The Genetics Of Gambling Addiction

Gambling is basically the wagering on something with the aim of winning something with an uncertain future with the intention of winning some other thing of equivalent value. Like in baseball, you can only be the winner of something if you win the game and lose nothing else. But you can lose money even in gambling because a losing streak is not really a losing streak if it is only in the short run. So like in baseball, you need to have a balance between risk and reward, but you should also have some idea of how to identify when enough is enough. This is where the grey area comes in, as everyone can clearly agree that it is wrong to spend all your time and fortune trying to determine which team will win the next game.

The problem lies in the fact that all forms of gambling are at least in part based on chance, which in turn means there is a certain amount of subjective imprecision involved when assessing the likelihood of any outcome. This means that people can gamble without having to face the potential of becoming addicted. However this same lack of awareness means that a higher risk of becoming addicted will always be involved, simply because the risks involved in gambling are inherently more significant than the rewards. Gambling therefore needs three components for it to potentially become addictive: consideration, opportunity, and a reward.

In a lotteries such as the European lottery, you would put a lot of your money at risk by taking a long term view and hoping for the best. In the same way that the lottery results vary hugely from one region to another, so do the chances of winning. This means that you are more likely to find a formula for lottery results that will give a reasonably good chance of hitting the jackpot but this is by no means guaranteed. Gambling is a psychological addiction just like drug or alcohol addiction as the addictive behaviors are based purely on pleasure.