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The Gambler's Dynamism in Gambling
In compulsive gambling, several considerations can be raised to confuse even further the question of the gambler's dynamics.
First, there is an enormous difference in the public character of different kinds of gambling. Winning and losing in games like Poker and craps are, in a genuine sense, part of a public performance.
The social situation provides a basis for the exploitation of exhibitionistic trends as well as reactions against them.
For example, one can always observe people assuming an attitude of profound indifference while winning and a determined demeanor of stoicism when luck is against them.
By contrast, the horse player, whether he bets on the phone with the neighborhood bookie or goes to the track to place his money, usually wins or loses in isolation.
Playing the horses is essentially a one-person decision-making situation whereas almost nobody would think of entering a crap game unless other players were already present.
That, of course - is why casinos employ shills.
Another point is that it is far from clear that the neurotic gambler invariably, or even usually, transforms his wish for omnipotence into a feeling of omnipotence.
As often as not, the need to lose is accompanied by the belief that one will lose. There are all kinds of neurotic gamblers who attempt to impose a limit on how much they will lose before they gamble.
It may be that this behavior is an attempt to buy off fate in some magical, obsessional manner; but this suggests much more of an ambivalent attitude toward fate.
Similarly, one sometimes hears of gamblers who willingly go into a rigged game with the knowledge that the game is fixed and they must lose.
This voluntary submission to fate is easily transformed into the wish that such humility should be rewarded, but the request for magical intervention is certainly not the same as the belief that one can influence the game unaided.
A third point refers to the uncritical acceptance of the belief that all neurotic or compulsive gamblers have to lose. There are people who love action - to use a frequently employed colloquialism - so long as the percentage is in their favor.
Still, there are people, properly called neurotic gamblers, who have made a very good thing of gambling. They will play dice every night if they can keep the deal, and so forth.
This behavior can be said to represent much more of a true feeling of omnipotence since it is associated with a patronizing hostility best expressed by the attitude, 'Everybody's a loser but me.'
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