Bottoming Out: The Logic of Loss

The Las Vegas Sun offered an interesting 3 part series of articles that includes impressive graphics.


The pull of a drug, a push to the brink

When the jackpot hits, “It feels like you’re getting high.” And when it doesn’t? “You want to crucify yourself.”

Illness theory gaining ground for gambling addiction
The mere sight of a slot machine can trigger a chemical response in the gambling addict’s brain in the same way the thought of cocaine stimulates a drug addict.

Could the game be partly to blame for addiction?

Schüll [Natasha Dow Schüll, a cultural anthropologist at MIT who has spent years interviewing gamblers...] , whose book documenting machine gambling and compulsive behavior, “Addiction By Design,” will be published next year, says machines play more of a role in the addiction process than the industry would care to admit.

“This isn’t like buying shoes,” she said. “These are potent and powerful devices that are effective in shifting your inner mood and state.”

People with gambling problems told Schüll of “zoning out” in front of a machine and gambling for gambling’s sake rather than for reasons that make sense to casual gamblers and are cited by manufacturers, such as the pleasure of winning something, however small, or the anticipation of a big jackpot.