People’s emotional response to extremely long odds led them to reverse their usual taste for risk, and to become risk seeking when pursuing a long-shot gain and risk avoiding when faced with the extremely remote possibility of loss. (Which is why they bought both lottery tickets and insurance.) “If you think about the possibilities at all, you thin

Gambling disorder highlights the subtle distinction between reward anticipation (dopamine release prior to reward) and reward response (dopamine release after or during reward). My patients with gambling addiction have told me that while playing, a part of them wants to lose. The more they lose, the stronger the urge to continue gambling, and the s

Behavioral-psychological explanations for why near misses are so compelling include the “frustration theory of persistence,” in which near misses “have an invigorating or potentiating effect on any behavior that immediately follows it,” and the related theory of “cognitive regret,” in which players circumvent regret at having almost won by immediat

Something as simple as access can cause a massive increase in substance abuse.