The Making of a Compulsive Gambler

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Compulsive gamblers have one thing in common, the ability to keep coming back day in and day out trying to recover the losses from their past visits. It’s like an obsession for them to win it all back. As if one day the jackpot miracle will happen for them and they will become instant millionaires and live happily ever after. What a fairy tale that is.

Gambling should be a rare experience shared with friends on special occasions that are willing to lose a couple of hundred dollars. Instead a compulsive gambler will stake a couple of thousand dollars almost every day until ultimately the visits are reduced to a few hundred dollars until the harsh reality settles in when there’s no money left for them to gamble away. In fact most gamblers lose their families and there friends because they start borrowing and getting themselves in financial problems with credit card companies, lenders and banks. The worst type gamblers that start borrowing from high risk lenders eventually find themselves in an inescapable situation endangering not only themselves but also those of their close family members.

I’ve seen compulsive gamblers that can sustain tremendous losses day in and day out but this makes up only a very small percentage of players. They consist of very successful business people, wealthy professionals and underground black market money earners that use a casino to enjoy gambling their earnings for sheer pleasure or in some case launder their money. This convenient technique called laundering enables an individual to clean their dirty money by playing for a short period of time and receive a personalised check from the casino when they cash out their casino chips. This personalised check issued by the casino can then be deposited legally under the pretext that the money came through casino winnings. Casinos also comp their valued customers with gifts, food, travel and accommodations. If you’re not a millionaire the casino will make you feel like one. Just as long as you keep bringing your hard earned cash to them they’ll make your visit worthwhile.

Most gamblers consist of restaurant, bar and convenient store owners that entertain themselves in the late hours with their hard earned cash hoping to go home with more than they came with. In most cases they lose their money and come back the next day only to repeat their unhappy experience. What motivates these types of gamblers to come back every day really baffles me. Could it be a lack of leisure time in their lives or are they really hoping to make extra cash or just simply hoping to regain all their losses miraculously. I can’t figure it out. One thing we all know is the amount of money the casino makes. Maybe the only way to eradicate compulsive gambling is for our governments to eradicate gambling in our society all together instead of encouraging it.

  1. A healthy society encourages a healthy economy and strengthens honest business values in our society. There will always be the lure of gambling in far off areas but at least they won’t be in our own backyards. There’s nothing wrong with spending a weekend in Las Vegas or Atlantic City once in a while and trying your luck with a couple of hundred dollars.

About Louis Jones

Greg Jones: Greg's blog posts are known for their clear and concise coverage of economic and financial news. With a background as a financial journalist, he offers readers valuable insights into the complexities of the global economy.