The Gambler

Kenny Rogers starred in the film The Gambler and the singer liked to joke that he was not much of a gambler himself.

“ I learnt a long time ago, I can’t win enough money to excite me, but I can lose enough to depress
me”, he told NPR in 2015, “So I don’t gamble.”

That quote does kind of sum up the problem of gambling in a general way.

The downside always seems to hurt much more than the upside feels good. Once had a discussion about the emotional sides of winning and losing in gambling, and someone suggested the answer: winning feels good about a quarter of how bad it feels to lose. Or, if you flip it around losing feels bad about 4 times as much as winning feels good. From my own experience and memories, I'd say that was a fairly accurate estimate.