How Problem Gambler Feels After Losing

[lionheart78]

Anyone experiencing/experienced a gambling disorder pls. feel free to share your feelings after losing/winning.

Documentary Video of Gambling Addiction, the feeling and thoughts of a gambling addict
| Documentary Video 1 | Documentary Video 2 |



As the title stated, I stumbled on an article[1] published way back in 2021 and wanted it to share with you in case anyone is interested in how a problem gambler's mind works after losing his bankroll.  It was stated that losing a huge amount of money is a sign that we must stop our gambling activity but...

Why do gamblers continue to bet even after they lost?

With all the effort of planning, setting a bankroll budget, and time limit, gamblers tend to bypass this plan and continue gambling.  It was said that Gamblers specifically compulsive gamblers don't just gamble for money.  Since compulsive gambling is a behavioral disorder that alters the brain[1], there are more varieties of reasons and motivations to gamble.

Chasing losses

In most cases, when an addicted gambler loses, they don’t stop there. They think that they are so close to winning, that if they just try once more, surely they’ll win this time. This is a very dangerous mindset to have.

They often feel a sense of panic at the amount they have lost, and are determined to gain it back. This is referred to as chasing losses.

In reality, the odds are never in your favor. Relying on skill won’t get you very far, since gambling is not based on skill. If you continue to gamble after you’ve lost a large amount, you will only lose more, and it will result in deeper financial debt, as well as deeper guilt and stress.

Post-Loss Speeding

Gamblers often engage in “post-loss speeding” by placing another bet quicker following a loss because frustration from the defeat prompts them to try and win back their money. As a result, gamblers become more impulsive - instead of becoming more cautious about spending money, they become more reckless.

How Excessive Gambling Leads to Mental Health Disorders

• The amount of money that they spend on gambling often causes a strain on their personal relationships and can negatively impact their job performance and overall work life.
• In some cases, gamblers will go to extreme lengths to cover up their gambling addiction, and may borrow or even steal money from others.
• Gamblers tend to feel guilt and shame when they lose, which can greatly diminish their sense of self-worth.

These intense feelings accompanied with problems that gambling is causing in their personal lives can lead to depression, and even suicidal thoughts.

Problem Gambler often feels depression after losing
Problem Gambler often ends up in depression every time they suffer loss.  They wanted to get out of these feelings which is why they tend to continue gambling to beat the house which is highly unlikely. With this loss chasing and Post-Loss speeding, they end up losing much more money than they can afford to lose.  They end up spending money allocated to households budgets, embezzling others' funds to the extent of stealing money from others.  This triggers family misunderstanding, friend disputes, and even crime.  Due to the problem piling up, a problem gambler often falls into severe depression and possible suicidal thoughts.

Solution:

• Be honest with yourself
• Join a Community
• Get to the root of why you are gambling
• Go to Treatment

Read the explanation here[1]
You can also refer to this thread to know about gambling addiction its  signs and possible management:
Tips on How to Manage Gambling Addiction an Open Discussion
The characteristics of people who are addicted to online gambling

Prevention:
Gambling in moderation or Responsible Gambling is one of the popular prevention of gambling disorders.

• You can also find the benefits of Moderate gambling in this thread[2] discussion.

Differentiating Myth from Fact

• This thread[3] can help differentiate Gambling Myth from facts

Here is the definition of a Problem Gambler to make a clear view between an ordinary Gambler and a Problem gambler.
Problem Gambler is the person with problem gambling.
Problem gambling is defined as

Problem gambling is defined as gambling that is disruptive or damaging to you or your family, or interferes with your daily life.

source:Problem gambling
a more scientific discription would be:

Problem gambling or ludomania is repetitive gambling behavior despite harm and negative consequences. Problem gambling may be diagnosed as a mental disorder according to DSM-5 if certain diagnostic criteria are met. Pathological gambling is a common disorder that is associated with both social and family costs.

source:Problem gambling
Sources:
[1] https://www.algamus.org/blog/how-problem-gamblers-feel-after-losing
[2] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5407195.msg60607720#msg60607720
[3] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5409250.0

[Strongkored]

Join Community, are most people addicted to gambling because they are anti-social people? It's not easy to change the habits of a person who doesn't have a social life and then join a community for any reason, especially if that person is already addicted.
Feelings will be even more depressed when the money used is completely exhausted because don't have the money to go back to chasing what have lost.

[noormcs5]

Join Community, are most people addicted to gambling because they are anti-social people? It's not easy to change the habits of a person who doesn't have a social life and then join a community for any reason, especially if that person is already addicted.
Feelings will be even more depressed when the money used is completely exhausted because don't have the money to go back to chasing what have lost.

Do we have counseling sessions for gamblers where they are taught how to control their risk, and how to control their emotions after a loss or a win? No, we don't have.

How can we expect the majority of gamblers to behave like a professional and not regret or chase losses when there is no governing body to teach them? We don't provide any sort of tutorials to gamblers and accept them to be clever and intelligent enough to solve all their problems on their own.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Join Community, are most people addicted to gambling because they are anti-social people? It's not easy to change the habits of a person who doesn't have a social life and then join a community for any reason, especially if that person is already addicted.

They do not have to be antisocial, although some of them clearly are. What does happen is that when they develop the addiction they become more antisocial, at least that is what I have seen in various addictions, especially if the groups of friends they have do not share their addiction.

Feelings will be even more depressed when the money used is completely exhausted because don't have the money to go back to chasing what have lost.

They usually enter a self-destructive process in which for most of them the only way out is to seek help, which makes their addiction less of a hidden issue.

[dothebeats]

Join Community, are most people addicted to gambling because they are anti-social people? It's not easy to change the habits of a person who doesn't have a social life and then join a community for any reason, especially if that person is already addicted.
Feelings will be even more depressed when the money used is completely exhausted because don't have the money to go back to chasing what have lost.

Do we have counseling sessions for gamblers where they are taught how to control their risk, and how to control their emotions after a loss or a win? No, we don't have.

What we have right now is counselling for problematic gamblers to completely stop their gambling habits. That IMO is a better solution than just teaching problematic gamblers some risk management kind of stuff because once they got greedy and felt that they can win big time again, they'll completely forget this risk management thing and then they're back to square 1.

How can we expect the majority of gamblers to behave like a professional and not regret or chase losses when there is no governing body to teach them? We don't provide any sort of tutorials to gamblers and accept them to be clever and intelligent enough to solve all their problems on their own.

It is an extremely hard task to help a problematic gambler re-learn his ways, but helping him stop his destruction and those around him is somewhat easier.



I think the main challenge problematic gamblers face is the stigma around them. If only our society is quite open on these hard discussions I think problematic gamblers will be lessened as they will know that people is willing to listen to them if they try to get out what they can't say. That's what's lacking in our current society: togetherness and oneness. A lot of problems such as this one can easily be solved if people banded together and look for each other.

[lionheart78]

Join Community, are most people addicted to gambling because they are anti-social people? It's not easy to change the habits of a person who doesn't have a social life and then join a community for any reason, especially if that person is already addicted.
Feelings will be even more depressed when the money used is completely exhausted because don't have the money to go back to chasing what have lost.

Do we have counseling sessions for gamblers where they are taught how to control their risk, and how to control their emotions after a loss or a win? No, we don't have.

Yeah you are right, I think there is none in this forum.  What we have are just discussions, and suggestions but probably not from professionals and medical experts.  But there are online services that cater to people who have a gambling addiction.  They offer counseling and recommendations to help gambling deal with their gambling addictions. Of course, there are also paid services that are willing to take in patients to be cured of gambling addictions.

How can we expect the majority of gamblers to behave like a professional and not regret or chase losses when there is no governing body to teach them? We don't provide any sort of tutorials to gamblers and accept them to be clever and intelligent enough to solve all their problems on their own.

Knowledge, discipline, and responsible gambling are what keep gamblers from being gambling addict.  Information about gambling addiction is everywhere on the internet.  And a person has the ability to learn just by reading and researching example cases. 

[Baofeng]

I experience this all the way in a land base casino "Post-Loss Speeding", I will quickly bet higher on the next game, whether it's slot or card games such as baccarat. It's because of the frustrations of the previous results, maybe because I made the wrong bet or I'm thinking of doubling my bet in a slot machine or going down, and then that bonus happens. So frustrating and that I'm made that I will bet bigger to somewhat compensate what I have lost, but it is wrong, it's just pure emotions running on me for during that.

[Reid]

I think most of the cases will be chasing the losses. It's pride being crushed and you want to win it back. I have been in that situation a lot of times playing Dice at Yolodice. I now regret it because it's not that entertaining, dice is pure gamble only unlike my new hobby now at sports.
I think I lost like 0.6BTC there just chasing the loss that started from 0.001BTC. I won't stop because of the urge of wanting it back and it ballooned to a higher number that lead to frustration. That's when your brain stops working and all you do is keep on rolling the dice.
Learned my lesson, changed the way I gamble.

[Wexnident]

I'm surprised the presence of hormones affecting our mindset such as dopamine isn't included (or might've just been generalized into the mental health problems). But anyhow, most cases actually involved actively expecting something from their sessions, which shouldn't happen. The most that we could expect is that sense of fulfillment for being able to gamble, but nothing more than that. It's like how games give us a sense of satisfaction after playing them (or any other form of entertainment really).

 

Do we have counseling sessions for gamblers where they are taught how to control their risk, and how to control their emotions after a loss or a win? No, we don't have.

Yeah you are right, I think there is none in this forum.  What we have are just discussions, and suggestions but probably not from professionals and medical experts.  But there are online services that cater to people who have a gambling addiction.  They offer counseling and recommendations to help gambling deal with their gambling addictions. Of course, there are also paid services that are willing to take in patients to be cured of gambling addictions.

Cause realistically speaking, I don't think sessions where multiple gamblers would attend would work out. They should be given individual attention instead so that the root of the problem can be properly removed or alleviated to let them gamble without having them have problems.

[bittraffic]

Join Community, are most people addicted to gambling because they are anti-social people? It's not easy to change the habits of a person who doesn't have a social life and then join a community for any reason, especially if that person is already addicted.
Feelings will be even more depressed when the money used is completely exhausted because don't have the money to go back to chasing what have lost.

My Aunt who move to a big city while left alone at home as her husband works as a sailor ends up a  problem gambler.  She wasn't an anti-social person but due to her living alone and the people around speaks a different dialect made her turn to gambling.

I use to accompany her going to the cinema but eventually, she prefers to gamble. Post-Loss Speeding is the one that I notice more about her. After losing, she wants to get back again betting more than what she previously bet. She manages to control when she already has kids. Years later, her kids are now her gambling mates, playing cards in the backyard. The addiction remains I guess but this time not going to the casino. Can't say it affects the family.

[Gozie51]

I think the saying for gambling is not to rest until your money is exhausted and I think it is worst if you have gone out of your way to borrow money because you keep playing and chasing your losses to pay back but the harder you try to regain, the more difficult it is to get your money back. An addict never sees anything wrong when he losses , he feels the next game is his turn to win but never get to win and will not quit playing. In the past I have also experienced this kind of behaviour but was able to reduce the level of participation because I was not deeply involved into it.

[YOSHIE]

Feelings will be even more depressed when the money used is completely exhausted because don't have the money to go back to chasing what have lost.

That's the reason why gambling addicts should be able to control themselves as well as possible, there are cases where people go bankrupt from the world of gambling and return to zero, but they can still control themselves and move on to other activities until success without having to return to the world of gambling, but there are also those who lose control when their money runs out at stake, the end of the story is suicide and committing criminal acts, killing, robbing and so on, the goal is to be able to achieve success and magic again, on the contrary the 2x2 space they get.

Anyone experiencing/experienced a gambling disorder pls. feel free to share your feelings after losing/winning.

Actually many people think, including myself, even though gambling addicts say gambling for pleasure, it may be true, but what needs to be underlined, everyone loses they will be upset win feel very happy, even if it's just gambling for fun.

[btc_angela]

Anyone experiencing/experienced a gambling disorder pls. feel free to share your feelings after losing/winning.

For obvious reasons, when we gamble and win big, we want more of the action, piece of the pie and then come and play again. But what if we losses again? then regrets will set in, or worst, majority will want to recoup and come back and play with their capital now in hope that they can duplicate and win again.

And it will be another regrets, and if that is the case with me, I will completely stop for a while. For others though, it might be a different story, the addiction will be so tempting that they will have to find a way to make money and then gambling again.

[qwertyup23]

Join Community, are most people addicted to gambling because they are anti-social people? It's not easy to change the habits of a person who doesn't have a social life and then join a community for any reason, especially if that person is already addicted.
Feelings will be even more depressed when the money used is completely exhausted because don't have the money to go back to chasing what have lost.

Do we have counseling sessions for gamblers where they are taught how to control their risk, and how to control their emotions after a loss or a win? No, we don't have.

How can we expect the majority of gamblers to behave like a professional and not regret or chase losses when there is no governing body to teach them? We don't provide any sort of tutorials to gamblers and accept them to be clever and intelligent enough to solve all their problems on their own.

Actually, while this may be true, having a support system here in the forum gives gamblers the extra sense of security that an entity or a project is actually caring for them.

Most gamblers are addicted due to the nature of their addiction, stemming from a need that they have to do. For example, gamblers typically gamble in order to pay for their expenses, bills, etc. while only a fraction of gamblers do such act purely out of entertainment. The former is most likely to suffer from addiction and bankruptcy.

This kind of initiative is what we need in this forum- something free and open that anyone could speak. Given that there are gambling advertisements all throughout, this kind of movement is highly appreciated.

[livingfree]

Chasing losses is really on point.

It is what makes us feel comfortable if we're losing and that is to think that we can still chase those losses. In reality, not all, actually the majority isn't getting a good ending.

And after that, we don't know what may a gambler do to himself when he's always losing. Things like committing uncertain things that will harm themselves can happen.

Being addicted is hard to deal with when you're on your own and that's why the suggestion of joining communities like the forum is really helpful.

[virasisog]

Chasing losses is really on point.

It is what makes us feel comfortable if we're losing and that is to think that we can still chase those losses. In reality, not all, actually, the majority isn't getting a good ending.

And after that, we don't know what may a gambler do to himself when he's always losing. Things like committing uncertain things that will harm themselves can happen.

Being addicted is hard to deal with when you're on your own and that's why the suggestion of joining communities like the forum is really helpful.

We're always tempted to bet more after losing because we often believe that we could recover our losses or even gain the profit that we want which is actually unrealistic sometimes. Chasing losses could lead to gambling addiction especially if we can't handle or control our emotions. We really have to set a target goal and limits so we'll always know when to stop and when to continue betting. We can't always recover our losses and we have to accept the fact that we can't always be lucky in gambling.

[coin-investor]

Anyone experiencing/experienced a gambling disorder pls. feel free to share your feelings after losing/winning.

I thought I will not overcome it this was the time when I lost half of the BFG token I've accumulated from 3 months of the bounty campaign, it was disheartening to see all your effort to accumulate these tokens gone in just an hour of playing, it was because of chasing my losses it started in 100 token losses then it goes to 500 then 2000 until it reaches 25000 tokens, I though I'm going to lose everything if I did not come to my senses at the right time.
It's really risky to chase your losses, you will feel depressed and have sleepless nights, it took me to recover from this depression.

[ethereumhunter]

In the early days of my gambling time, I experienced gambling disorders such as feelings of disappointment and wondering why I could lose so much. But over time and learning about controlling myself when playing gambling, I realized that it was my own fault for not controlling myself and preventing a big loss. I started studying hard to prevent another big loss and always learned to control the use of money to gamble. And now I do not experience that feeling of disappointment because I know and realize that gambling games will only have two outcomes: winning or losing. And most of us will lose.

[Cling18]

There were already plenty of times when I had breakdowns after losing to gambling. I experienced my weakest point when I gambled my Christmas bonus years ago and lost all of it. I haven't had anything for me to spend with my family that Christmas season. I was depressed and disappointed with myself though that wasn't a very big amount but that's a big loss for me. I learned that it's important that we should only gamble using the funds that we can afford to lose and not the funds that are allocated to important staff. That served as a lesson for me. Controlling our emotions really matters.

[Jemzx00]

I often experience most of these before when I got addicted to gambling especially chasing losses. I tried to set limits on how much I gamble and I often stop when I lose instantly. However, whenever I got on a winning streak and then end up losing everything, I mostly end up gambling more than what I've set. Most of the time, I've felt depressed when these situation happens as I try to overthink things that instead of winning I end up losing a lot of my money.

Those suggestions always helps especially being in a group or community as you will notice things when you have someone to talk to. Also, setting plans with them and saving funds stop me from spending more on my gambling activities as I don't want to miss out some of our outings.