I had the same debate with Andrew T a long while back Jon. My view was that for some people gambling was a manifestation of psychological and emotional problems..an illness if you will..like alcoholism for example...
Funnily enough, this progamme did have some good science in looking at what does cause some people to become compulsive gamblers. At first glance it seems slightly counter intuitive, but giving people MRSA (think that's the right initials) scans whilst they do a simple gambling game they found that when a
normal person wins, the areas of the brain connected with happiness/pleasure/euphoria etc lit up like a christmas tree. On the compulsive gamblers, it barely registered. The conclusion being that they don't gamble because it makes them so happy they can't live without, they gamble because they need that much more of an extra
thrill to get to the same level as everybody else.
My view is that it's likely to be a problem that has many causes, but as well as the psychological and emotional causes which can also be behind other addictions, this suggests that their might be a biological reason behind compulsive gambling.
Am I being overly aggressive? I may be a little tipsy?
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