Degenerate Gambler (How to Stop Being a Gambling Addict)

I can remember the first time I heard the expression “degenerate gambler.” I was listening to The Howard Stern Show, and Norm MacDonald was the guest. He and Artie Lange were talking about various things, and at some point, they called someone “a drunk and a degenerate gambler.”

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At the time, I was still active in my own addictive behaviors. (I’m a recovering alcoholic.)

And I thought being called a drunk and a degenerate gambler wasn’t necessarily an insult.

Luckily, gambling has never been one of my addictions. I can take it or leave it.

But I thought it would be interesting to write a more-or-less serious post about being a degenerate gambler.

What Is a Degenerate Gambler?

So, what is a degenerate gambler?

According to The Urban Dictionary, which I suppose is an expert in such things, a degenerate gambler is “an active gambling addict who bets money and/or objects they can’t afford to lose.”

The Urban Dictionary, of course, provides definitions that are crowd-sourced. Users provide the definitions, and other users vote those definitions up or down.

Another poster on the site had a lot to say about degenerate gamblers. He suggests that degenerate gamblers have a one-way ticket to prison. And he suggests that real degenerates gamble not only with their money, but also with their reputation and sexual organs.

The words self-discipline and willpower also come up, as well as “unsavory.”

This user goes on to suggest that the only things that can get a degenerate gambler to quit are being put in the hospital or getting arrested for a felony.

Honestly, based on this description, being a degenerate gambler sounds a lot like being an alcoholic.

And I can vouch for that personally.

Is a Degenerate Gambler the Same Thing as a Gambling Addict?

Based on the definition from The Urban Dictionary, it sure sounds like a degenerate gambler is the same thing as a gambling addict. In other words, it’s a euphemism in the same way that “drunk” or “lush” is a euphemism for “alcoholic.”

What’s a gambling addict?

I’ll offer a definition of “gambling addict,” off the top of my head:

A gambling addict is someone who’s lost the power of choice when it comes to their own gambling.

A gambling addict doesn’t get to decide whether to place that next bet or not. It’s just like being an alcoholic and not having a choice about whether to keep drinking. It’s like being a heroin addict and not having a choice about whether to shoot up again.

Some people are skeptical of this definition, by the way. They complain that a gambling addict doesn’t have a physical addiction to gambling and ought to be able to quit anytime. They just need to assert their self-control and willpower.

But it’s way more complicated than that.

When you account for the role of dopamine in how you feel at any given time, process addictions (like gambling or sex addictions) are just as physically debilitating as any addiction to alcohol or drugs.

Addicted gamblers suffer from physical withdrawal symptoms just like people who are addicted to substances do.

Some gambling activities seem to be more addictive than others, too. Slot machines, in fact, are designed to be addictive. And I’ve heard video poker called the “crack cocaine of gambling.” Even if you only play full pay Jacks or Better or single deck blackjack, you’re still engaging in destructive behavior.

Is Being a Degenerate Gambler Fun?

Gambling is fun. People wouldn’t get started gambling if that weren’t the case. If you think about it, people drink and do drugs for the same reason — it’s fun.

And, in moderation, there’s nothing wrong with any of those activities. I’m a moral relativist, so I don’t think that gambling, drinking, or ingesting drugs are inherently sinful somehow. It has more to do with what effect your behavior has on other people than anything else.

It’s when you start engaging in those behaviors compulsively that they stop being fun. One of my favorite moments in The Big Lebowski illustrates this. Maude is talking to The Dude about her stepmother, Bunny,

“It’s a male myth about feminists that we hate sex. It can be a natural, zesty enterprise. But unfortunately there are some people – it is called satyriasis in men, nymphomania in women – who engage in it compulsively and without joy. Yes, Mr. Lebowski, these unfortunate souls cannot love in the true sense of the word. Our mutual acquaintance Bunny is one of these.”

Satyriasis and nymphomania are just words for sexual addiction, and if you extrapolate Maude’s definition of sexual addiction to apply to other addictions, this becomes clear:

People engaged in the behavior they’re addicted to take no joy in that behavior.

So, no — being a degenerate gambler is no fun.

Why You Always Lose When You’re Gambling

Let’s shift gears. Let’s talk about losing when gambling. For some people, it seems like they ALWAYS lose when gambling.

Why do you always lose when you’re gambling?

Here’s a short answer:

You don’t always lose.

If you lost 100% of the bets you made, you’d never gamble. You wouldn’t gamble long enough to become a degenerate gambler.

Most of the time, with most gambling games, you lose more often than you win. In rare cases, you might win more often than you lose.

But if the payout for those wins is lower than it should be, you’ll still lose money in the long run.

This ties into some concepts related to probability that you should understand before you place your first bet. It also ties into some concepts about how your bankroll works.

The first reason that the casino always wins is because they have a basically unlimited bankroll. Let’s suppose you found a low-rent casinos offering a coin-toss game. Further suppose that the game pays off at even money when you guess right.

Mathematically, in the long run, this is a break-even game. You wouldn’t lose money or win money.

But in real life, you wind up with occasional winning and losing streaks. In such a game, you’ll be far more likely than the casino to hit a losing streak that wipes you out.

For example, if you only have $10, and you bet it on a single coin toss, you might go broke. If you bet $5 on two successive coin tosses, you have a 25% probability of going broke.

The casino in that scenario, though, can cover that $10 bet an incredible number of times.

The second reason that the casino always wins is because every bet they offer has a mathematical edge over the player. This house edge is usually quantified as a predicted percentage of your action that the casino expects you to lose in the long run.

No matter how low the edge is, if you play long enough, you’ll eventually lose all your money.

How Much Does an Average Person Lose Gambling?

A lot of statistics about American business and worldwide business are available to the public. So, asking how much does an average person lose gambling seems reasonable.

It’s anything but, though.

Here’s what we do know, though:

An overwhelming majority of Americans gambe — north of 80%. And the industry itself generates $500 billion in profit every year.

Could you extrapolate from that?

The United States has roughly 210 million adults. If 85% of them gamble, you have about 180 million people who have gambled last year. Dividing $500 billion by 180 million people gives us an average loss of $2778 per gambler.

That’s misleading, though. Chances are that degenerate gamblers are creating much greater losses, while low rollers are creating much smaller losses.

I’ve read that the average addicted gambler generates $55,000 in debt before recovery. That’s a massive amount of money to lose on a seemingly innocuous hobby.

How Often Do Gamblers Really Win?

You might also want to know how often gamblers really win. This, of course, varies according to what kind of gambler you’re talking about. Casino gamblers often walk away with some profits. After all, if they didn’t, no one would gamble at casinos anymore.

I’ve seen estimates that seem to indicate that 20% of the gamblers who visit a casino leave with some winnings.

And, contrary to popular belief, casinos don’t mind winners. They understand that a degenerate gambler who’s had a winning session will return multiple times and lose the money he won on his previous losing visits.

Defining winning is complicated, too. If you define winning as ending the year with a net profit, I can promise you that the percentage gets much smaller.

Also, the number of professional gamblers actually earning a living from their betting is probably less than 1% of all the people gambling.

Finally, How Can You Stop Being a Degenerate Gambler?

When I quit drinking, I was told that absolute abstinence was the only solution for someone like me.

I suspect the same is true for the degenerate gambler.

If you want to quit gambling, you can never safely place even a single bet again. That kind of discipline is impossible to achieve on your own. Some kind of support group is almost certainly necessary.

Of course, you might not really be a degenerate gambler at all. Here’s an easy way to find out:

Go to your local casino every night for three weeks in a row. Set a $30 budge for each visit; once you’ve lost $30, quit. Don’t leave with winnings, and don’t lose more than $30, no matter what. And don’t skip any nights.

If you can control your gambling with that much specificity, you’re probably not really a degenerate gambler.

You just like to gamble and might have made some bad decisions.

It still might be a good idea to quit, but that decision is up to you.

Conclusion

Being a real degenerate gambler is no more fun than being a hopeless alcoholic. If you suspect you have a problem, get some help. You can call a therapist, or you can find a Gamblers Anonymous meeting.

You might even be able to find a solution that works better for you.

But if you exhibit gambling problems, I beg you to get help before you ruin your life.