- This topic has 13 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
Some of you may remember I’m doing a PhD on Tourism to Iraq and Afghanistan (which, by the way is progressing slowly ever onwards towards the data collection / questionnaires and fun bit…) ……….. however for some reason I have now ended up in the ‘risk perception’ dark and dusty corner of the library (with scary books about throwing dice and mathematical formulas) These books suggests that people who choose to visit adventurous places also like to gamble.
So my question (before I have to read any more of these books) is……Are any of you serious gamblers in the traditional sense of the word – poker / roulette / black jack / horses etc???
Im a gambler.I walk the wire….boom and bust.
I once had to pawn off my Elton John LP collection just to scape some cash together.That was a sad day.
Ive been in an out of gamblers annoymous numerous times.But I keep relapsing at the pokies.
Most days I hang out in my local ladbrokes ,punting on horses.Never gambled with money, but regularly did it with my life. Used to get off on the thrill of beating the odds. Started off playing chicken with cars, trucks and trains and graduated to getting in the way of lethal weapons. Horse, cards and dice bored me rigid. No fun. Won money from friends when they dared me to pull off certain high risk stunts. Didn’t lose many times.
Interesting – I like the theory of saving your luck for when its needed or gambling with life instead of money which I suppose is the logical follow on – although I haven’t yet found anything similar to that in the books yet – the mathamatical bits state that luck is not something you can ‘save for a rainy day’ and the gambeler’s idea of a bad streak / luck y dice etc is all in the mind.
An Elton John LP collection doesn’t sound worth a lot to me but then I am always the one that loses at strip poker cos I don’t understand the rules!
Thanks for the responses which at least provide the incentive for the next few chapters!
@vlindsay wrote:
An Elton John LP collection doesn’t sound worth a lot to me
At least Lightstalker managed to hang on to his Village People collection.
:D
I know a lot of guys who continually risk their lives, but wouldn’t know one end of a horse or deck of cards from another or have any interest in them. There is a certain element of self destructiveness in gambling. The will to risk everything and risk the consequences to beat the odds. Be a man.
If you look at evolutionary psychology, it will tell you a lot about man’s gambling habits and desires. It’s almost like the thrill of the hunt or battle, about being able to out think the unpredictable and make it seem like you have inside information or such a brilliant intellect that you can foresee seemingly unpredictable outcomes.
The majority of men (who lead lives of quiet desperation) no longer risk their lives, no more hunter gatherer stuff and industry has made them, to some degree, surplus to requirements. Gambling, in its variously domesticated forms allows them to experience an element of risk, a bit of adventure (and you cannot have an adventure without being scared) and a chance to shine in an otherwise dull environment.
I suppose it is the long, slow, evolutionary withdrawl from adrenaline (presumably having begun around the time of the Industrial revolution) and one wonders how long it will be before evolution dispenses with the adrenal gland altogether and one wonders what the kidney will replace it with.
Yes I gamble, even before I started to running around the world.
My gambling habits:
Poker (Texas hold em) both online and live
FOREX trading and a little day trading
Property speculation
High risk investments
Your study sounds interesting, are you including people from 3rd world and developing countries in your study?
I’m a bit confused here Jamesintheworld – I’m not studying gambelers but people who visit iraq and afghanistan as tourists. (from anywhere) – who are therefore ‘gambelling with thier lives’ – or so the theory goes.
In reply to mick the hack i think its interesting to note that ‘adventure tourists’ are not actualy looking for real adventure (as in the serious possiblity that something nasty might happen – after all dead tourists are bad for business) but are playing on thier own personal fears (heights / water / air) in order to get the adrenaline rush. People appear to trade off security in search of higher satisfaction (the old maslow thing) but infact are not really trading off the safety / security issues as they spend loads of time picking thier adventure operator and ensuring that the person hanging the bungee rope for them has a good safety record! – Your right – reserachers think that the growth in adventure tourism is down to the fact that everything in the world nowadays is too safe and so people are looking for a little bit extra.
@vlindsay wrote:
I’m a bit confused here Jamesintheworld – I’m not studying gambelers but people who visit iraq and afghanistan as tourists. (from anywhere) – who are therefore ‘gambelling with thier lives’ – or so the theory goes.
I work in Iraq and travel to “Dangerous Places” and occasionally run with scissors in my hand
Gambling bites. I always lose, and I always expect to lose. The few times I’ve been at the blackjack table people give me glares for making the most glaring errors. And slots stink.
I wouldn’t draw any correlation between gambling and those who travel to “unsafe” parts of the world. In my mind at least, they are entirely different spectrums of the human psyche.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.