Hope of a gambler
Mr Chan Yiu Kee, Clinical Psychologist
Gamblers often say that as long as they can continue gambling, they will have
hope, a future, wealth, happiness and future prospects. They will have everything they
wanted and will never have to worry about providing for themselves or of
unemployment. I said to a gambler that that the path of a gambler is a dead end; the
gambler said that the road only ends when he can never gamble again. I told him that
gambling is his greatest psychological problem; he said gambling is his best way to
solve his problems, that it’s his final hope and everything to him.
The gambler had already battled with me many times in my office over gambling.
Although I am the psychologist in charge of his treatment, he inspired me on how a
person can become so utterly addicted to gambling. His wife forced him to come to
me because he had gambled and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and owed
several more hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card accounts and loan
syndicates. His family forced him to cut off a corner of his ID card in the hope that
this would stop him from crossing HK borders for more gambling. He was quite
reluctant to see me at first, and was only taking a gamble to see what I could do to
help him. Because of this, he came to see me for treatment again and again while he
continued to gamble behind my back and the back of his family.
This type of “gamble while you quit” behaviour is quite common amongst
pathological gamblers. They deceive themselves and the people around them by
thinking they know what’s best. Since they really want to gamble, but also feel like
they do want to quit gambling, they ignore the fact that the two cannot coexist and do
both at the same time. Studies have shown that pathological gamblers must
thoroughly quit gambling to free themselves completely from gambling. They cannot
gamble once in a while to feed their addiction, as this would only allow their
gambling addiction to continue.
Whenever the gambler reminisced with me about his golden days, he always
filled my office with a brilliant hope that seemed to make money, especially large
sums of money, really easy to win via gambling. In a way, the feeling was like the
feeling a normal person got when they dreamed about what it would be like if they
won Mark 6, just before the winner was revealed. This ecstatic fantasy is something
which gamblers had made into reality in the past, so it’s like a magician’s magic trick:
Note This article is translated by a translation company from the corresponding original
Chinese article in the Chinese section of this website. It is meant to be just an
approximation of the original article for the benefit of readers who do not read
Chinese.
it seems unbelievable, but it’s so real it’s difficult to not believe it. The magical
sensation of winning big bucks is a common theme in the stories of pathological
gamblers.
The money he won, the temporary excitement and hope he gained and the lack of
achievement and joy in his own life were exactly what made him believe he could
keep on winning. Although he lost more than he won in the end, he believed he
needed to gamble with even bigger stakes to win back the money he lost, and this was
especially true when he lost a lot of money. He firmly believed that he would win next
time, but since there would always be a next time, he would keep gambling forever to
keep alive his expectation of winning big money in the next gamble. If he is forced to
stop gambling, he would feel uncomfortable and worry that he was missing out on his
big break. The interesting thing is the flipside of this expectation is the depths of
despair, so he would keep borrowing money, steal money, or scam people for money
so he could keep gambling. According to statistical and probability calculations, the
dealer has more gambling capital than a gambler, so if both parties continue gambling,
the gambler will lose in the end. Although these mathematical calculations seem quite
deep, they are tried and tested on many pathological gamblers who have come in
contact with us, regardless of whether they considered themselves to be intelligent or
not. As is commonly said, we’re not afraid of whether you are smart of dumb, but the
only thing we’re afraid of is that you won’t come to us.
When gamblers refuse to give up even when they lose until they are in a state of
poverty, they only have one answer in their hearts – that is to keep gambling to pay off
their debts because they can’t come up with any other options. Gambling has forced
them into ruin, but they are also deeply convinced that they can win enough to make
up for everything they lost in the past as long as they can gamble one more time. The
root of their gambling problem is deeply entrenched in their hopes of winning money.
This self-destructive expectation is related to gamblers’ belief that they have
mastered the secret to winning money. To put it bluntly, this secret is nothing more
than superstitious mumbling. For example, the belief that they won’t lose money as
long as they don’t encounter a monk or a nun on the day they gamble, or that they
have seen through the rules of gambling. This narcissistic and close-minded
self-deception is completely out of touch with reality. In reality, the result of each
gamble is the consequence of random changes which have nothing to do with personal
factors and gambling techniques, etc.
Note This article is translated by a translation company from the corresponding original
Chinese article in the Chinese section of this website. It is meant to be just an
approximation of the original article for the benefit of readers who do not read
Chinese.
The cost of doing battle with the laws of nature is quite costly indeed as gamblers
often become extremely frustrated, depressed and hopeless after losing lots of money.
They also have to face up to all kinds of creditors, which makes them feel like the
shadow of the god of death looms over them, leaving them with no option other than
suicide. And if they failed to kill themselves, they would want to gamble again once
their gambling addiction hits them once more. They travel back and forth between the
line of life and death and win less than they lose. In their lives, they go through a
continuous cycle of gain and loss. The ironic thing is that they are ultimately left with
extreme pleasure and dismay derived from their gambling addiction. Nothing in their
lives is more destructive than this “remarkable” experience.
The form of self-destruction that gamblers engage in is slightly different to those
who choose to suicide by jumping off a building. Gamblers prefer to draw out the
process of self-destruction, extending the period of time they experience their pleasure
and involving more people who love them, so that they all suffer together and also
engage in self-destruction by helping to pay off their never ending debts.
Only after a gambler has survived all of this will he begin to truly accept
psychological treatment. At this point, gamblers will return to a position capable of
self-analysis and try to analyse and change their pathological mentality with me, so as
to gain a rational understanding of the significance of probability, understand various
self-deceiving thoughts and self-destructive tendencies, learn to no longer have any
fantasies about gambling, and to put their focus back onto themselves and the people
and things around them. They will plant their feet back on the ground and live like an
ordinary person, and no longer believe they have the ability to win money. They will
thoroughly admit defeat and understand that putting their energy back into their work
and deriving pleasure from their work and interpersonal relationships is the real
victory. While they may no longer win money, they will have saved their own lives
and begun to live more practically and more happily. The real hope for gamblers is
that they can live to see the future they haven’t gambled away yet.
Note This article is translated by a translation company from the corresponding original
Chinese article in the Chinese section of this website. It is meant to be just an
approximation of the original article for the benefit of readers who do not read
Chinese.