Hardcore gamblers would know what I’m on about.
That go all-in mentality.
I can’t be a loser. No. I’m a hero. Smart, made for crushing everything I touch.
Losses are just temporary. I will win this. Just need to give it more time.
God doesn’t hate me. In fact, I’m his special little creature. We have an exceptional bond. He won’t let me down.
These are the typical subconscious thought processes running through the mind of a regular average-income earning gambler, until, a few minutes later, he’s down $5,000.
I have even witnessed people stealing from the floors. But, stealing from casinos is neither legal nor ethical.
You generally tend to demean your money’s worth
Chasing losses is not new. It’s primal human nature to fight back.
But, doing so also means a slow but sure death of your personal financial health.
Losses incurred on slots, regardless of the amount, mean little, compared to paying $200 dollars per month for home insurance, because, you know what; these companies rip people off to their bones. Casinos on the other hand are doing God’s work.
Ok, I’ll cut the sarcastic tone. But, you do get the point though. Right?
This thread on Reddit caught my attention the other day, where this guy says exactly what I’m trying to tell you.
You don’t look at gambling losses the same way you would say, if you had lost your savings in a crypto token scam.
Defending gambling losses is like a disease. And there isn’t any easy solution to this, other than for the infected person to fight it on his own.
He posted a screenshot:
The disastrous part here is that the credit of $14 bonus would mean more to him than that massive $3,089 loss, he made on slots. That too in a matter of minutes.
Other users had the same feelings:
At the casino with my gf and its getting late we’re gonna leave soon, i say I’m hungry “Let’s go order a pizza”
“What? No don’t spend $20 on a pizza, we have food at home”
-Proceeds to lose $100 on a slot machine in 5 minutes-
lol yup with me = $60 for that shirt, damn that’s pricey but walk past roulette table on the way out of the casino from a poker session $100 on red it hits black = eh no big deal – I could have 10 brand new wardrobes with all the times that’s happened lol – just saying I’ll be frugal outside of the casino, but that just completely leaves me once I’m inside the casino smh – GL to u
I have $700 worth of clothing sitting in my cart online, high quality items I’ll use daily for work and will last years. I hem and haw about the price. Meanwhile I’ve lost 3-4k gambling since January and don’t bat an eye at it.
There were a few other interesting confessions, that I didn’t mention. Particularly of a man, who regularly loses up to $1200 a hand on Baccarat, yet feels like saying No, to his young daughter when she wants a $20 makeup kit.
The priorities, or the way one looks at money goes down the drain for people, whenever they loosen their wallets on those slot machines.
The logic doesn’t work. It’s kicked out the door, until the damage is done.
For most; the realization doesn’t even arrive until after they’ve gone broke.
The feeling of getting close to a win is one of the primary reasons why people chase gambling losses
The belief that you can never lose long term. Because you’re a person of honor and that good things come to good people are one of many inside feelings gamblers go through. This fallacious rationale is why they keep spinning, keep adding more funds and keep losing.
Even the math makes no sense.
Dan Pozner, from Birches Health says:
Many bettors feel that they have “around a 50% chance” of winning (it’s always less than that in reality) in many games, so if they have lost many times in a row, they can rationalize continuing to bet by thinking things like, “I can’t possibly continue to lose again and again… I have to win eventually!”
From what I’ve gathered through my own experience, the losses are exacerbated for people who have impulse control problems as a personality trait, make fast senseless decisions in their daily work lives, or are addicted to substance and alcohol abuse.
All this does, for these people in particular, is that it pushes them to take bigger risks. They tend to unnecessarily put more money per bet, or increase the number of bets, in a bid to somehow win that one big jackpot of their life.
A few of these unknowingly unfortunate folks do end up winning, thanks to the law of probability. This then turns into a “I told ya so,” self-fulfilling prophecy, and the cycle keeps repeating; which is why so many lose their massive wins back the same casino.
Unfortunately, there isn’t any easy way to escape from this web of self-assuring delusion.
Therapy can help.
But, it can never truly end, until a gambler genuinely believes he’s got a problem, and that it’s ruining his life and the lives of people around him.
It’s only after this acceptance, the healing begins.