In the long history of the world, people always enjoyed playing a game of chance. We even have some depictions of various people from history playing some kind of game of chance. The most notable one is a vase where Ajax and Achilles are playing a game, depicted on a vase that can be found in a museum in Athens. These games are really popular, now more than ever. It gives the player a feeling of excitement because the chances of risk and reward are mixed. If losing its looked at these games like some type of social activity. Everyone likes to play poker with their friends or betting on some kind of a sport like racing or soccer. So basically, there is no harm done. Only on the first sight, there is much more than that in gambling, believe us.
There are many experiences and substances that can improve our mood when it’s not pretty high, like alcohol, shopping, or eating. Naturally, as it is not good with anything in life, you should worry about not going overboard. Through time, the brain can be dependent on a certain activity and asks for more and more in order to trigger the reward system. As you can presume, this can get out of hand. After that, the person who fell into mental dependence is going to have weeks, months, even years of negative impact on everyday life. We feel like it’s not worthy that wallets are burning to the bottom for those who became addictive. Only recently, people have started to realize how gambling impacts the brain. In the next part of this article of ours, let’s talk about what exactly makes gambling addictive or how gambling gives us a natural high.
How Gambling Impacts our Brain?
If you ask some people about this, they could think that the answer is as simple as people love to make more money and that carries them to go overboard. If you think about a little bit further, you will see that there is much more to that than meets the eye. Gambling impacts the brain, on the whole, another, level. It can lead the brain to some really dramatic changes in the way the brain is sending chemical messages. Pretty often gamblers are prone to going overboard. These elements can make a person an addict in no time.
What Happens to the Brain?
In order to fully understand how gambling impacts a person, it is important to know how the brain works. The human brain has a series of circuits, and all of them combined are known as the reward system. All of them are connected to different regions in the brain. Most notably of those regions are motivation and pleasure centers. Experiences that are rewarding to a person like having sex, compliment, winning a game, or accomplishing a task will cause our brain sending the signals through his neurotransmitters. You see the connection, right? Those are chemical messengers that can either depress and stimulate the brain.
The primary neurotransmitter in the reward system is known as dopamine. When enough amount of dopamine because of pleasant experiences people have a feeling of euphoria, pleasure, motivation. The same effect is produced when people are using drugs. According to recently conducted studies, the same effect is produced when people are gambling. It doesn’t matter if that person is winning or losing. A high amount of dopamine is released. That’s the reason people are getting hooked up on gambling, this is one of the most rewarding experiences a person can feel.
However, the most important thing that you should be aware of is that some people can get up and walk freely after playing a few hands of poker or losing some money on a lost machine, having fun in the process. On the other hand, there are some people that can’t do that. Eventually, these people are going to become gambling addicts. You ask why? There are several reasons for this occurrence. This is where things get a little complicated, believe us.
Winning and Betting Gives People a Natural High
Gambling is a pretty contradictive activity, you will probably agree. You might ask yourself, why would anyone go to the casino or play a hand of poker if he knows that the house has 99% chances of winning. The reason is taking a risk is really exciting if there is some reward at the end of the game. Even better, how getting something for nothing sounds pretty good, right? According to many types of research that were conducted in the last ten years, it has been proven that gambling addiction has the same impact on the brain as drug addiction.
If you ask any gambler, he will tell you that winning a hand or a game will give him an instant natural high. However, the buildup is as strong as winning. There are several elements that are influencing the overall experience like seeing the final score of the game, the next card drawn and seeing the numbers on the lottery. All of these elements are responsible for the adrenalin rush, which is the main reason people like entertainment.
Aversion to Loss
Like you might presume, nobody starts playing a game with thoughts about losing. Studies have shown that people who are placing a bet immediately after losing are prone to be frustrated more than if they have won in a previous hand. This is simply how the human brain works.
Gambling’s Social Aspect
Many people are exposed to gambling from their young age, either at home, school, or friend’s place. Some witnessed their parents participating in poker or friends taking a turn at a roulette. The main thing that attracts people to gambling is socialization, but after, it turns to be much more than that. Also, the atmosphere that surrounds the gambling rooms or houses, called casinos, represents some kind of escapism from day-to-day life and provides excitement. At the end of this article of ours, if all of this gives you a craving for some playing, you can maybe check out a website like NetBet.
