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You Just Have to Love Gambling

Gambling is a game of chance - of risks and luck. Some amount of wit and cleverness raises the probability of winning a bet or stake, but that just adds to the thrill of the game. Science has even tried to explain gambling through mathematical permutations and combinations, but that is not enough to explain the reason why gambling persists as an irresistible human activity.

Behavioral psychologists explain that gambling provides positive reinforcement to the player, which makes him/her stick with the game. In real life, every instance of behavior is rarely reinforced - sometimes hard work is followed by praise, but often it goes unacknowledged. Human nature, according to Francis Fukuyama, is driven for his desire for recognition. Recognition is, in our terms, a positive reinforcement - a reward for his existence. Gambling provides this sense of personal and social recognition for a player.

Gamblers take several hours in casinos or in betting places, and will not go home empty-handed. They are willing to take risks, just to get that reward and win. As such, there is an element of time.

When reinforcement occurs only some of the time, we need to know exactly how it is scheduled - after every third response? After every five rounds? It turns out that the schedule of reinforcement determines the pattern of responding. Some schedules are called ratio schedules, because with them reinforcement depends on the number of responses the person makes.

In a variable ratio schedule, one still gets reinforced only after making a certain number of responses but that number varies unpredictably. A good example of variable ratio schedule in everyday life is the slot machine. The number of responses (plays) needed for reinforcement (payoff) keeps varying, and the player has no way of predicting when reinforcement, or the reward, will occur.

Even the unpredictability of the payoffs becomes a reward for the gambler too. The experience of thrill and excitement by a gambler is much the same experience of an X-gamer or a mountain climber. The adrenaline rush is so irresistible that it piles up in anticipation of winning the bet. Either playing or actual winning, the player feels rewarded.

The gambler gains recognition too by his peers. He is thrown to a situation where he has to place his highest bet, and most likely, he'll be willing to do it. Following human nature, fame and recognition is a necessity that gambling can give.