Psychological Issues in Betting

Why do people gamble? Psychologists know the answer. Thousands of researches have been made to understand what makes people play for money and why addiction to gambling appeared. These researches are widely used by bookmakers as they always want to know how to influence their clients and how to attract more visitors.

Everything is in our brains

The studies have shown that our brains have a special reward circuit. This is a center of all pleasures we have in our lives – gambling, food, some drugs, music, and sex. Reward circuit releases dopamine (hormone of happiness). Permanent triggering of this release makes some people addicted to the trigger. An interesting fact: different triggers affect differently on each person. For some people food is the strongest trigger, for other people this is gambling.

Operators and game developers know how reward circuit works and make everything possible to make people come back for a portion of dopamine. Quite common situation in games is to make player complete some tasks to receive the reward, which is in fact useless in real life. When the task is completed, a person feels happy. He comes back more and more to feel more happiness. Then a developer adds some new chargeable features. And a player wants to try them because his brain is telling him: I want another portion of dopamine!

The same idea works in sports betting psychology: to make people feel happy that they make bets for real money. Each time a player spends money on bets, he feels happy. Sometimes it is physically impossible to stop it – the brain thinks that it will lose any source of dopamine. Find some more ways to feel happy. Regular workouts is a good activity that makes our body exude dopamine without any risk.

Are you positive about gambling?

Gambling addiction is another part of studies for psychologists. They have noticed that addicted players are: those who always feel optimistic about their games (oh gosh, I’m going to win today!) and those who never believe in success (I will never win, but I can make a try). A gambler without addiction feels more like “this bet may bring me a reward and it may not, let’s try and see”.

Healthy attitude leads to success. Betting psychology studies show that it helps avoid unpleasant situations when you expect more from the game, and receive nothing, and not to feel desperate each time you place a bet.

Another key point in healthy attitude to gambling is not to take gambling very seriously. First of all, it is an entertainment activity. Everything else is not so important.

How do gamblers become addicted?

 Why gamblers addict to bets? The answer lies in our brains, in that reward circuit we have talked about before. Unhappy people become addicted more frequently than people who have some other sources of happiness in their lives. Betting tips encourage players and make you play more. And no one can resist.

Addicted gamblers suffer from their problem. They cannot quit, they lose all money they have, looking for the most paying odds spending hours and days online. They do not feel safe when they do not make bets. Each time they feel disappointment they go to bookmaker to place a couple of bets. Each time they feel happy they go to bookmaker to become even happier.

Unfortunately, addicted players are the key source of money for bookmakers. They want people come back to wager more and they keep them close offering new promotions and promising bigger rewards. They do make efforts in understanding gambling addiction, they just keep attracting the players.

Some governments try to protect people from this addiction but they do it in ineffective way. They just prohibit gambling. Illegal gambling rooms exists in every country and anyone can just come and play there. Moreover, esports bets and professional sports betting are legal in most of the countries as they are not considered a pure form of gambling.

There are many countries where an addicted gambler cannot receive a proper help especially free and anonymous.

I almost won! Or why people continue to play

A classic situation in online casinos and sportsbookers is when a near miss happens. This is a situation when a player places a bet on the event and almost wins it, or when a player does not win a jackpot because one symbol was off the necessary combo. He understand that he was only step aside from a huge winning, and he plays more and more to make that near miss situation into a winning.

This is a psychological thing, which has huge impact upon people. A gambler knows from his own experience that the winning is possible, betting techniques tell that win is close, and he misses only some small detail to win. Some eager gamblers become so inspired of this situation that they miss money while overcoming their results.

If you wonder how to stop gambling addiction, start to control yourself and visit our Responsible gambling page where we cover everything about ludomania.

I am what I believe

Internet is full of different rumors. Some bookmakers have mistaken in their odds, and you can win a fortune playing with them! Do you believe that? Visit that website to check this message. Everybody wants to win more, and bookmakers’ fallacies can make you a millionaire.

There are gamblers who believe in different prejudices and popularize them among the players like some betting tricks that can be useful for gamblers. It may sound funny but check yourself – you probably also have some biases.

People tend to believe other people. You’d better avoid this all-in-all belief. You need to be attentive with everyone who gives you advices.