Who’s Responsible For Gambling Addiction?
In the last few years we’ve seen a sharp increase in gambling addiction rates across the globe. Pretty much everywhere online gambling is legal, we’re bound to see spikes in people who become medically diagnosed as addicted. That includes several states in the US, as well as various European countries, each of which has reported a dramatic spike in people with gambling addiction. Some countries, such as the UK, have even begun prescribing pills to gamblers in an attempt to curb their destructive habit. Addiction rates are getting out of control, and we have absolutely no idea how to stop them. Over the years, we’ve at least somewhat curbed cigarette and alcohol addictions (even if the rates still remain painfully high), but we have yet to come up with a plan to stop gamblers from ruining their lives. The question remains – who is responsible?
The obvious answer would, of course, be “the gamblers themselves”. After all, when someone gets addicted to cigarettes they have only themselves to blame, right? Stopping a cigarette addiction is about as easy as just not buying cigarettes anymore, right? Well, with gambling is a bit more complicated than that. Gambling, unlike most other addictions, runs on the Skinner Box principle. The Skinner Box was an experimental device created by B. F. Skinner, who aimed to study human behavior by using rats as test subjects. Imagine a rat being placed in a box with a light and a lever. Whenever the light came on, the rat would receive a painful electric shock. If the rat pushed the lever, though, the shock wouldn’t be administered, and instead they’d receive some food as reward. The rats soon managed to learn the relation between the lever and the light, and at first began pulling the lever only when the light came on. However, soon enough the desire to get the reward overwhelmed the desire for safety, and the rats began pulling the lever even when the light was not on.
The same principle applies to humans, especially in the context of gambling. We all have our reasons for starting to gamble, whether it’s because we need the money or just for fun. However, soon enough our desire to win overwhelms our initial reasoning, and we continue to “pull the lever” even if we no longer need to. The whole “Just one more spin” mentality when playing slots is directly connected to the Skinner Box model. Just like how the rats eventually got addicted to pulling the lever and receiving the food, even if there was no danger of an electric shock or even of starvation, it’s very easy for people to become addicted to gambling even when playing would inevitably hurt them. It’s in our very psychology to become addicted to things which reward us. And while sometimes this can be used for good (like using positive reinforcement in education to get children addicted to studying), it’s more often than not used as a gimmick to hook people. So don’t get hooked, stop when you can, and most importantly, don’t blame people who got addicted to gambling – they’re just following their brain’s programming.
