Gambling Addiction

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Anybody else here had a problem with gambling?

I don't know how many thousands i've lost over the years on fruit machines and online games. I've had a problem for nearly 10 years now and can't seem to stop.

I said before that I don't really have a special interest. But is it possible that something that makes me feel so miserable could in fact be my special interest?

(I only suspect I'm Asperger, not diagnosied)

No, actually until 25 years old, I was very conservative with gambling (much more than my friends even with ridicolous low-cost home games), but after I played online poker and I was a winning player, but even when I was tired and left I wasn't addicted.

That must be hard. I've never had a gambling addiction.

Just a suggestion but maybe you could channel your interest into gambling that is more likely to win. I think the machines and online gambling are more likely to be rigged. If you betted on horses you'd have more chance. It might be easier to avoid spending so much too since you couldn't just keep clicking or pressing buttons like with an oline game or fixed odds machine.

I am a small time football gambler. My obsession is football though, every league table, team, form, foreign leagues etc.

I win more than I lose so happy to stick with it as it helps my obsession. 2 x £2.50 bets this weekend and I won £40. Winnings all go into a saving jar to fund my extravagances.

I get what you mean but by small time I mean really small time. I usually stick on a £2.50 bet each weekend, did 2 of them this and won both. Been doing it for about 8 years. I am £300 up so far this season.

If I didn't win I would still be happy. 'Losing' £10- £20 a month when that helps me justify my many hours going over league tables etc which I did before I gambled anyway.

I used to gamble in the stock market, I got high on the risk of short term holds and obsessed with watching my stock's movement all day. It was a temporary special interest. I would track details in trends and mathematically forecast a stock's movement. It got so bad I quit my job to be a "day trader". Needless to say that didn't work out. As I lost more and more money I also lost the special interest, thankfully. Let me ask you this, do you think about gambling in ways that are more complex than a typical gambler (say, coming up with strategies, obsessing over how odds are calculated)? Maybe its your special interest too, and not a typical "gambling addiction".

I know a little bit about it. I once went on a field trip to the top gambling addiction treatment center in Las Vegas. As you can imagine, it's Ground Zero for gambling addiction; a massive proportion of American cases are concentrated there (we're talking locals, not tourists). And 90% of it is video poker. You read that right. It's like the crack, meth, and heroin of gambling addiction all rolled into one. This is largely environmental, though; if you've ever served time as a Vegas local, you'll know that video poker and slots are literally everywhere. Like, the grocery store, gas stations, at bars built directly into the bar top so that you don't even have to sit along a back wall, etc. etc.

There are two broad categories of gambling addiction: action and escape. Action gamblers get a high off the roller coaster up and downs. You're more likely to see them in the 'green felt' section of the casino, at the craps table or in the poker room or at the roulette wheel. Escape gamblers, on the other hand, have a lot in common with video game addicts; you know the sort, grinding for 14 hours a day on WOW, in a trance. Video poker and other electronic gambling does the same thing, although at least with MMPORGs you're not sticking a twenty dollar bill into the slot every ten minutes.

Is there a Gambler's Anonymous in your neck of the woods?

£33 win from £2.50 this weekend with Brighton, Bolton, Leeds & Donny.

I was on a winning spree lately then I lost all the money back to the casinos. I hope I'm not starting a new addiction.

I was playing fruit machines on the Internet for three years and I quit in January. I'm amazed at how much money I have in my account three months after quitting.

I am hearing the words "Visual Stim" in relation to the lights etc on a slot machine.

These are designed to lure punters to the machines and entice that first coin into the slot.

Perhaps the way forward is to own ones own fruit machine.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from ... e&_sacat=0

I have made a few bets, when I saw that the odds were in my favour, but I get my feeling of being blessed with luck by getting ideas to combine better. I received a lottery ticket once as a gift, and spent an inordinate amount of time on speculating about post-win life, which turns out to be not much fun for most winners. Overall, gambling is a tax on the mathematically challenged, but now it comes in addictive packaging.

From a sensory standpoint. I don't see how anyone on the spectrum can stand to be in a casino. Especially near the slot machines. All the flashing lights and music/noises. Did you know that all slot machines that play music, do so in the c-major scale, or key of "C"? That a lot like painting a picture using only one color. Talk about monotonous and boarding and you hear that sound all over the casino. UGH!! !