All-day online gambling: Full-time job or addiction?

People have some serious skills when it comes to playing online gambling games. Others are just committed and don’t have anything else to do, while some may be letting gambling get the best of them. One gambler by the name of Aaron from Australia, who lives in a one-room apartment, happens to fall somewhere within that spectrum.

”I don’t really understand what it is people find so fascinating about the outside world. When I wake up at 2pm every day all I want to do is gamble online and I usually do that until I pass out. I am very content in my life in doing nothing else and I don’t get what everyone likes about going to the park,” said Aaron.

Aaron on average makes about US$30,000 a month from gambling games, but at times has suffered as much as US$20,000 in losses in one day. Despite this he still lives in a modest Sydney-based flat that has no windows. Aaron says he turns on artificial light in the apartment, but does choose to go on a treadmill every day in order to keep his gambling fever strong.

At one point a family member took Aaron to a psychologist named Anne who said, “Aaron seems to be like the type of person who actually has a depression problem and therefore his gambling is his addiction to connect with the outside world when in fact he is quite sad. This is based off his comments stating that he feels the outside world is boring and his lack of understanding of why people engage in outside activities such as going to the park.”

Sings of addiction can also include being pre-occupied with gambling, gambling as a way to escape problems as well as returning to get even Also, Aaron chooses to gamble every waking moment of his life. If someone were to do that with work, they would be considered a workaholic, the therapist said.

For Aaron though, his gambling is also his means of life, he said. For him, he takes his gambling job seriously just like other people take their job seriously, so he thinks it is unfair for other people to criticize his means of life. “Stock brokers work all day and night on Wall Street making and trading money, but so do people within al walks of life, so why does gambling have to be targeted?” Aaron said.

On the other side of the spectrum, moderation seems to be key, added one ex-gambler addict. For him, he personality is addictive so getting addicted to gambling was easy. For him, he only knows people who gamble either very casually or in an addictive manner. It is hard for people to find middle ground, he added.

Anne meanwhile added that there are two sides of the argument indeed but that gambling tends to bring out the harmful addictive nature of people rather than the so-called positive side. Take jogging for example. Jogging can be beneficial to one’s health, as is meditation etc., said Anne, adding the two activities can contribute to overall well being. However, people can also get addicted to these as well, at least in theory. Someone could be obsessed with jogging so much that he or she neglects other things in their life. Gambling meanwhile, for Anne, only produces losses and false hope.

False hope though is in the eye of the idiot, to put it in loose terms. A smart person, according to Aaron, is someone who can control his or her behavior. For Aaron, he probably is an introvert with some issues hovering below the surface, but so do most people and they nevertheless need to go about their day making money as well as find a means to stay sane.

There are always two sides to the argument and depending on whom you ask you are bound to receive very different answers. As one of the interviewee mentioned, moderation seems to be key in addition to knowing one’s limitations. Addiction is excess behavior without knowing limitations so typically those with such a personality are bound to be addicted to something. If people can maintain limitations and know where they stand in relation to whatever it is they encounter than they will be safer off and less susceptible to being affected by things such as gambling.

Meanwhile, in terms of whether a gambler can turn gambling into a full-time job is hard to say. Chances are if a person is making it into a career they are quite good at it, and because they are good at it they are making money and probably do not want to stop, thus intensifying the probability of making themselves addicted. For now though, it’s probably a good idea that you keep online gambling at a successful minimum unless you realize your personality clearly or have a lot of money lying around that you don’t care about losing.