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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    What causes gambling addiction?

    Related Topics
    Addiction Gambling
    What is the biological basis for the addiction? Why do some get addicted and some don't?
    • 1 answer
    • Dr Susan Rowe
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  • Dr Susan Rowe

    Psychologist

    Dr Susan Rowe is a Director of Mindhack psychology clinic where she also works as a clinician. Dr Susan is a specialist in providing effective … View Profile

    There are many factors that contribute to someone being vulnerable to developing an addiction to gambling. These often include biological, psychology, social and economical factors. So as you suggested in your question, for some people gambling behaviour can become a problem, whereas for others it does not affect other areas of their life (family, work, etc). However this is not just due to biology, but because of several factors that occur together. 

    In regards to biological and gambling, research suggests that differences in neurochemicals can contribute to someone's gambling behaviour. These are differences in chemicals that regulate mood, arousal, and reward. For some people these chemicals play a role in them being impulsive and they often have different levels of self control.

    These chemicals are:  norepinephrine (arousal), serotonin (regulation of mood), and dopamine (regulating of reward). 

    It is thought that for some people with these biological differences their use of gaming machines may reward their gambling in a way that reinforces it and then creates a “habit” of sorts. 

    This is only a very brief overview of biological factors. There are many other biological factors (as well as psychological and social factros) that research has investigated. For more about this I would recommend looking at the work of Alex Blaszczynski from University of Sydney, also see his article “A pathways Model of Problem and Pathalogical Gambling” (2002) Addiction 97, pp487-499. 




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