'The Gambler’: Need to lose trumps the thrill of winning
After a night of home-game hold ’em when the pots got uncomfortably large, one of my buddies turned to me and said: “I used to be a whitewater rafting guide — now I play poker.”
In other words, with the risk of river rafting gone, he needed a new high and found it at the poker table.
Some people think that people with a gambling problem are addicted to the thrill of victory, whether it be the joy of raking a pile of poker chips or hitting a big slot jackpot.
Wahlberg’s Jim Bennett is a bored literature professor who finds nothing authentic in his life but the thrill of high rolling.
The one-armed bandits still had arms (not the push buttons of today’s slot machines), and Caan’s Axel Freed doesn’t have instant access to scores, so he doesn’t learn until hours later that he lost his college basketball bets.
[...] the root of the gambling problem is the same then as it’s shown today: an insatiable pursuit of risk, an unquenchable desire to be in the game, and an unwavering belief that next time lady luck will smile.