How the Brain Gets Addicted to Gambling

by Henry Writer · September 21, 2018

Gambling is not bad but being addicted to gambling is bad.

It’s basically the same with food and everything else in life, too much of one thing is bad. And so, too much of gambling is bad, just like too much of sweets can lead to you having rotten teeth.

Why too much gambling is bad is that people might discover that you need help way after you have destroyed your life and everything you had. Unlike drugs or alcohol, you can make a person get the help that they need. Such substances show physical evidence and gambling well, it really doesn’t, people might just see you losing your assets.

Today we take time to talk about how gambling can become an addiction. Because as we mentioned it does not mean that everyone who gambles will fall in the same situation.

The process of gambling becoming an addiction

Image of how dopamine works in someone addicted to gambling Gambling can cause one to have dramatic alterations in the way, the brain sends chemical messages. In other words, we are saying that the pattern that was already there will be diverted. It will start working in a certain way that it wasn’t used to. People who gamble have a tendency to act in a specific way that makes them become addicts. And this behaviour might make one be caught up in something they can’t let go of.

The brain has a series of circuits that are known as the reward system. These work when we are having recreational activities or after receiving a compliment when you are satisfied. These signals are sent to our brain via neurotransmitters. That’s when you know how to react whether you feel depressed or happy.

The main neurotransmitter in the series of circuits is known as the dopamine. The right amount of dopamine released means that you will have a feeling of being satisfied.

And when gambling and you fail to get the correct amount of dopamine you have the feeling to want to do more to attain that feeling. In cases that you would have won you like that feeling that you have and you want to keep having that same feeling. That is how many gamblers end up losing after big wins.