Atlantic City Weekly

Oh, What A Rush!

When I was a long-distance runner, before my knees gave out and my belly grew to Brobdenagian proportions, I used to delight in tweaking the noses of my more restrained acquaintances by solemnly telling them that I was a drug addict. There would be an inevitable pause, a long silence, as the individual took in this remarkable statement made by one who looked so damned healthy - and then I would quip: "Yep, I'm addicted to my own endorphins." We'd have a hearty laugh and my acquaintance would go away shaking his head at my little joke. Endorphins, indeed.

In fact, I was addicted to those endorphins, powerful chemicals that the brain releases during strenuous exercise that can soothe sore muscles and take a troubled mind into the nirvana of the fabled runner's high. When I didn't run I didn't feel like myself. I was often moody and irritable. But when I ran, after five or six miles or so, ah, the world was all butterflies and flowers, nectar and honey. And when I raced in those mini-marathons of 10 or more miles, I was chemically back in ancient Marathon, a Spartan gladiator taking on all comers, dizzied by the dismay of my foes and dazzled by my own strength and endurance.

Those runner's years are long past. I now power-walk (at my weight class, it's really called "power-waddling") and look to the casinos for that runner's high. In fact, I'm now convinced that gambling in a casino is every bit as pleasurable, every bit as life enhancing, exhilarating and endorphic as running long distances or racing in mini-marathons. But when you pit your puny self against the mighty casinos, you are no longer squaring off against a mirror image of you as is done in most human competitions. No, when you gamble in the casinos, you are taking on no less than the Olympian gods of fate.

The casinos are literally Nemesis and the sheer dread and joy we mortals feel when running against those gods cannot be understated but must be underscored. Casino gambling is fun the way that sex is fun; the way that good food on an empty stomach is fun; and the way that fine wine to a discerning palate is fun. But it is also fun the way laying waste to the village of your enemies was fun; the way challenging mammoths and saber-toothed tigers was fun; and the way waiting for the exact moment to harpoon that whale was fun. Megabucks meet Ahab!

Scientific Explanations

According to Professor Marvin Zuckerman of The University of Delaware, a leading authority on the causes and effects of risk-taking in humans, some people are "sensation seekers" who crave "varied, novel, complex and intense sensations and experiences." Gamblers and other risk takers fall into this category. In fact, some of this sensation seeking might actually be genetic in nature as studies with identical twins reared apart suggest. Evidently, some of us were born to rattle toys; others to rattle dice.

However, while Zuckerman looks to personality traits to characterize sensation-seeking, other scientists are looking at the very chemistry of the brain to discover the source of why one man's exciting craps game is another man's occasion to nap.

According to the latest research, our neurotransmitters - a fancy term for the host of chemicals that transmit sensations and thoughts within our brains - are responsible for the excitement and pleasure we experience when we place our money at risk. In fact, they are responsible for the pleasure we feel no matter what we do - from listening to a symphony to jumping into a mosh pit. In fact, one in particular - dopamine - seems to be the Janus-faced master of our pleasures and orchestrator of our pains.

When a craps player looks to the heavens and calls upon the gods in that heart-thumping moment between picking up the dice and rolling the dice, what is really taking place is an explosion of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (the primitive pleasure center) of his or her brain. When those dice are released and the point number is hit, the craps player is bathed in the glow of a chemical high every bit as real and every bit as powerful as the runner's high I used to experience so long ago.

It is not an indictment of casino gambling to say that it is wonderfully addictive in the same sense that running is wonderfully addictive. To paraphrase the great Greek philosopher Epicurus, people should desire to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain. That's normal. Certainly, casino players know that the casino experience is pleasure personified and that trips to the wonderful world of Dame Fortune send the dopamine flowing through their nucleus accumbens aplenty. That's fun.

However, for a small percentage of casino players, the rush of dopamine heralds the onrush of personal doom. As there is a qualitative difference between sipping a fine wine in a fine restaurant and guzzling gallons of muscatel from a bottle in a brown-paper bag behind a White Castle dumpster, so too is there a difference between the pleasures of waltzing with Lady Luck and the agony of being slam-danced by her.

Unfortunately, for the cursed few that genes or Fate have selected, the surge of dopamine is so intense, so pleasurable, so necessary for a sense of well-being that, come hell or Noah's flood, they will gamble every penny they have to satisfy their appetite for dopamine. Before we shake our heads in disgust, let us realize that this is not so different from those long-distance runners who cannot control their desire to run. Through shin splints, cartilage damage, blood in their urine and kidney breakdown, some runners suffer endless torment for a brief brush with the divine - in this case, their runner's high.

It is in the nature of man - chemically, psychologically, and, yes, spiritually - to dare, to push the limits, to gamble and to ultimately feel damn good about it, too. It's built into our hearts, it's built into our souls, and, if science is correct, it's built into the very structures of our brains. You can bet on it.

Frank Scoblete is the No. 1 best-selling gaming author. His books and tapes have sold over a million copies. He is executive director of Golden Touch Craps dice-control seminars. His web site is goldentouchcraps.com. For a free brochure or more information call 1-800-944-0406 or write to: Paone Press, Box 610, Lynbrook, NY 11563.