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My point though was that some addicted gamblers might just class them self as 'recreational' and make out that they're not addicted at all - so the very basis of the survey itself is quite flawed if that's the case, you would have to have some method of initially classifying the participants into their gambling types first... or fair enough yes go to somewhere like GA where there are people who have admitted they have problems.Originally Posted by swanbet
I remember the last survey like this that came up and I was even more dubious about that one, I think someone mentioned it above just now - basically someone went on MSE and here asking for people to take their survey.
Asking APers about their gambling habits would immediately skew the results because the very point of AP is understanding how to control your gambling in such a way that you guarantee a profit no matter what the result. Alternatively a key (or even requisite?) feature of gambling addiction is a lack of control in your gambling. As a result, targeting APers in the false understanding that they are problem gamblers will give you very poor results if the point of the survey was to find out the issues surrounding problem gambling.
I don't think I did that last survey because answering the questions it just seemed as though the survey was meant to be answered by problem gamblers and if I answered the survey truthfully I would have come across as a problem gambler, even though I'm not and it would have skewed the results. For example - I think one of the questions was 'Do you ever feel you have a problem not being able to place big enough bets on?' - to which I (and no doubt any APer) would have definitively answered 'Very strongly agree'... although the AP reason for answering that way is very different for the reason a problem gambler might answer that way (the former would answer that way because they have been limited to hell and back for taking advantage of value odds, whereas the problem gambler might answer that way because they have some lack of control over their gambling).
This applied to a lot of the questions I was answering and I just didn't think it was right me doing it in the end, it would have skewed the results. Also I thought it was very silly of the person doing the survey to target the AP audience; maybe it was just naivety, maybe just laziness, I don't know... but it certainly wouldn't have made for a meaningful analysis.
I have to say though I do find the question of what gambling addiction is very interesting and how it relates to AP. We tend to place hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of bets a year, yet for many (touchwood personally) there is no issue of becoming addicted. It does make you wonder what the key elements of gambling addiction are and what the signs are to look out for, so these kind of surveys are vaguely interesting in as much as they do try and address this.
I think for me the key feature that helps to avoid any tendency towards addiction is the amount of control I have over my money and my gambling, I never place any bets without having thought exactly how I'm going to lay off the liability involved and always in a way that guarantees a profit in the long run. Also a good understanding of how bookmaking actually works, ie understanding what vigorish/overround/house take/EV are all about I think decreases the likelihood of becoming addicted. And not going full tilt when you make a loss, that's also important.... so pretty much all of that is to do with control I think?
I think if I'm addicted to anything it would be the approach I take maybe... treating each 'scenario' or 'if bet' as a little maths problem that has to be solved in such a way that I can guarantee a profit... I would say if anything that's the element for me that I find most addictive.
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