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The Tale of a Slots
Addict
By now, the notion of an addiction to gambling is
well-entrenched in the public consciousness. Just as with any other
type of gambling, there are those who abuse their enjoyment of
online slot machines and develop an addiction to these slot games on
the World Wide Web. Susanne Orton was one of these. On Tuesday,
Orton –a British citizen and apparent slot machine addict- was
sentenced to ten months in jail. The inveterate gambler had wasted
away a full one hundred thousand pounds of the savings accumulated
by herself and her husband, and stolen an additional sum of just
under eighty thousand pounds from her husband’s law practice. Orton
simply could not give up.
The existence of a slot machine addict is a sad one. Just like those
who have an unhealthy reliance on alcohol, sex, or any other vice,
gambling addicts simply can’t find the power to stop. Orton’s case
is a good illustration of this sickness. The gambling addict will go
to any means possible (including theft, or pawning all their
possessions) to feed their addiction. Most people who are addicted
to slots games feel that they are able to justify their continued
play with the “logic” that they are sure to hit “the big one,” if
they just keep playing. Just try convincing a gambling addict that
the next turn of the reels is no more likely at all to produce a
jackpot than the one before… they simply will not heed logic. The
deeper a slot machine addict gets in debt the more they believe that
they need to keep playing – because they have a progressively larger
need to win, to bail themselves out.
Experts say that there is a definite potential for addiction with
slot machines, both tangible and virtual. The blinking neon lights,
the whir of the reels, the breathtaking moment waiting to see what
you will land… like a potato chip, slot games make it difficult for
someone to partake just once.
Back to September 2008 Archive.
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