Louis Theroux's Gambling Documentary.

[lmfao]

A film maker called Louis Theroux makes a documentary in Las Vagas where he follows around compulsive/regular gamblers. This guy doesn't like to insert in his own opinion too much in these documentaries, he prefers to just observe people and lightly poke them with questions. 

You can get an idea of what the industry of gambling is like. The people he follows are addicts, and most of them are in complete and utter denial about it. There's this elderly woman in particular who has lost $4000000 in 7 years. 

If you're gonna waste your time with television, this documentary is pretty good. I found it interesting, and it's given me a feel for the gambling industry. 

Casinos just want to make money, in a nutshell. They will employ long term and short term strategies for this. The odds are stacked against you. People have all sorts of emotional systems triggered, and they become hardcore addicts. The psychological manipulation is not covert at all. 

It is by "abusing" the human psyche that these gambling companies make money. Dopaminergic circuits are being targeted in the most blatantly obvious ways. 

And even though I don't gamble, I can relate to the people involved in gambling very well. Anyone who's an addict can relate to other addicts. 

 

And so it is I realise that my addictive behaviour mirrors that of a compulsive gambler. I will search and scroll on the Internet repeatedly, searching for something to give the next "hit". 

It's as though I'm at a slot machine. With every new video I watch or every new web page I click, I'm not gaurenteed to find something good. But it's the hope that something good will come that hooks me on to the behaviour

Edited July 1, 2018 by lmfao