Aversion not effected?

[Furball808]

Came across this experiment where they compared two groups: pathological gamblers and a control group. Basically this experiment conditioned participants in order to associate a specific stimuli into unpleasant events. This experiment concludes that the pathological gamblers have less capacity to associate negative events and stimuli that predict negative events. This is the published research if anyone wants to read more: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22429452/

This experiment also concludes that aversion is not an effective treatment for pathological gamblers. It can be assumed that no matter how a gambler loses, he will not be thinking of gambling with negative feelings. Until maybe it is too late. But until then he will not be thinking of the worst case scenarios when gambling. It makes sense because gamblers are natural risk takers. Is there any gambler that is too scared to gamble because of possible consequences? Some may be wary but if you are a gambler, you are a natural risk taker and is not pessimistic in nature.

There is good reason why a pathological gambler think of that, he never associate bad things with gambling as deep in his head or heart he is playing to hit that huge jackpot or huge max win that will solve at least some of his financial struggles. This is also what keeps these addicted persons to never give up and try, usually they end very badly, I was one of them but luckily I stopped chasing dreams as I learned the hard way that dreams for average people never come true. I find it also difficult for this to change so I guess the other group, control group behave more like myself, they know doing the same over and over again and expecting different results is called insanity.

Maybe we see why other people or non-gamblers can identify much faster if one is already addicted because they see behavior that a gambler might think is normal or simply immune to. A gambler might be so immune to losing he doesn’t realize how bad it has become. Subconsciously maybe why they hide their gambling habits is because they know that others will be able to recognize harmful behaviors.

[martinex]

Maybe we see why other people or non-gamblers can identify much faster if one is already addicted because they see behavior that a gambler might think is normal or simply immune to. A gambler might be so immune to losing he doesn’t realize how bad it has become. Subconsciously maybe why they hide their gambling habits is because they know that others will be able to recognize harmful behaviors.

Of course, a change in behavior will be easily discernible from the volume of play. If he plays almost 20 days a month, he's definitely at a high level of addiction. But if he only visits once a month, or even not at all, it means he's just coming, playing, and looking for fun.

No one is immune to the stress of a losing streak and doesn't regret it at all. My assumption is that he'll come back to play to try to turn things around, even if he loses again. But what makes him great is his strong desire to cover it up, even if it's funny that he ends up losing again.