Bad Bettors or Poor Losers?

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A common misconception is that Disordered Gamblers are simply people who make bad bets and are unwilling to accept loss as being an inevitable consequence of their poor choices. This is simply lack of understanding on the part of those making such statements. It is somewhat akin to failing to differentiate between an occasional drinker who overdoes it one night and ends up with a bad hangover, and someone who has an active alcohol dependency. The first of these people has indeed make a poor choice in failing to moderate their alcohol intake on that particular occasion, it is a mistake that they will, in all probability, not repeat in a hurry. The second individual however has lost the ability to make such choices and finds it almost impossible to moderate their alcohol intake on each and every occasion. This is also the situation with those suffering from serious Disordered Gambling - they simply cannot gamble in a self-moderated and rational manner due to impaired impulse control responses. 

Not necessarily, and especially when it comes to "live event" betting where outcomes are not determined by pre-designed "randomising algorithms" (online casino and slot games, etc) but are subject to non-controlled random factors (such as are found in sports betting). 

Many people who develop Gambling Disorders can actually be good quite at recognising value when it comes to placing bets. Partly because they simply devote more time than most to looking to see what betting events are available, partly also because they are more aware of previous results and current form and through this immersive experience have come to understand what odds ought to be being offered under normal circumstances to any particular event. In their attempts to "dig themselves out of an ever increasing hole" they also can have spells of undertaking diligent and extensive research when formulating complex bets. Their issue is not with their ability to formulate bets, but rather with their abilities to control their gambling urges. 

Often Disordered Gamblers will spend several hours at a time studying form then place a carefully crafted bet which can often be successful. The issue then becomes that as soon as the winnings from this well-thought out wager are credited to their accounts they will look for immediate re-engagement of the gambling 'rush' and in all likelihood will spend a fair portion, if not all, of their winning credit on the next totally random event that is in play - with no prior research or understanding of the event itself. So, in effect, the rewards from hours of thoughtful study are lost in mere seconds of thoughtless gambling.

It should also be pointed out that this intense planning process can itself be a symptom of an already developed or developing gambling disorder. When gambling manifests as a source of addictive engagement any processes which act to focus the individual on the activity which brings them that engagement will often be actively encouraged by the part of their brain which craves the chemical rewards associated with addiction. Perhaps the most revealing way to look at a behavioural addiction such as Gambling Disorder is that the brain itself is locked in an internal war to control the behaviours and responses of the individual. It is in effect split into two sides, both wanting diametrically opposite outcomes. One wanting to activate the reward system hardwired into addictive engagement, and the other trying to deny it to prevent suffering the harm which it then causes.

Quite the opposite. Disordered Gamblers are very good at losing. If they weren't then they wouldn't keep doing it. This may sound overly flippant but it is a perfectly serious point. Most people's brains are programmed to recognise and weigh up the risk and reward balance of any given action or scenario. We are usually quite good at forming quick viewpoints on whether a particular activity is returning sufficient reward for taking part in it. If you eat a new foodstuff - broccoli for example - and don't like the taste, then you probably will decline to try it in future. If you visit a holiday resort and find the noisy nightlife keeps you from getting a good night's sleep then you will likely book elsewhere next time. But for Disordered Gamblers consistently losing is not sufficient a deterrent to dissuade them from continuing to gamble. The reason for this is that the risk/reward mechanism has stopped being about staking money in order to win more money back and has transformed instead into staking money in order to risk losing it. The reward engagement process becomes skewed more towards seeking jeopardy rather than gain.

Severe Disordered Gamblers have subconsciously stopped trying to win money. Winning money will still give them a brief endorphin high but the truth is that their main reward is coming from knowing that they are risking losing more than they can afford. As such, the winning of money is briefly welcomed because it allows and enables them to risk it all over again, and also because it allows the addicted part of their brain to use such 'winning' examples as justification for continuing gambling, even though their betting activities show overwhelming net losses. In a similar manner, the losing of individual bets becomes less significant to them except where it interferes with their ability to have another gamble and thus expose themselves to the cycle of risking losing even more. 

Stakes become effective admission fees for engaging in continued risk taking and most Disordered Gamblers find themselves craving greater and greater levels of risk to provide the same engagement levels. This can often be misrepresented as a need to gamble with ever higher stakes when in truth it is not the size of the stakes which really matters but the significance of potentially losing them. It could be looked upon like affordability in reverse, betting affordably may bring excitement over the possibility of winning but it does not bring the same intensity of engagement as when there is real jeopardy over the potential of losing. The more unaffordable the stakes being gambled the greater the level of engagement. 

Gambling in a disordered manner truly is an "extreme sport", and a particularly extreme analogy would be playing Russian Roulette with a six barrelled revolver. Initially the odds of one bullet to five empty chambers would prove sufficient risk. But over time the 'gambler' (if not yet dead) would find themselves wanting to try it with two bullets, then three... and so on until they had reached the ultimate extreme, and thus ultimate risk reward, of five bullets to one empty chamber. Yet, paradoxically, they would never consider simply filling all six chambers with bullets because that would stop representing any sort of risk and would merely present a certainty of result, which is not what their risk addicted mind craves.

If most Disordered Gamblers fail to recognise the ultimate futility of their destructive gambling then the Operators taking advantage of their bet-till-extinction behavioural patterns realise this perfectly well. It does not take the latest Artificial Intelligence backed software to analyse and identify 'risk addicted patterns' in their customers. The sheer volume of bets, and apparent indifference exhibited by repeatedly engaging in lengthy sessions of prolonged serial gambling which continue until all available credit (and in-play winnings) are exhausted, are only too plain to see. While any Operator claiming to be following an ethos of 'Responsible Gambling' would take swift action to intervene and stop such destructive patterns of behaviour from causing harm to their customers most feel limited obligation to do so. For most operators the "acceptable risk threshold" they are willing to build into their detection and prevention algorithms has less to do with the best interests of the customer and everything to do with the guidance offered by the regulator as to the point at which they would contemplate taking punitive regulatory action against them.

A Disordered Gambler is effectively a blank cheque to far too many operators.