Motivation, masochism, and slot machine gambling.
In the interaction between the rapidly proliferating slot gambling machines and Americans' minds and brains, there are subtle lures that keep people playing, and that even the game devisers do not fully understand. As they project onto the random machines, people enter a zone that resembles a meditative trance I have called praying to the god of chance. Masochism as it applies to gambling is a dynamic concept that requires the suffering to be viewed by imagined and projected parental imagos, who reward the gambler with love if not gambling success. Other motivations are evident in slot machine players, such as grief gambling and a fantasy of controlling losses. While gambling is as universal as religious instincts, state sponsorship of machine gambling is a conflict of interest for government, which is established to promote the general welfare, not addict the citizenry to raise revenues.
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry; Consultant to Neurology (Movement Disorders); Faculty, Psychoanalytic Center, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
David V
DV
Forrest
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008398:Masochism / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009042:Motivation; D013219:State Government