I don’t really enjoy talking about gambling addiction; however this is a reality which exists in the world of playing online or any other poker, as much as it does with any other gambling activity. I believe that it is always good to be aware of potential problems to be pre-emptive of them, so let’s take a look at this.
What actually sparked my interest was an article written by Jay Greenspan. He is a semi-professional poker player, who was once the editor of All In Magazine, and is also obviously the founder of a popular online poker site. I reckon what he has to say carries some weight and makes sense.
Mr. Greenspan has also written a soon to be released book called “Hunting Fish”. No this is not a fishing book, it is a book about poker of course and it chronicles his search for the worst poker players in the US. I reckon it should be a laugh a minute – I sure hope so.
To get to the point, he read some essays which he felt were relevant to the Biology of the Bluff. Note I said Biology, not Psychology. These were in a volume called Monkeyluv, by Robert M. Sapolsky a Sanford University researcher. In essence experiments were conducted on monkeys, in which a task was given for a reward and it was found that more dopamine was released into the brain of the monkey, not when they received the reward, but during the period of completing the task and receiving the reward. In the gap between! The greater the uncertainty that the monkey would get the reward, the more dopamine was released.
Dopamine is the drug that is released into the brain which is responsible for feelings of elation. It is this chemical found naturally in the human body that makes drugs such as Chrystal Meth so dangerous. Its chief pathological effect is to release dopamine. You might ask, but what has this got to do with pathological poker addiction?
Well as Jay explains of himself, the essays interested him so much that he looked at his own responses to playing poker, and asked the question – when does he get the most excitement, or the “giddiest” if you like, when he plays. His answer was that he felt more energized when he was uncertain of the outcome of a hand. Much like the monkeys!
He also states that it is this feeling; when his heart rate increases and his senses are heightened that draws him back to playing poker. He wants to feel it again, even though this is subconsciously. It is this feeling that makes him want to bluff too much, and he also realizes that since reading Dr. Sapolsky’s essays, he needs to exercise more self discipline in his poker games.
Looking at this brief article from Mr. Greenspans’ observations of himself; in relationship to the Monkeyluv experiments, I believe it could prove to be a very good peer benchmark for other poker players, for their own sense of self discipline. It is very interesting that he perceives this dynamic to have a relevance to gambling addiction and that he uses this knowledge in a positive light to help him check his own game.
