Bet you won’t stop gambling: The role of cognitive distortions in persistent gambling.

Kenneth A., Saranchak (2003) Bet you won’t stop gambling: The role of cognitive distortions in persistent gambling. . Master's Thesis, Department of Psychology, Central Connecticut State University.

Abstract

The role of cognitive distortions in persistent gambling Gambling has increased enormously in recent years and there has been a commensurate increase in scientific interest in the phenomenon. Officially sanctioned gambling in America first took the form of lotteries-the “painless tax on the willing” (Browne & Brown, 1994, p.339). The colonies used lotteries to partially finance their war of revolution and some of the nation’s top universities were built on lottery revenue. Since 1964, many states have introduced lotteries to help meet their fiscal needs. These government-operated lotteries only suggest the prevalence of gambling today. According to the Gambling Magazine article Horses for Courses? (1998) “lottery industry revenue jumped from an inflation-adjusted $6.5 billion in 1982 to about $43 billion in 1996, the latest year for which figures are available. Over the same period, casino industry revenues skyrocketed from $164.9 billion to $501.6 billion.” Yet this figure represents only money gambled through legal venues. Shaffer and Custer (1989) estimate that nearly four times as much money is gambled illegally as legally. The authors further suggest that 80 to 90 percent of the American public have at one time engaged in some form of gambling and that 3 to 5 percent gamble excessively and wishes to stop. The problem of compulsive gambling is a growing concern in the United States (and world wide) as the opportunities for legal gambling have proliferated. This thesis will begin by reviewing some of the literature on pathological gambling and then go on to examine one hypothesis about the genesis of individual problem gambling the early, “big” win.