The Psychology of Gambling (International Series in Experimental Social Psychology)

It is a difficult problem to understand why people gamble at all, but far more difficult to understand why a person will borrow, steal, defraud, lie, break a range of promises, prove irresponsible and commit a range of crimes all in order to gamble. In this comprehensive study the author examines gambling behaviour, with descriptions of specific games, along with different explanations for gambling and approaches to treatment of problem gambling. In the preface the author points out there are few accurate statistics regarding problem gambling, and demonstrates laboratory experiments on gambling are largely unreliable. Consequently the book relies mostly on field studies in drawing its conclusions. While relying on field studies for data, the book does not limit itself in its theoretical approach. All perspectives can coexist, and a joint approach to understanding is more effective as an explanation than any one perspective alone.