It’s remarkable how pervasive the idea is that gambling in excess, against long odds, or returning to gambling after quitting is a form of stupidity, a lack of intelligence.
I recently had a conversation with a clinical psychologist who specializes in gambling, and they suggested that a useful prevention message could be summed up as: “Don’t be stupid.”
That struck me as off. This way of thinking apparently can still creep into the minds of well-intentioned people who devote their lives to studying gambling addiction.
It may be fair to say gambling is an unwise decision. It is not fair to reduce the person making that decision to stupidity.
A core problem is that gambling policy and public messaging often rely on the industry’s “responsible gambling” framework, which shifts attention toward supposedly unwise or foolish individual decisions and away from product design. That framing is disingenuous because many gambling products are built to maximize user losses over time, which predictably causes harm.
Compulsive Gambling Not an Intelligence Test
Intelligence is difficult to define, and it cannot be reduced to whether someone has made harmful decisions while struggling with addiction.
For someone who isn’t addicted to gambling, the addiction can seem absurd or irrational. When something looks irrational from the outside, people often mistake that irrationality for stupidity.
Though off base, it’s an understandable reaction, especially for affected others who are struggling and trying to understand a loved one’s gambling. For a non-gambler, it may not make any sense at all.
For people with the addiction, it has nothing to do with stupidity. A loss of control isn’t based on intelligence or a lack thereof. Even highly successful people, widely regarded as intelligent, have had gambling addictions.
The Lottery
You’ve probably heard the “stupidity” label applied to lottery players, with the game often called a “tax on the stupid.” The lottery can cause extraordinary harm, but that’s a stigmatizing way to criticize it.
Lottery players are not stupid, even if they believe winning a jackpot is their best chance at turning their life around. Economic precarity doesn’t mean someone is “stupid.”
Gambling fallacies are irrational, but ubiquitous advertising embeds them into our collective consciousness. A lack of media literacy does not make someone unintelligent.
“A tax on the poor” may be a bit less stigmatizing, but people aren’t defined by their wealth or income. They’re people, not “the poor.”
Responsibility
The dominant ideology, at least in the United States, is that bad gambling decisions are your individual responsibility. Consequently, “gamble responsibly” messages are promoted by states, the industry, and their ever-growing legions of consultants.
The phrase “gambling irresponsibly” implies poor decisions. People who experience gambling addiction are typically hard on themselves, making this emphasis on personal responsibility especially unhelpful.
There is nothing inherently foolish about falling prey to predatory products in a society saturated with gambling. People have the agency to choose different paths in life, including avoiding gambling and addiction. Realizing your agency can be hard, and failing to do so doesn’t mean you’re stupid.
Recognizing the role of predatory products does not mean giving up your agency. You do have the power to quit.
Vulnerability
There is a wide range of factors that increase your risk of developing a gambling addiction.
The casino, sportsbook, lottery retailer, and so on are waiting for you if you are vulnerable to developing a compulsion to gamble. You’re not stupid for using gambling to cope with the struggles you have in life.
A better mindset is to see gambling as an unwise or ineffective coping strategy, not stupidity.
Some studies show that people without college educations may be more vulnerable to gambling addiction, or at least to certain forms of it. Here, the stigma associated with gambling addiction is intertwined with the stigma around not having a formal education.
People are not less intelligent for lacking a college education.
Bottom Line
If someone calls you stupid because of your gambling, you do not have to accept that judgment as truth. Shame can keep people stuck, and gambling addiction already creates enough of it.
There’s much more nuance to gambling harm than the language of foolishness allows. Remember, it’s a product designed to exploit people’s vulnerabilities.
Don’t let cruel language trick you into thinking that your gambling addiction is who you are or that you aren’t intelligent. You can quit gambling and rebuild your life from any damage gambling has caused.
Consider ways to abstain entirely from gambling, such as self-exclusion, individual or group therapy, and significant lifestyle changes. A qualified medical professional can also discuss whether medication may be appropriate in your individual circumstances.
Try to stay hopeful. You can stop gambling and build a life away from it.
Image by Michael Schwarzenberger from Pixabay