Gambling Problems

Gambling Problems

Pathological gambling is being unable to resist impulses to gamble, which can lead to severe personal or social consequences. Pathological gambling usually begins in early adolescence in men, and between ages 20 and 40 in women. Pathological gambling often involves repetitive behaviors. People with this problem have a hard time resisting or controlling the impulse to gamble. Although it shares features of obsessive compulsive disorder, pathological gambling is likely a different condition.

People with pathological gambling often feel ashamed and try to avoid letting others know of their problem. The American Psychiatric Association defines pathological gambling as having five or more of the following symptoms:
Committing crimes to get money to gamble
Feeling restless or irritable when trying to cut back or quit gambling
Gambling to escape problems or feelings of sadness or anxiety
Gambling larger amounts of money to try to make back previous losses
Having had many unsuccessful attempts to cut back or quit gambling
Losing a job, relationship, or educational or career opportunity due to gambling
Lying about the amount of time or money spent gambling
Needing to borrow money due to gambling losses
Needing to gamble larger amounts of money in order to feel excitement
Spending a lot of time thinking about gambling, such as remembering past experiences or ways to get more money with which to gamble
A psychiatric evaluation and history can be used to diagnose pathological gambling. Screening tools such as the Gamblers Anonymous 20 Questions can help with the diagnosis.
Treatment for people with pathological gambling begins with recognizing the problem. Pathological gambling is often associated with denial. People with the illness often refuse to accept that they have a problem or need treatment.

Most people with pathological gambling enter treatment under pressure from others, rather than voluntarily accepting the need for treatment.

Table Stakes Rules

All casinos and many home games play poker by what are called table stakes rules, which state that each player starts each deal with a certain stake, and plays that deal with that stake. A player may not remove money from the table or add money from his or her pocket during the play of a hand. In essence, table stakes rules creates a maximum and a minimum buy-in amount for cash game poker as well as rules for adding and removing the stake from play. A player also may not take a portion of their money or stake off the table, unless they opt to leave the game and remove their entire stake from play. Players are not allowed to hide or misrepresent the amount of their stake from other players and must truthfully disclose the amount when asked.

Common among inexperienced players is the act of "going south" after winning a big pot, which is to take a portion of your stake out of play, often as an attempt to hedge one's risk after a win. This is also known as "ratholing" or "reducing" and, while totally permissible in most other casino games, is not permitted in poker.

Table stakes are the rule in most cash poker games because it allows players with vastly different bankrolls a reasonable amount of protection when playing with one another. They are usually set in relation to the blinds. For example, in a $1/2 No Limit cash game, the minimum stake is often set at $40 while maximum stake is often set at $200, or 20 and 100 big blinds respectively.

This also requires some special rules to handle the case when a player is faced with a bet that he cannot call with his available stake.

Chips Poker

Poker chips are fabricated with complicated graphics and edge spot patterns intending to make them difficult to counterfeit. The process used to make these poker chips is a trade secret and expensive - typically done on high pressure compression molding machines. The typical material of construction for poker chips is not clay as is sometimes believed, but a ceramic material with clay added for texture and weight. The breakable, clay poker chips of the 1960s and 1970s are no longer manufactured. The clay composition of modern chips varies by manufacturer, and is typically very slight (1-10%).

Casino poker chips are special tokens representing a fixed amount of money. The chips used in American Casinos generally weigh 10 grams each. The chips sold for home use vary much more, depending on manufacturer and construction.