A Funny (And Fun) Thing Called Gambling

Sumber: dokpri

The Voice Inside Your Head

Have you ever questioned the ‘devilish’ voice that influenced you to gamble away the last rupiah you had? Let's say for that 8-leg parlay that can turn 100.000 rupiah into 3 million, just so the result is the same as always? In the beginning, many gamblers get introduced to gambling as an excuse to burn off ‘cold money’, but as time goes on, this could turn quickly into a rabbit hole that would eat many individuals who engage in it alive – a hobby that turns into a money-eating addiction. It may be easy for us to look down on gamblers, where we often question from afar, “Why do they keep doing this, knowing they have hungry wives and children waiting at home?” The truth is, while gambling is a very complex behaviour, it reflects us as a society. We as humans love to take risks, in fact, we built our society from taking risks.

High-risk behaviour keeps us going, it's the thing that makes humans feel ‘alive’, from walking on a tightrope suspended 300 meters above the ground to now trying their luck at an online casino website. These ‘voices’ that you hear have a name, dopamine, referred to as the ‘pleasure chemical.’ These spikes your brain when you face uncertainty or a 20 times return on your money,  and dopamine loves anticipation more than pleasure itself. So when you are gambling that last 100.000 rupiah of yours, remember that you do it for the love of the game, even more than the gain itself.​

Gambling is a very complex thing to tackle. It covers many economic terms that, when looked at face value, may seem irrational. Think about it, we have always been taught to think at the margin, but gamblers seem to go the opposite way. Gamblers think in the past, trying to cover past losses to reach the break-even point. That is why we often hear people say, “Just give me my money back, and I am out of this position”, while the best thing to do is just not to gamble in the first place. We often laugh at gamblers losing their money and say that we will never get to that point, but when we get deep into this topic, we realize that we are not truly different from gamblers. 

Shortcut to the Pearly Gates of Hell

Gambling has a complex economic explanation. Neoclassical economics states that rational actors maximise utility with full information, yet this framework often fails to explain why people gamble. To understand why individuals might risk their last dime, it's important to discuss heuristics. In consumer behaviour, heuristics are defined as efficient cognitive processes that are done consciously or unconsciously while ignoring part of the information given (Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011). 

These mental shortcuts are the main reason why individuals keep going even after going past the line of rationality. These heuristics save effort, but they generate biases that ruin the clarity of the mind. While gambling is a game of chance in its simplest form, these shortcuts often turn gambling into a game of vibe while throwing all the necessary calculations out the window. At face value, it may seem foolish to have these mental shortcuts, but we ourselves have heuristics in our daily lives. Ever assume that your next accounting quiz will have a good grade just because you did well on your last five quizzes? In behavioural economics, this is explained as the hot hand, where actors treat independent events as dependent. So we should not laugh at gamblers, but empathise with them, because we are not too far from them, we just haven’t put our money in.

One of the key heuristics in the context of gambling is Mental Accounting, where money is seen differently by its origin or use. The often-used term “cold money” falls under this category, and many gambling website operators exploit this by using things such as credits, chips, and online funds to reduce the ‘pain of paying.’ Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Mental Accounting is the reason why the usage of credit cards, Paylater, etc., is so addictive, because economic actors feel that it isn’t their money that they are using. While it is ‘fun’ in the short run, these arrears will always go back to haunt. Another key heuristic is Gamblers Fallacy, to put in simply, have you ever thought to yourself, “Man I just lost three times, the next one will be the one” or “buang sial”, where we treat seemingly two or more unrelated scenarios and treat them as a chain of dependent events just because we feel like the universe is favoring and the hand we choose are making us into billionaires overnight. These mental shortcuts make gambling a fun addiction that many people love, where the hope of getting a profit keeps people going. Even with the fact that gambling is a game of chance, information alone (education, probability facts) can’t save you from losses. Humans are not robots because emotions are an essential part of our lives, and these biases will always come into play when we make a decision. So the best way to gain profit from gambling is not to gamble at all.

Rich Man Hobby?

While online gambling is banned in Indonesia, according to Pusat Pelaporan dan Analisis Keuangan in 2024, Indonesia has the highest number of online gambling users in the world, with over four million users, not including other hidden gambling websites. Even more concerning, 13% of these users are under the age of 21, with seemingly little to no income at all (PPATK, 2025). Data from Satuan Tugas Pemberantasan Perjudian Online shows that in 2023, 80% of online gambling users come from a lower-middle-income background, trying to make ends meet.

Although gambling is widely perceived as a ‘rich man's hobby,’ data reveal a much more complex reality. People in poverty are disproportionately affected by gambling addiction and are more vulnerable to its harms. Studies done in North America, which use homelessness as a poverty indicator, show that gambling addiction rates among homeless individuals are nine times higher than in the general population. Notably, 82.4% experienced gambling issues before becoming homeless, while 15.4% became homeless because of gambling addiction (Hamann & Matheson, 2017). With this in mind, we could see the case how the cycle of poverty increases gambling behavior, and gambling itself deepens poverty; this situation locks individuals and perpetuates them into an intergenerational poverty trap.

These data become clearer when examining gambling behaviour among low-income populations. Living in poverty increases the odds of developing a gambling problem by 28%, a stark reminder that these problems become a motor in which the cycle of poverty keeps running. While wealthier individuals often treat gambling as a form of entertainment, lower-middle-income individuals approach gambling as a financial strategy – a way to ‘turn their life around’ from the financial pressure that they are born into (Hamann & Matheson, 2017). Another theory developed that could be used to explain why low-income individuals engage in gambling activity despite its financial risks is the prospect theory. Tversky and Kahneman (1979), describe it as decision-making under risk that happens in two stages: an editing phase and an evaluation phase. In the editing phase, individuals simplify their financial decisions by perceiving gambling as a ‘chance to gain’, rather than carefully considering long-term risks. On the other hand, the evaluation phase explains how people tend to overweight small probabilities and underestimate large ones. Since many low-middle-income individuals already feel they are in a situation of loss, prospect theory predicts they become more willing to take risks.

Reducing the Fun?

Gambling not only carries financial losses, but also complex public-health challenges. Although many individuals think that they gamble as a way to have fun, many individuals have their finances destroyed, strained relationships, and a toxic spillover effect on people close to them. A key factor why gambling harms still exist is that traditional policy tools, such as information campaigns and financial warnings, assume that gamblers make rational and well-informed decisions (Gainsbury et al., 2018). In reality, many heuristics change judgment, and this ‘sense of control’ goes out the window quickly.

To minimize risk effectively, external interventions must go beyond merely providing information and instead reshape the context in which gambling decisions happen. Behavioral economics is a way to help by recognizing that decisions are influenced by emotions and external pressure. With this in mind, policymakers can design environments that promote safer behaviour while reducing gambling activity.

Personalized feedback is another important factor to consider. We should not talk about gambling as something taboo, but rather embrace the fact that many people are affected by it, even those who are close to us. The cultural stigma and legal consequences make individuals affected by gambling find it difficult to seek help. Many hesitate due to fear of social disgrace or criminal charges, until it is too late, when the financial and psychological harm becomes severe. When gamblers receive feedback about their spending patterns compared with typical behaviour, they gain a realistic understanding not only of the financial risk, but also the destructive nature they put themselves in by gambling. Such feedback can interrupt these behaviour patterns and help people with their losses.

Drawing from Gainsbury et al.’s findings, minimizing the risks of online gambling does not rely solely on individual self-control but also on how the gambling environment is structured and regulated, as unregulated platforms are designed to intensify addictive behavior. A controversial yet increasingly discussed solution to minimize the risk in Indonesia is to regulate gambling channels to help with unregulated and blurry online platforms that riddle the country's population. These online platforms can and are intentionally designed to maximize user engagement through rapid game cycles, attractive visuals, and reward structures that hook people in. With regulated gambling channels, policymakers can help the predominantly young and digitally connected population to be more protected from gambling. However, a drawback persists being the sociocultural limitations in Indonesia, which may reduce policy effectiveness and push gambling further into hidden markets rather than eliminating it.

In conclusion, gambling can’t be understood merely as a moral failure or even a personal weakness. It is such a complex behavioural economic phenomenon shaped by our very own mind. Factors such as dopamine-driven anticipation, heuristic biases, and value given by prospect theory perfectly capture how human emotion always comes into play when making decisions, especially for individuals coming from lower-middle-income populations. These factors, combined with the external pressure of financial stress and social vulnerability, make gambling a vicious cycle for those impacted by it. The best thing we as a society can do is to minimise risk with things such as feedback or even make regulating policies. 

Reference:

detikEdu. (2024, 29 November). Hampir 1 Juta Mahasiswa Terlibat Judol, Pakar Sarankan Pembentukan Forum Pencegahan. detik.com. https://www.detik.com/edu/perguruan-tinggi/d-7662713/hampir-1-juta-mahasiswa-terlibat-judol-pakar-sarankan-pembentukan-forum-pencegahan

Gainsbury, S. M., Tobias-Webb, J., & Slonim, R. (2018). Behavioral economics and gambling: A new paradigm for approaching harm-minimization. Gaming Law Review, 22(8), 630–636.

Gigerenzer, G., & Gaissmaier, W. (2011). Heuristic decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 451–482.

Hamann, E. T., & Matheson, F. I. (2017). Problem gambling and poverty. Gambling Research Exchange Ontario, Canada, 1–4.

Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 274–282.

Neal, P., Delfabbro, P., & O’Neil, M. (2005). Problem Gambling and Harm: Towards a National Definition. Melbourne, VIC: State of Victoria, Department of Justice.

PPATK. (2024, 26 Juli). Gawat! Jumlah Fantastis Usia Anak Main Judi Online. Pusat Pelaporan dan Analisis Transaksi Keuangan (PPATK). https://www.ppatk.go.id/news/read/1373/gawat-jumlah-fantastis-usia-anak-main-judi-online.html