some of the time, and this expectation motivates them to keep playing.

Availability heuristic

This refers to when people overestimate the probability that something will happen because their mind can produce immediate examples of when it did happen. In the case of gambling, this might be when the individual saw stories on the news of people winning the lottery or when they saw people nearby in the casino win big. It might even be because they can recall a time when they had a lucky string of wins themselves. Thus, they think their chances of winning are larger than they actually are.

Gambler’s fallacy

Gamblers commonly think that the chances of winning increase with each loss, but this is completely untrue.

The chance of winning neither ‘increases’ nor ‘decreases’ when gambling. Chance does not work by shuffling through a pre-determined number of losses or wins. Each turn is a new, isolated event and has the exact same chance of winning or losing as the previous one.

Think of it like flipping a coin. If it comes up with tails 7 times in a row, that doesn’t suddenly make the chance of getting heads higher than 50%. Each new flip is always 50%. Our brains just try to rationalise the unlikeliness of getting 7 tails in a row by saying it’ll ‘balance’ out with a heads next.

Chance has no methodology, but gamblers often think it does. They believe that their next hand of cards is ‘due’ to be good because all their previous ones have been so lousy or that the machine they’re playing on is ‘due’ to pay out, and this flawed mentality urges them to keep playing.

Illusion of control

Many gamblers also falsely believe that they have some influence over chance. This might be reinforced depending on the type of game they’re playing – one where there is some level of control due to choices (such as what number/colour to bet on and what cards to discard/pick) but where chance is primarily the driving force in whether someone wins or loses.

Humans want to feel in control – it’s within our nature – so the frustration of how unpredictable gambling is can lead to a person convincing themselves that they can gain some control over it. For example: throwing dice in a particular way, sitting in a certain spot, or wearing a ‘lucky’ item of clothing.

Loss Aversion

People are more sensitive to losses than gains of equal value. For example, losing a £10 note generates a more prominent emotional reaction than finding £10. This is why many gamblers endlessly invest time and money to try ‘win’ back previous losses or alleviate the feeling of disappointment or frustration by gaining a win. At this point, winning becomes less about excitement and more about ‘making up’ for losses, so they get stuck in a vicious cycle.

These psychological factors, combined with genetic predispositions, mean a person can very easily fall down a slippery slope into addiction when gambling.

It also makes it incredibly difficult for a person to know when they have a problem. Having a gambling addiction is often accompanied with denial and an unrealistic views of things.

Fortunately, there’s tonnes of information online about identifying a problem gambler and there is help for them. Have a read of our author Louise Petty’s article on 10 ways to help someone with a gambling problem. If you ever suspect someone might have a gambling addiction, do seek advice and support. Any addiction can be overcome.

Further Resources:

The Earliest Evidence of Gambling

While it is almost certain that some forms of betting have been taking place since the dawn of human history, the earliest concrete evidence comes from Ancient China where tiles were unearthed which appeared to have been used for a rudimentary game of chance. The Chinese ‘Book of Songs’ makes reference to “the drawing of wood” which suggests that the tiles may have formed part of a lottery type game. We have evidence in the form of keno slips which were used in about 200bc as some sort of lottery to fund state works – possibly including construction of the Great Wall of China. Lotteries continued to be used for civic purposes throughout history – Harvard and Yale were both established using lottery funds – and continue to do so until the present day.

Dicing with the Law on the Streets of Ancient Rome

The Greek poet Sophocles claimed that dice were invented by a mythological hero during the siege of Troy, and while this may have somewhat dubious basis in fact, his writings around 500bc were the first mention of dice in Greek history. We know that dice existed far earlier than this, since a pair had been uncovered from an Egyptian tomb from 3000bc, but what is certain is that the Ancient Greeks and Romans loved to gamble on all manner of things, seemingly at any given opportunity. In fact all forms of gambling – including dice games – were forbidden within the ancient city of Rome and a penalty imposed on those caught which was worth four times the stake being bet. As a result of this, ingenious Roman citizens invented the first gambling chips, so if they were nabbed by the guards they could claim to be playing only for chips and not for real money. (Note that this ruse will not work if attempted at a Vegas casino).

Playing your Cards Right in China

Most scholars agree that the first playing cards appeared in China in the 9th century, although the exact rules of the games they were used for have been lost to history. Some suggest that the cards were both the game and the stake, like trading card games played by children today, while other sources believe the first packs of cards to have been paper forms of Chinese domino. Certainly the cards used at this time bore very little relation to the standard 52 card decks we know today.

Baccarat in Italy and France

The earliest game still played in casinos today is the two player card game of Baccarat, a version of which was first mentioned as long ago as the 1400s when it migrated from Italy to France. Despite its early genesis, it took hundreds of years and various evolutions to arrive at the game we know today. Although different incarnations of the game have come and gone, the standard version played in casinos all over the world came from Cuba via Britain to the US, with a few alterations to the rules along the way. Although baccarat is effectively more of a spectator sport than a game, it is a feature of just about every casino due to its popularity with high rolling gamblers.

Blackjack through the Ages

Some suggest that the earliest forms of blackjack came from a Spanish game called ventiuna (21) as this game appeared in a book written by the author of Don Quixote in 1601. Or was it the game of trente-un (31) from 1570? Or even quinze (15) from France decades earlier? As with all of these origin stories, the inventors of games of chance were rarely noted in the historical annals. The French game of vingt-et-un in the seventeenth century is certainly a direct forefather of the modern game, and this is the game that arrived in the US along with early settlers from France. The name ‘blackjack’ was an American innovation, and linked to special promotions in Nevada casinos in the 1930s. To attract extra customers, 10 to 1 odds were paid out if the player won with a black Jack of Clubs or Spades together with an Ace of Spades. The special odds didn’t last long, but the name is still with us today.

Loitering For The Purpose Of Gambling

First Casinos in Italy

The earliest gambling houses which could reasonably be compared to casinos started to appear in the early 17th century in Italy. For example, in 1638, the Ridotto was established in Venice to provide a controlled gambling environment amidst the chaos of the annual carnival season. Casinos started to spring up all over continental Europe during the 19th century, while at the same time in the US much more informal gambling houses were in vogue. In fact steam boats taking prosperous farmers and traders up and down the Mississippi provided the venue for a lot of informal gambling stateside. Now when we think of casinos we tend to picture the Las Vegas Strip, which grew out of the ashes of the Depression in America.

The Little Wheel in Paris

Roulette as we know it today originated in the gaming houses of Paris, where players would have been familiar with the wheel we now refer to (ironically enough) as the American Roulette wheel. It took another 50 years until the ‘European’ version came along with just one green zero, and generations of roulette players can be grateful for that. During the course of the 19th century roulette grew in popularity, and when the famous Monte Carlo casino adopted the single zero form of the game this spread throughout Europe and most of the world, although the Americans stuck to the original double zero wheels.

Poker: Bust to Boom

It’s hard to pin down the precise origin of poker – as with a lot of the games mentioned here, poker seems to have grown organically over decades and possibly centuries from various different card games. Some have poker’s antecedents coming from seventeenth century Persia, while others say that the game we know today was inspired by a French game called Poque. What we do know for sure is that an English actor by the name of Joseph Crowell reported that a recognizable form of the game was being played in New Orleans in 1829, so that is as good a date as any for the birth of poker. The growth of the game’s popularity was fairly sluggish up until world poker tournaments started being played in Vegas in the 1970s. However poker really exploded with the advent of online poker and televised events allowing spectators to see the players’ hands. When amateur player Chris Moneymaker qualified for and won the 2003 world poker championship after qualifying through online play, it allowed everyone to picture themselves as online poker millionaires.

One Armed Bandits Appear in New York

The first gambling machine which resembled the slots we know today was one developed by Messrs Sittman and Pitt in New York, which used the 52 cards on drum reels to make a sort of poker game. Around the same time the Liberty Bell machine was invented by a Charles Fey in San Francisco. This machine proved much more practical in the sense that winnings could be precisely regulated, and marked the beginning of the real slot game revolution. The fact that some new video slot games still feature bell symbols dates back to this early invention. While early machines spewed out cigars and gum instead of money, the money dispensing versions soon became a staple in bars and casinos around the globe, and when the first video slot was invented in 1976 this paved the way for the online video slots which were to follow.

Gambling in the US: Two Sides of the Same Coin

The United States has always had an up and down relationship with gambling, dating back to when the very first European settlers arrived. Whereas Puritan bands of settlers banned gambling outright in their new settlements, those emigrating from England had a more lenient view of gambling and were more than happy to tolerate it. This dichotomous relationship has continued until now, and in 1910 public pressure led to a nationwide prohibition on gambling. Just like the alcohol prohibition of the same era, this proved somewhat difficult to enforce and gambling continued on in an only slightly discreet manner. The Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression that this spawned in the early 1930s led to gambling being legalized again, as for many this was the only prospect of alleviating the grinding poverty which they suffered through. Although gambling is legal in a number of States today –most famously in Las Vegas, Nevada - online gambling is still something of a grey area in the United States. Right now, many international internet casinos are unable to accept American clients, although the signs are that this will change in the near future.

The New Frontier for Gambling

Microgaming is one of the largest casino and slot game developers in the world today, and they are also considered to be pioneers of online gambling. The leap into the world of virtual casinos was taken all the way back in 1994, which in internet terms is kind of like 2300bc! Online gaming was worth over a billion dollars within 5 years, and today is a multibillion dollar industry with over a thousand online casinos and growing. The first live dealer casinos appeared in 2003 courtesy of Playtech, bringing us closer to a hybrid between brick and mortar casinos and the virtual world.

Gambling Has Gone Mobile

Since New Jersey legalized online gambling in 2011, there has been a boom in the interest people have in it. America has seen a move towards legalizing it state by state, as well as experiencing the rapid rise in mobile gambling. Across the globe, internet users are gradually veering away from their desktops and towards their handheld devices. This is true of online gamblers too, wanting to be able to enjoy their favorite games whilst on the go. The top gambling sites out there have recognized a market and have stepped up to deliver. With a wave of impressive mobile focused online gambling destinations taking the world by storm, it's safe to say that desktops are being left far behind in favour of more mobile alternatives.

…The Future

What Comes Next?

It is just about as difficult to predict the future for gambling as it is to uncover some of the origins of the gambling games we know so well today. Much of the focus at the moment is on the mobile gaming market, with online casinos scrambling to make more content compatible with the latest hand held devices. Virtual reality technology is just taking its first steps as a commercial proposition, and you can be sure that there will be gambling applications down the road. How would you like to sit around a virtual poker table with a bunch of your friends from all over the world, share a few laughs, try to tell if you can spot a tell-tale facial tick; and all this from the comfort of your home? VR Headsets can make it happen – maybe not today, but certainly just a few years down the track if technology continues to advance in bounds and leaps.

And after that? Well who knows, but when it comes to gambling all things are possible.