Do productive thing & let the productive activity improving your life financially.

Gambling is actually counter productive activity & bring no value to the life (apart for entertainment). When I was small, I used to gamble with family, either playing cards or mahjong. At the end of the session, you either win the money from your family members or lose the money to your family members. The amount of the money is close loop. End of the day, you loose all the time playing the stupid games which can be used to do more memorable stuffs.

If you gamble externally, you must able to do these

1) Have the thinking that the money lost will not make come back, stop thinking of revenge gambling. Just call it a quick & you will be good. 99.9% gamblers can't quit because they cannot let go the money they have lost to date. They always have thinking, I just need 1 last round to recoup the losses but that last round never last, they got trapped further & further.

2) Stop the urge to get immediate monetary gain. Every thing need time. If you cannot overcome this, your will be exploited mentally into gambling because only gambling will give you immediate lose/win result.

You are trying to cut corner in the life, nothing else.

Because you intend to cut corner in life, you resorted to gambling with the hopes. Hopes that the gambling will provide you the path 1 in millions probability to gain access to the resources (gambling prize reward).

You need to solve the root cause that lead you to this path. If you do not solve the root cause, you will return to it. There are ways in life to look for resources by creating values to the world and gambling is not one of the path. Gambling do not creates value to the world. It creates no value to your life either as there is no knowledge gained to handle bigger pool of world resources.

The sooner you wake up & face the reality, the faster you will be on your foot again.

This post has been edited by nihility: Aug 5 2023, 02:23 AM

There is bad side & good side of the gambling. While majority will feels that the gambling has more negative influence, it doesn't mean that gambling itself do not do good at all.

When I'm coaching my younger generation (limiting them to play during CNY only), I let them decide themselves the good & bad. I tell them to harness the good side of the gambling instead of being controlled by the gambling on the bad side.

What good do gambling do ? Daily decision making.
When you got a good cards - you focus on offense / leverage.
When you got a bad cards - you focus on damage control - as long as not losing the most = win.

In life, we will not get the best case scenario all the time, when we are in such position, be ready to optimize the scenario. When we are at the bad condition, we don't focus on the winning, we focus on defense / minimize the losses as much as possible. It trains brain on the strategy play almost akin to chess games - card games like lavi, chor dai dee, poker (etc).

2nd - it simulates the maths. You will be dealing with +-x/ at each games & you will be so serious with it because you are dealing with real money.

The bad thing of gambling - it is zero sum games. You do not create value to society & world. This element need to be discovered by gamblers themselves. Once they got bored winning/losing the money from/to their close family / relative / friends, they will cease to engage in gambling.

For the vast majority, it may sound too complicated. The best way to protect them will be asking them not to start.

It is just like drug - if you abuse the drug usage & you will become a junky . However, if you are trained to handle drug with correct dosage for medical purpose, ppl will know you as a pharmacist.

That aspect, I can't say much but from my personal observation.

Paternal side:

1)My grandfather gambles only for mahjong, Chinese chess & Go chess but he set his time to engage in such activity. There were sequence of priority of his daily tasks over gambling. Gambling is the least priority.
2)My grandmother gambles on mahjong, hardcore on 3d & 4d.
3)My father followed my grandmother traits - mahjong, 3d, 4d, Chinese chess, cards, Casino occasionally.
4)My mother-mahjong, 3d, 4d, casino on monthly.
5)My 2nd,3rd & 4th Uncle - only mahjong on tactical play - I was trained hands on what options can a player make, what were the consequences.

Maternal side:
1)My grandfather gambles only mahjong on tactical play. Also same, there are sequence of priority of daily tasks over gambling. Gambling is the least priority.
2)Uncles & aunties - all gambling stuffs they play, horse betting, 3d,4d until Singapore counter & Sabah Sarawak counters can bet.

Within my siblings: none of us are showing any gambling addiction. After some time, we feel it is more like wasting time to engage in such activity.

The dopamine thing, I believe it is more related to the amount of the money place on the bet and it is an aspect that can be trained. If the amount of bet is insignificant or the reward amount is the quantum that you have the capability to deal with in daily life, you will not feel excited about it. It is kind of risk reward ratio stuff. Imagine you play mahjong, each set winning the most you get RM10 per game but you are making >>> than this amount daily, you will feel this activity is very counter productive, as there a better thing to do.

Whereas, if every single game can give 1k or 10k or 100k - an prize reward amount, which you still have yet to attain the knowledge to handle it in your daily life, you will feel super excited.

The majority of the ppl engaged in the gambling because they are cornered in the life. They feel there is no better, faster, productive way to earn living than gambling.

Try to win the prize but end up loosing their capital they can't afford.
After loosing the capital they can't afford, thinking of recouping losses by revenge gambling.
The revenge gambling soon turned tragedy, when they losses more of the capital not owned by them.
That will by a very typical cycle.