Mario told me some time ago: “I was 14 years old when I first bet on a sports betting website. I put in 50 euros and they gave me another 50, for my pretty face. To bet and win you have to know and I know a lot about football They have always told me. At first, I had a great time: I won and I controlled it, or at least I thought so. After a year everything was different. I was betting on my mobile phone, on my tablet, wherever I went. This accompanied me 24 hours a day. I wish I could go back and not screw everything up. ”
Mario is a patient with pathological gambling problems or gambling, affected by the “new technological boom”: online gambling.
Poker, bingo, casino games, betting and contests. You can be recreational online games (dexterity, luck or that combine both factors) or chance, where there is usually an economic reward that depends entirely on chance.
Why do the Online Games Engage?
The online game has a series of characteristics that give it a much greater addictive potential than that of the face-to-face game.
- Visual stimulation that manages to attract attention,
- The possibility of playing solo
- The brevity of the time between the bet and the result that acts with immediate reinforcement.
- The possibility of playing a low bet.
- The facility to be able to play through any device connected to the network and its availability 24 hours
- Privacy: it can be played in front of the home computer, or with the discretion provided by the applications downloaded on the mobile, without worrying about what the people around will think, contrary to what happens in a bar or in a casino.
The most widely used online game today is poker. Eva told me just a few weeks ago: “I started betting at the age of 20. Since I met poker, I liked it, and online poker, togel hongkong. First, I put in 20 euros. I won and I doubled on several occasions. win enough, until one day I had a bad hand and I lost everything. I put 50 euros. Then another 50 and so on. I thought I had to go for all, and not just get them back, but triple them. I don’t know what happened to me If I got a job, he would risk everything he charged me. One day I took my father’s credit card and lost 600 euros. In two years, I will have lost about 3,000 euros, because that is all I have had within reach. had more, I’m sure I would have spent it. I was like possessed, pissed off, excited, I don’t know, like a motorcycle. ”
The change to the online game has brought about a modification in the profile of the pathological player. Some time ago, the profile of a man between 30-40 years old predominated, whose objective was to earn money or recover what was lost.
The cases of Mario and Eva are a sample of how the profile is currently found in young people between 15 and 35 years old, many of them students or university graduates. Every time they play more togel Singapore, leaving aside their daily reality, family, studies and friends.
How to Know If It Is A Hobby or Addiction?
The hobby is the practice of games of chance as a form of entertainment and fun, in which the player participates in a moderate way and enjoys the game experience without taking great risks. This is the usual practice of the general population that does not generate personal problems.
On the other hand, pathological gambling is a disorder that appears among behavioural addictions in medical and psychological classifications. It consists of the loss of control of the behaviour in relation to the game that is characterized by having:
1. Serious consequences for people:
- The subjective experience of discomfort.
- Academic, labour, economic, social and/or legal problems associated with gambling.
2. Psychological dependence that manifests itself through:
- Craving: desire, desire or irresistible drive to bet.
- Modification of the state of mind: an increasing sensation of tension before betting.
- Pleasure, relief or even euphoria while maintaining the game behaviour.
- Agitation or irritability if it is not possible to satisfy the game behaviour.
- Loss of control and impotence.
