Gambling - whether it's lotteries, scratch cards, casino games, bingo, slot machines, Internet poker, or sports betting-is more acceptable and accessible than ever. 카지노사이트위키 For most people, gambling is a leisure activity. But for a significant minority, this is progressing into a serious problem.
Gambling is about emotions. There’s the fun of winning, the fun of socializing or the familiar routine of some downtime with pokies. But there are also other emotions, such as stress, regret and a bit of guilt, that most people feel even sooner. It’s easy to forget this part of gambling but these feelings often form, even if you don’t gamble very much or very often.
Along with the release of dopamine in the brain, gambling includes other potential rewards, including money, social participation and pleasure. While most of us quit when we lose and practice safer gambling habits, others may continue to gamble to recoup the money they lost in a phenomenon known as chasing losses. These individuals may begin to have gambling problems.
Behavioral Addiction
Gambling disorder refers to the uncontrollable desire to gamble, despite serious personal consequences. Problem gambling can affect a person’s interpersonal relationships, financial situation, and physical and mental health. But it has only recently been identified as an addiction.
Most of the research supporting the classification of gambling disorder into other addictions comes from brain imaging studies and neurochemical tests. They revealed similarities in the way gambling and drug abuse work in the brain, and the way addicts ’brains respond to such cues. Evidence suggests that gambling activates the brain’s reward system in much the same way that a drug does.
When people with gambling problems watch gambling videos or participate in simulated gambling while their brains are scanned, scientists can see changes in blood flow to specific parts of the brain, which indicates which parts are more active. In one study, both problem gamblers and cocaine addicts watched videos related to their addictions while on a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. Both groups showed diminished activation in the ventral striatum compared with participants in healthy controls. Problem gamblers also showed less activity in the ventral striatum during simulated gambling games and during the expectation of monetary rewards than people without problem gambling.