Understanding your own mind and what drives you to gamble will help protect you from yourself.
Pathological Gambling is characterised by the following 5 factors:
- Preoccupation with gambling
- Difficulty controlling gambling and unsuccessful attempts to stop
- Negative consequences in life, such as family, job disruption and lying about the extent of your gambling
- Financial problems due to gambling
- Chasing your losses
Pathological gamblers often distort the truth in their own minds to further support their problem. Gambling addicts can suffer from some, if not all of the following:
- Attribution- believing your winnings occur as a result of your efforts and not randomly
- Magical Thinking- believing that thinking or hoping in a certain way will bring about a win or that random outcomes can be predicted. Also believing that because of previous results you are due a win from the gambling gods.
- Superstitions- lucky charms, articles of clothing, ways of throwing the dice or cutting the cards may cause a win.
- Systems- believing that you have worked out a betting system that will overcome the house edge.
- Selective Memory- remembering your wins, but failing to remember your losses or altering the truth of the result.
- Personification of gambling- attaching human characteristics to a machine or deck of cards etc. Thinking that the deck is punishing or rewarding you.
- Near miss beliefs- reducing the number of losing experiences in your mind by thinking you almost won.
- Chasing losses- believing the money isn't lost, it can be won back by gambling further to win it back.
Always keep your gambling controlled and keep a sound mathematical mind. Always use logic and keep emotions at the door when you enter the casino. Don't be a robot, but stay in control.
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