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Some people are good with money. They know how to spend less than they earn. They can budget and figure out how much money they need to spend per day, per week, or per month. Some people can decide on a level of discretionary spending, or fun money, and stick to that amount. Other people feel that they are “bad with money”, but are capable of learning to improve their financial situation. Some supposedly bad with money types are actually just uninformed about money and budgeting, and see it as a scary and complicated world that they are not smart enough to enter.

The third kind of person is someone who has a problem with money. This can appear in the form of financial irresponsibility that defies all reason, spending a lot of money on a new TV when they have an empty refrigerator and only instant meals to eat until their next paycheck. Others simply use credit to rack up enormous debt even though they have no permanent or dependable income. The worst situation is when someone who does not know how to manage money and has a problem with the reality of spending versus earning becomes addicted to gambling.

For people with a gambling addiction, the effects on quality of life can be as devastating as a drug addiction. Gamblers can spend all of their money sitting in a casino and betting on slot machines, never winning back what they are spending, but still going back for more. More serious gamblers will learn card games and take big risks, because they actually get a high from the adrenaline that is released when something dangerous and potentially very beneficial is happening. Most people with a gambling addiction will go home empty handed, no matter how many times they win.

Gambling addicts get started in some very innocent ways, while others find their way to gambling through a loss of hope and confidence. In this way, gambling addiction resembles alcohol addiction. An addict feels they can drown their sorrows or make things better by going back for more. Just like alcohol for an alcoholic, gambling never makes things better and it usually adds to the problem.

For a gambling addict, losing money becomes unreal. The loss of $100 feels no different from the loss of $1000. Similarly, winning $1 feels the same as winning $10. Casinos, especially some of the most successful casinos, tend to use this to their advantage. Most people who gamble a little bit become discouraged if they continue to lose. The feeling of loss increases as more money is lost, and eventually a limit is reached where the gambler feels it is not worth trying anymore.

Gambling addicts never reach that limit. They become detached from the reality of their loss and focus on the benefit of the potential win they could have if they keep going. Addiction removes the ability to make sound, logical judgements about the long term benefits of continuing to gamble are impossible for the gambling addict to make.

Casinos have figured out that point at which most people become too discouraged to continue, and it has nothing to do with an amount, but more to do with the sensation that the losing has gone on for too long. Without even a small win, people without a gambling addiction will walk away at some point. When the casino sees that this is happening, they will often send a bartender around with a free drink, or even state that they have won something. This is enough to keep someone who is otherwise done gambling at the machine. Somehow the sensation of winning a free drink makes a few more rounds at the slot machine seem reasonable.

For a gambling addict, this can be devastating. Those small wins only serve to convince the addict that the big win is just around the corner, they just need to stick it out. Because addiction shuts down those long term decision making faculties, a gambling addict is capable of not only spending any money that they have. Many people who are addicted to gambling rack up incredible debt on credit cards, and even take out a mortgage on their home, so they can continue to gamble. This usually leads to financial ruin.