Exploratory Essay Gambling

The Exploratory Essay

Gambling has become an important part of several people’s daily lives, so much so that some people are willing to put their lives savings at risk just for the win. Gambling is something that can start out as something very small, with trips to the casino here and there, or maybe just buying a couple lottery tickets. These small things can start slowly and sooner or later, sometimes even many years later, they can add up and become necessary in life. Then without even noticing it, these issues slowly turn in to a habit and begin to take over the individuals entire life despite it being so innocent and carefree in the beginning. While the numbers of people addicted to gambling is rising, many people in the United States

The topic for this essay was inspired by the book X: a novel. In an article by Ferris Jabr from The Scientific American, he discusses how gambling is truly an addiction. “A new understanding of compulsive gambling has also helped scientists redefine addiction itself. Whereas experts used to think of addiction as dependency on a chemical, they now define it as pursuing a rewarding experience despite serious repercussions” (Jabr, 2013). One of the first points mentioned in this article is how not very many years ago, gambling was not generally regarded as an addiction but rather a compulsion or an impulse-control-disorder. This controversy between people went on for a long period of time because people were not thoroughly sure what was causing the brain to become so attached to gambling. The way this attachment works involves the

These days the casinos have their own internal methods for determining who their most attractive customers are, casinos are using various methods such as loyalty cards, cameras watching players faces, or even ATM withdrawals to track how much someone is playing and if they will be profitable to the business. All this information allows the casino to specifically target their most reliable spenders and then lure them back with perks. This continues to build the players addiction and fakes them into believing that their gambling is paying off. (Rosengren, 2016) This really works in the casinos benefit because it all looks so good that people are repeatedly drawn in, and then eventually cannot stop. Acording to Rosengren (2016), another method is:

Casinos have developed formulas to calculate the “predicted lifetime value” of any individual gambler. Gamblers are assigned value rankings based on this amount; the biggest losers are referred to as “whales.” These gamblers become the casinos’ most sought-after repeat customers, the ones to whom they market most aggressively with customized perks and VIP treatment. (Rosengren,