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Gambling and chance

A game of chance is a game whose outcomes are partly or wholly subject to chance. It may be from a drawing or a distribution of cards, a die roll, etc. When the game is totally subject to chance, we talk about game of pure chance. When the player must determine its action based on past or future random events and probabilities, it more readily speak of rational gambling.

The term also refers to gambling, as for ex. slot machines. Most of these are pure or reasoned gambling.

The study of strategic issues in games has created a mathematical theory: the theory of games.

Gambling interests

The introduction of chance in games is often sought, however, games of chance, like all games, can become addictive for some players.

Purpose of chance in games

The main aim of the game is to get a leisure activity or physical or psychic training. The presence of random in the game adds an element of unpredictability. The expectation of a trump card in a card game, pending stabilization (random) of the ball in the game of roulette .or rebound (random) of rugby ball, increase the feeling of desire.

The presence of chance in some games allows to reduce the influence of the technical merits of the players. One possible goal is to play more fairly between players of unequal technical merit as adults and children. For example, the game of chess that has no chance, is used to measure the intellectual abilities of the players (or even human player against computer player), unlike pure gambling as the game of heads or tails, that is completely fair to the players.

Chance can be considered as the opponent in the game. For example in the cooperative game “Knights of the Round Table”, players play together against the difficulties of the game given by randomly drawn cards or dice thrown . In some games like blackjack, the player plays against the bank that has a completely random play. In the event that such games are reasoned chance, the player’s goal is to find a technique to “beat the chance.” Game theory is a mathematical approach to such policy issues.

In some games, chance is simply the goal to achieve a result or answer to a question in a totally random way. The game of heads or tails is used in football to decide which team starts the game.

Addiction

People who engage in “games” of chance and gambling can develop a strong dependence on them. This is called psychopathology (addiction) of “pathological gambling”. According to psychoanalyst Edmund Bergler, there are six characteristics of pathological gamblers:

  1. He must play regularly: the issue here is to know from when the subject performs “too much.”
  2. The game takes precedence over all other interests.
  3. There is optimism in the player that is not initiated by repeated experiences of failure.
  4. The player never stops until he wins.
  5. Despite the precautions that he originally promised  he ends up taking too many risks.
  6. There is in him a subjective experience of “thrill” (a shivering sensation, excitement, tension, both painful and pleasant) during the phases of play.

This text is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License (CC-BY-SA)

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