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Comment by nullc | Hacker News Reader

I have never felt anything about gambling. Most boring thing ever. I don't feel anything about investment, and wrote automation to track mine because it's all so boring.

I wouldn't tempt fate to try to expose myself more, but it doesn't seem like I contain whatever is required to form these addictions.

Has it been studied if some people are just much more vulnerable than others, and are there predictive factors?

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Yes. One interesting example is that compulsive gambling is a side effect of a certain class of drugs for treating Parkinson’s disease.

https://parkinsonsjournal.com/en/parkinsons-disease/gambling...

Another interesting thing is that GLP-1s anecdotally treat compulsive gambling.

That's because parkisons drugs can upregulate a certain protein that is implicated in all forms of addiction that feature that kind of "seeking" behavior and modification of the reward system!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSB#Role_in_addiction

We found that if you give an addicted rat a chemical which suppresses the expression of this gene, it will improve their addiction situation, reduce seeking behaviors, etc.

We found that in 2015.

I find the "normal" forms of gambling very boring: going to a casino, sports betting, lottery tickets, prediction markets, etc. I just assume I'll lose money because that's what tends to happen, so I have no interest in playing. As a result I thought I was a higher life-form, immune to gambling.

Then I played some mobile JRPGs that had gacha (gambling) elements. New fancy unit (big damage numbers or skimpy clothing or both) comes out every week and you get them by spending scarce resources on slot machine-like animations. Somehow I fell for this, despite knowing all about how gachas work, spending hundreds of dollars over the course of a few years. Now I realize I'm not a superior life-form. I just needed to be gifted a few wins of something that mattered to me, and then I'm throwing away money on pull after pull just like a casino gambling addict.

I like alcohol and trying new things, whether that be food or languages. I get nothing from gambling. Not all stimuli affect everyone equally. You’d need something approaching a unified theory of consciousness to adequately explain this finely.

I feel the same way - it's just not fun for me. I like playing poker with my friends, but I like the social aspect of it - putting down $20 on the table is no different than buying a few beers at a bar, and I don't care if I come out of the game with more or less money.

Going to a casino, which I've done a few times, is just wildly disinteresting.

But I know I'm prone to other sorts of addictions, so I guess gambling is somehow different.

I think that I would get more enjoyment dropping $20 in the parking lot at a casino and seeing somebody excited to find $20 than going inside to gamble it away.

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