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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.

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