Dopamine

I listened to Jonah Lehrer on NPR last week (of a re-run of a march interview).  Talking about, among other things, how dopamine effects gamblers.

As he illustrated via monkeys who got a squirt of juice, and their dopamine levels surged.  However, this surge diminished quickly, just like how humans have diminishing returns of happiness on new purchases.  But if you give the monkey cues before the squirt (lights flashing, bells ringing, etc), the surge doesn’t diminish with each squirt.

Hence gambling.

Slot machine sirens are obvious, but I think the roulette ball stopping on your number, the dice coming up seven, or the dealer flipping over a card that makes your hand are cues that are just as powerful, provide just as much dopamine, and encourage humans to try to find the pattern in randomness.

He described a Parkinson’s patient who was given a dopamine agonist , and suddenly, with no prior gambling tendency, was compelled to put her whole life savings into a slot machine over a six month period.  As she felt, in a rush of the drug that she could figure out the randomness of the system. This is the essence of how I tilt in poker, and I think the reason why I would lose control of myself at the end of long sessions regardless if I was winning or losing.

Anyway, as I pursue a career change to where I’ll be analyzing stocks for a living, which is extremely similar to poker, I wonder how long I can keep myself from doing something incredibly stupid.