My wife and I just came back from Atlantic City; we go three or four times a year just to play some slots. We get a deal from the Tropicana Hotel that gets us a room for free for two nights. No we’re not high rollers; we play penny slot machines, but that seems to be enough for them to continue to offer us a room.

I’m not sure why I was more aware of this on this trip, maybe the increase in my writing has made me more aware of things and experiences. For whatever reason, while I was giving the Tropicana my usual donation in the machine I realized that the gambling addiction is not all that different that any other addiction. When most people think of gambling, we think of winning and losing money. We think the drive to be rich is the bases for the appeal of the games. This may be true. This may be the appeal that gets a person to sit at a table or in front of a slot machine but, I believe, what keeps them there is the rush they feel when they win.

It is a sudden feeling of pleasure when you hit Black Jack with a good bet on the table, or the slot machine suddenly racks up a good score. The reverse is also true. If you sit and lose time after time you can get feelings of depression and even feelings of paranoia about why other people were winning and you weren’t. Most people can handle these feelings and shrug them off easily enough, but some can’t.

On our recent trip my wife was on a lucky streak. We were sitting next to each other on the same type of slot machine making the same bet each time. She wasn’t getting one or two more bonuses than me; she was getting three to four times as many bonuses as me. Now, intellectually I understand that a slot machine is a pseudo random process with a very long period. The fact is your luck is played in the moment you choose a machine. If you are lucky you will choose a machine that is about to enter a cycle of winning combinations, if not you can spend your money rather quickly. Cathy chose the right machine and I didn’t. Intellectually I knew that I was happy she was winning.

Still there was a little part of my mind that was jealous that she was getting the rush of pleasure of the wins. I was sitting there with nothing happening and her machine was flashing and all of the silly characters were jumping around. I wanted my silly characters to jump around, but they just sat there as my balance dwindled. I could actually feel the symptoms of depression over the whole thing. Like most people I shrugged it off before we took a break for an ice cream but I could see how this could play on someone that was prone to addiction.

This is an observation of a layman and a professional may say that I am way off base, but the quick swing from euphoria to depression that is possible when gambling is fairly unique in the life of regular people and it could get a grip on some people.