Magical belief in gambling

 

Repetitive superstitious behavioral actions, or rituals, are well known in every society and intended to cause any number of desired results. Rituals are also notorious for being the gambler’s forte—actions performed by a gambler for the purpose of
gaining control of the outcome of a game of chance.

According to the anthropological definition of Magic, “The belief and/or practice in the control over objects or events by verbal or nonverbal gestures (words or actions) where there is no empirical (natural or logical) connection between the gesture as cause and the object or even as effect,” the behaviors demonstrated by gamblers, sports players, and others alike, are examples of magical superstitions and beliefs.

Magical belief systems help a person become comfortable in an unknown environment.
Developing these circumstances of the unknown, give the player-believer an apparent method of controlling the situation.

When actions or behaviors are performed for an intended purpose, there is no
empirical evidence of a connection between the act and the desired outcome.
Perhaps they are released as a vocal expletive, or an angry and defeated gesture.
This reaction acts as a substitute action to not knowing how to deal with the situation, and reduces the tension caused by the frustrating experience.

The gestures become the expected reaction in a given circumstance, and eventually become supported by myth. Eventually, they are seen to be the cause of desired results, and “When practiced instrumentally, one has magic.”

Magical and superstitious behaviors seek a connection between truly independent occurrences. If this association is reinforced by more occurrences, players are conditioned to believe its action directly affects the outcome. The response on the part of the individual, naturally, is to think something along the lines of “What did I just do to get that great reward? I must have done something.”

He tries it again, tries a slight variant on it, prepares to try it another time, when … bingo, the next random reward shows up and his theory is resoundingly confirmed confirmed—“I knew it, do this behavior enough times and that causes the reward to happen.”

This is the pattern humans follow in their conditioning. Addiction to these patterns constitutes a constellation of behaviors that predict a way of life. Such as a magical belief system of someone who carries a lucky Rabbit’s foot everywhere. This is the reason in one theory for the development of persistence in or pathological gambling.

Regardless of which comes first, superstitious beliefs are considered to play a large part in the maintenance of gambling behavior by giving a player a false illusion of control that lets the player have a very real reduction in stress level. A player, known as Preacher, won seven straight hands. This was attributed to his belief in his good relationship with God.

There is also a connection between need and winning, such that when you really need to win, you do. Knowing the probability of a game would propose bets based on any other factors and engage in magical behaviors, when viewed within their belief system, their gestures are indeed rational. They believe the cards can be controlled, and therefore, their behaviors are instead examples of the players’ rationality.

In human memory the testimony of a positive case always overshadows the negative one. One gain easily outweighs several losses. Thus the instances which affirm magic always loom far more conspicuously than those which deny it. Failure in gambling is often easily explained away by belief systems, while at other times it does not accurately become part of the believer’s consciousness.

It is for these reasons that belief systems are often so persistent. Reinforcement is
necessary to condition someone to believe that his actions or gestures are affecting or causing a certain occurrence. Despite understanding the probability and independence of events in gambling games, gamblers repeatedly exhibit actions that display their belief in an ability to control the outcome of an event in a game.

This information, while hopeful and aimed to help, is completely untested and purely conjecture. The magical beliefs pose many possibilities for gambling studies and research. So I leave you with this thought - "Is that your Rabbit's foot I see"?
Good Luck at the tables.