Why is gambling addictive?

I thought the subject of gambling to be quite apt as I sit down to choose the horses I will place all my hope in today, so I decided to ask the above question: Why is gambling so addictive?

Throughout my childhood, I watched my Father examine the racing pages with persistence and hope. This intrigued me, to say the least, as the house had to be silent, or at least nearly so, from 6 am to 10 am, every Saturday to enable his full concentration. The days racing would begin at around lunchtime, so a concentration interlude was permitted in between 10 am and lunchtime, allowing the family to continue about their own Saturday morning activities.

When the days racing card began, I would make myself scarce and join my friends at the local playing field, to escape the oppressive nature of the household as my Father watched his horses, one by one, finish nowhere of note, leading him to the bottle to drown his disappointments.

I have always looked up to my Father, as I found him, and still do find him, a man very well travelled and of great wisdom. But this weekly ceremony always intrigued me. Conversely, I had always been advised by my maternal grandfather that gambling was fools errand, despite his annual bet on the Grand National at Aintree and his winter wager on whether London would see a white Christmas. So contradiction only further intrigued me.

Occasionally, my Father would take me into the local betting offices, even though I was clearly under age, where I would always observe a certain type of person present. These people were usually at least middle aged, not particularly wealthy, but displayed a devotion to gambling that would have been commendable if applied to any other pursuit. I asked myself, why?

As I grew older, old enough to wage a bet myself by law, I decided to find out what the fuss was about. I began to indulge in weekly wagers on the horses, with limited guidance from my Father on how to decipher what seemed intricately complicated form guides, amongst other endless statistics. I ended up adopting the same conditions my Father demanded every Saturday morning, without having to oppress the movements of the entire household, as I lived on my own. I achieved limited success, occasionally 'winning' the money I waged back, or sometimes even making a small profit, hardly worth a mention.

I started to ask myself, "what is so addictive about gambling?" I thought the best place to start in an attempt to answer this question would be to return to my brief childhood analysis of the type of people I repeatedly saw in betting offices. These people, as I mentioned before, were of middle aged appearance, not well off in what I could deduce (not particularly well dressed or well groomed), not quite destitute but living out an existence that could have been possibly so much more. Was it that these people had nothing else in life to live for?

I decided that there's always more to live for than standing or sitting in a betting office all day, so it had to be something else. It then began to dawn on me what gambling actually offers people. Gambling offers people nothing more than a chance, or chances. And who doesn't want more chances in life? Especially when one reaches the middle age period in life and possibly feels they have grossly underperformed, the chance to strike it rich is something to chase, something to almost dedicate yourself to in an attempt to beat the bookmaker and make a success of yourself, at least financially. If one does strike success, then all that work has paid off, all the Saturday mornings studying the form in silence were so very worth it, and it all seems validated when the winner is able to turn to their critics and say, "I told you so!".

So, people become addicted to the offer of a chance at success, and where else are you offered chance after chance after chance of success except the casino, bookmakers, poker table or race track? I can't think of any, and I submit these reasons as to why gambling is so very addictive. This isn't, by the way, an argument in favour or against gambling, but it does raise the question of whether certain people are exploited with the false hope gambling offers. Or is it false hope? There is a chance of winning big available to everyone who partakes. "You have to be in it to win it" as the National Lottery advertising slogan reminds us.

So I would like to finish by wishing all of you 'having a punt' today, the best of luck, but also that life, even in its later stages, has so much more to offer!