Problem sports betters tend to overestimate their abilities to predict outcomes. Cognitive behavioral therapy can help problem sports gamblers overcome this illusion of control.

People who gamble in casinos tend to understand the random chance element of gambling better than sports betters, who tend to overestimate their ability to predict outcomes.

The Study

People with extensive experience and knowledge of a sport may overestimate their ability to predict the outcome of games and this may influence their gambling behaviors. To see whether sports knowledge confers a gambling advantage, researchers at Tel Aviv University recruited three groups of people to participate in a study on sports betting:

• The 53 subjects in group 1 were all professional sports gamblers
• The 34 subjects in group 2 were very knowledgeable soccer fans, who had never gambled
• The 78 subjects in group 3 were neither soccer fans nor gamblers

For the study, all subjects were asked to bet imaginary money on the outcome scores of the 16 games of the UEFA Champions League second round playoff.

The Outcome

All groups had the same performance.

• No group performed better at predicting the outcome scores of soccer games. In fact, the 2 subjects with the best performance in the study came from the group of non-fans.
• Although people who have extensive sports knowledge believe they hold a gambling advantage over the sports naive, this belief is incorrect.

The Significance

The study authors write, “Sports gamblers seem to believe themselves the cleverest of all gamblers. They think that with experience and knowledge -- such as player's statistics, manager's habits, weather conditions, and stadium capacity -- they can predict the outcome of a game better than the average person."

The researchers argue that conventional gambling therapies, which treat the gambling as an impulse control problem, won’t work for problem sports betters, who really need cognitive behavioral therapy to overcome their mistaken illusion of control problem.

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Has anyone ever told you that you need to cut down on the time you spend at work? Does your work negatively affect your health and do you get stressed if you can’t work as much as you ‘need’ to? Find out more about work addiction and take a self test to see if you might have a problem with compulsive working.

After testing the measurement on over 12 000 Norwegian employees from 25 different industries, researchers of that country say they’ve developed a very quick scale test which reliably categorizes people into 3 categories: work addicted, mildly work addicted and not work addicted, and which tests for 7 key features of addiction:

1. Mood and modification
2. Tolerance to the effects of excessive working (needing to do more and more to feel satisfied)
3. Withdrawal (feeling withdrawal symptoms when you can’t work or can’t work as much as you’d like to)
4. Salience
5. Conflict
6. Relapse
7. Degree of problems in life stemming from excessive work

Doctor Cecilie Schou Andreassen of The University of Bergen led the addiction scale development team. Commenting on the need for a reliable test for work addiction she noted that workaholism is associated with insomnia, burnout, family conflict and a general increase in physical health problems. She further noted that, “In the wake of globalisation, new technology and blurred boundaries between work and private life, we are witnessing an increase in work addiction.”

Ready to test yourself?

The Bergen Work Addiction Scale

Answer the following 7 questions with one of:

• Never
• Rarely
• Sometimes
• Often
• Always

1. You think of how you can free up more time to work.
2. You spend much more time working than initially intended.
3. You work in order to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, helplessness and depression.
4. You have been told by others to cut down on work without listening to them.
5. You become stressed if you are prohibited from working.
6. You deprioritize hobbies, leisure activities, and exercise because of your work.
7. You work so much that it has negatively influenced your health.

Answering often or always to 4 or more of the preceding questions indicates that you may be work addicted.

Read more about the Bergen Work Addiction Scale in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology.

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Doctors in Australia can now prescribe the anti-addiction drug naltrexone as a treatment for problem gambling; but therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing are still suggested as the most effective treatments.

Naltrexone works by halting the over-transmission of opioids in the brain. It can help opiate addicts and alcoholics quit using by reducing cravings and by minimizing the pleasures (the high) that accompany the use of things like alcohol or heroin or pills – because when drinking or using no longer feels so good, it’s easier to stop doing it.

Now, Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council is suggesting that naltrexone may also be used – with caution – to treat gambling addiction.

In guidelines published this week in the Medical Journal of Australia, the health group advised that:

• Gambling addiction needs to be viewed as a medical problem and that people suffering the addiction should not be expected to manage their impulses alone or only through participation in self help programs.
  
• Existing research evidence suggests that the most effective treatment for gambling addiction is cognitive behavioral therapy, followed by other psychotherapies such as motivational interviewing and motivation enhancement therapy.
  
• SSRI antidepressants have not been found effective for the treatment of people with gambling problems alone (not concurrently depressed).
  
• Naltrexone may be used - with caution - as a pharmacological agent to treat gambling addiction.
  

The guidelines were developed by the Problem Gambling Research and Treatment Centre (PGRTC).

Although the head of the organization that recommended naltrexone’s use, PGRTC director, Professor Shane Thomas remarked that he would still recommend the use of non-drug therapies as a first course of action, saying “What I would try to do is go for the conservative treatments first ... for cognitive behavioural therapy and the other talking therapies, the only risk is that it won't work. There are no side-effects from having to sit with a therapist for five hours. Whereas with drugs, particularly naltrexone, there are fairly significant side-effects associated with that.”

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For habitual indoor tanners, settling down for a session of intense UV light activates the same pleasure areas of the brain that amp up after the use of alcohol or drugs or the consumption of high fat or sugar foods.

Researchers have long suspected that people who indoor tan on a regular basis could be at risk of some sort of addiction - after all, continuing to engage in an activity that you know does you harm is one of the hallmark signs of addiction – and some new research out of UT Southwestern Medical Center seems to back up the tanning addiction hypothesis.

The research team recruited study subjects who visited tanning salons three or more times per week and then observed what was going on in the brain during a tanning session. They found that:

• During a real tanning session, parts of the brain (like the dorsal striatum and the left anterior insula) that are typically activated during the consumption of drugs or alcohol were also very activated by real tanning sessions
  
• When study subjects unknowingly had indoor tanning sessions with no UV light (only light from other spectrums) there was much less activation in these same parts of the brain.
  

Lead study author Dr. Bryon Adinoff says that the results indicate that it’s the UV light in tanning that people find so reinforcing and that the study adds weight to the hypothesis that indoor tanning may be, for some, an addictive behavior.

Frequent indoor tanning has been found to increase the risk of melanoma by about 75%. About 30 million Americans use indoor tanning in any given year, with about a million Americans heading to the tanning salon on any given day.

Dr. Adinoff says that the way tanning can make people feel helps to explain why many people persist in the activity despite knowing its substantial dangers, saying, “Using tanning beds has rewarding effects in the brain so people may feel compelled to persist in the behavior even though it's bad for them."

The full results of the study can be examined in the upcoming edition of Addiction Biology.

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A young couple in South China is accused of selling all three of their children to raise money for online gaming.

Li Lin and Li Juan, both still under the age of 21, met 4 years ago in an internet gaming shop and discovered a shared passion for online games. About a year after meeting they had a baby boy (who they left behind at home just days after birth to head back to the café for more online game play) and not long after that a baby girl.

To raise money for their addiction the couple decided to sell their second born baby girl and received $500. After that, they set out to sell their first born son and managed to get $4500 dollars for the boy.

Figuring they’d stumbled onto a good money maker, the couple conceived another baby with the intent of selling him or her after birth. The third baby was a son and he also fetched them $4500.

The young man’s mother eventually learned of their schemes and turned them into the authorities. When asked why they had sold their children, they replied, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”

The couple denied knowing that baby selling was against the law.

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Research out of China shows that too much time spent playing games in front of a computer screen each day can actually rot your brain. Using MRI scans, researchers found grey matter atrophy in very heavy internet game players.

Internet gaming addiction is a pretty big problem in China, and researchers there wondered what spending all day, every day, staring into a computer screen might be doing for brain development and neural health.

To find out, they recruited 18, 19 year old university students, all of whom had been classified as internet addicts (they played online games for an average of 8 to 13 hours per day, at least 6 days per week) and then used MRI scans to compare the brains of the internet addicted teens to 18 control subjects, each of whom spent 2 hours per day or less online.

• They found that the internet addicted teens displayed grey matter atrophy in certain areas of the cerebral cortex, the area of the brain responsible for higher order processing, like thinking, memory and speech – and that longer durations of internet addiction resulted in worsened grey matter atrophy.

While the researchers acknowledge that these brain abnormalities could have pre-existed the excessive internet usage, they believe that the internet usage is in fact causing the brain changes, arguing,  'Our results suggested long-term internet addiction would result in brain structural alterations. '

Commenting on the findings, Dr Aric Sigman of the Royal Society of Medicine in the UK called the study a “wake up call” for change and said,  'It strikes me as a terrible shame that our society requires photos of brains shrinking in order to take seriously the common-sense assumption that long hours in front of screens is not good for our children’s health. '

The full study results can be found in the PLoS One

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A 15 year old Vietnamese boy lured his 7 year old neighbor into the jungle to pick fruit and then beat her to death with a rock so that he could steal her gold earrings. He needed the money to pay for his online gaming addiction.

A 15 year old boy in the Vietnamese province of Nghe An is in police custody today, charged with the murder of a neighbor, a 7 year old girl.

The boy confessed to police that he had planned to kill the girl so he could steal her gold earrings to get money to pay for online gaming.  To commit the murder, the boy went with the girl to the jungle to pick fruit, then grabbed a rock and smashed it into her head.

Although the 7 year-old survived the initial attack, she died four days later in hospital of brain injuries.

Gaming addiction is a significant social problem in Vietnam and this is not the first murder or robbery within the country linked to earning money to fund an online gaming habit. Authorities are taking steps to control the problem, with measures like a ban on the advertising of online gaming and restrictions on the hours gaming cafes can open.

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Trying to get a handle on the scope of internet addiction in American today, Yale researchers questioned 10 000 Connecticut high school students about their online practices. They say that 4% of these teens are using the internet in ways that cause problems and that these kids are also more likely to be depressed, get in fights and use drugs and tobacco.

After questioning 10 000 high school students in Connecticut on their internet use practices and also on such things as school performance, aggression, drug and alcohol use etc. Yale University researchers have concluded that about 4% of American high school students have internet use problems and that students with internet use problems are more likely to have aggression or depression issues and use drugs.

Specific findings from the study include:

• 4% of teens polled met the criteria for problematic internet usage. These students admitted to having tried and failed to cut down on internet use, feeling tension that could only be relieved by getting online and by feeling irresistible urges to get and stay online
• Students who met the criteria for problematic internet usage were more likely to be depressed and to get into fights
• Males who met the criteria for problematic internet usage were also more likely to use drugs and smoke cigarettes
• Asian and Hispanic students were most likely to have a problem with internet usage
• 17% of boys and 13% of girls admitted to spending more than 20 hours per week online
• Problematic internet usage was not associated with poor school performance

The study authors note that although they did see a relationship between problematic internet usage and depression, aggression and substance abuse, they cannot say that the internet usage causes these other problems, or vice-versa.

The full research findings were published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry

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Debbie Keller, a San Diego mom of 2 preschool aged kids, says the popular children’s entertainment venue/restaurant chain, Chuck E. Cheese's, is more or less teaching children to gamble by using illegal gambling equipment , modified to the tastes of children. She wants them to stop and is hoping her lawsuit will give the company 5 million reasons to do so.

Debbie Keller says that the games that Chuck E. Cheese's provides for its grade school and below audience are little better than training wheel slot machines that give young children a first taste of gambling.

Although California law allows for prize based games based on player skill, Keller says that many of the games at the popular kids’ restaurants are little more than casino style games, whereby a child buys a ticket, then spins a roulette style wheel or pulls a slot machine style lever – in the hopes of winning a prize.

Although she’s suing the restaurant group for a jury trial and a substantial 5 million dollars in damages, her lawyer, Eric Benink, says money’s not the reason behind the suit. He says Keller hopes to force the restaurants to remove the casino style games from their operations, stating, “We don’t think that children should be exposed to casino-style gambling devices at an arcade.”

In the text of the lawsuit, Keller argues that casino style games for kids might well increase a child’s risk of one day developing a gambling problem, writing that “(the games) create the same highs and lows experienced by adults who gamble their paychecks or the mortgage payment.”

Attorneys for the restaurant group have asked the judge to throw out the case, and say that anyway -  even if their games constitute illegal gambling, Keller has admitted to going and playing several times, which makes her a party to the illegal act and so unqualified to seek damages or restitution on that act.

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After playing 20 000 hours of the MMRPG within a 4 year period, Craig Smallwood became so addicted to the game that he could no longer function in the real world. He says the game makers should have warned him of the risks of addiction and so he’s suing, saying that the game has ruined his life.

Craig Smallwood of Hawaii says that video games have ruined his life. He says that no one told him how addictive video games could be and as a result he claims that between 2005 and 2009 he spent a whopping 20 000 hours glued to his computer screen, playing the MMRPG Lineage II, becoming so addicted to game play he was unable to function outside in the real world.

20 000 hours equals 833, 24 hour days!

He says that NCSoft, the makers of the game, should have warned him of the dangers of video game addiction and he’s suing for damages to compensate for the harms that have resulted from his gaming habit.

Although NCSoft wanted the lawsuit tossed, a judge has allowed the case to proceed on grounds of negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

According to court documents, Smallwood experiences an overwhelming compulsion to play and "He has also suffered "extreme and serious emotional distress and depression, he has been unable to function independently, he has suffered psychological trauma, he was hospitalized, and he requires treatment and therapy three times a week,"

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Has technology taken over your life? How about a 45 day techno-detox at America’s first internet addiction treatment facility, just outside of Seattle Washington?

America’s first internet addiction treatment facility has opened its doors, and already has its first patient, a 19 year old teen, hopelessly addicted to World of Warcraft.

The ReStart internet Addiction Recovery Program, located near Seattle Washington, the nation’s most connected city, offers internet addicts a chance to break free during a 45 day technology detox program, that runs $14 500.

Dr. Hillary Cash PhD, the author of the book, Video Games and Your Kids: How Parents Stay in Control, has been counseling those addicted to technology for more than a decade and is now a co-founder of the clinic, with partner, social worker Cosette Rae, MSW.

Cash explains the need for the treatment they offer, saying, “Both China and South Korea have designated Internet Addiction as their #1 public health danger and have responded by developing multiple treatment programs. The United States, by contrast, has been slower to recognize and respond to the problem but now is beginning to take some active steps…This program is part of that process." The 2 therapists say their mission is to help people “find balance and reconnect to the real world.”

Internet addicts in recovery at ReStart live in a country house on 5 acres of forested land, and spend their time engaged in everything but online activities. The therapeutic program is based, in part, on the 12 steps of “Net Addiction”.

And they already have a first client, 19 year old Ben Alexander from Iowa City, whose World of Warcraft addiction led to college failure and to compulsive game play marathons that had him falling asleep at his keyboard.

Alexander spent time in a more conventional addiction treatment program before his parents found the ReStart program, but complained that, "It was kind of hard to really relate to the other people there."

Alexander is currently in the program, and in addition to time spent in therapy sessions, enjoys looking after the property animals and spending time cross country running, a pursuit he used to love before getting lost to technology addiction. He says that although he suspects he’ll again use the internet, that his time in technology detox has helped him to regain control.

The Signs of Internet Addiction

Here are the 12 signs of internet addiction, based on those developed by program founder, Dr. Cash. She says that answering yes to 3 or 4 of the following suggests a problem, and 5 or more yes answers suggests an addiction.

1. Do you spend an increasing amount of time online or at the computer?

2. Do you try to control your computer use and fail?

3. Do you feel euphoric while using the internet or computers?

4. Do you crave computer use?

5. Do you choose to spend time on the computer or online at the expense of real world relationships?

6. Do you feel irritable or restless when not online?

7. Do you lie about your computer use or how much time you spend online or at the computer?

8. Does your computer use habit cause you problems at school or on the job?

9. Do you ever feel depressed, guilty or ashamed about the way you use technology?

10. Has your use of the internet or computers changed your sleeping habits?

11. Has your computer use habit caused you any physical problems, such as weight gain, or back problems?

12. Do you use computers now at the expense of other activities you used to enjoy?

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Almost 40% of polled Facebook users say they’re addicted to the site – Many will check the site before going to the bathroom in the morning or wake up in the night to check for updates!

A third of women polled on their use of the social networking site Facebook say that the first thing they do in the morning, before even going to the bathroom, is to check their facebook page for updates.

Other telling facts revealed in a study poll of 1605 adults on their use of social media (conducted by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed research) include:

• 21% of women between the ages of 18 and 34 wake up in the middle of the night to check their facebook page

• 42% of women between the ages of 18 and 34 say that they feel comfortable posting pictures that show them to be intoxicated – and 63% of women from this same age group say that they use the site for networking and career building!

• 57% of women aged 18 to 34 say that they talk to others online more often than they do face to face

• 48% of young women say they use Facebook to learn about news

• Half of young women say they’re OK with dating someone they’ve met on facebook – while 65% of single men will do likewise

• 24% of young men are comfortable using facebook as a way to break up – something that only 9% of women feel is acceptable

• In all, 39% of the Facebook users polled (ages 18 to 54) admit to being addicted to the networking site.

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South Korea considers pulling the internet plug at midnight for computer gamers under the age of 16.

Under the terms of a proposed South Korean ‘Cinderella law’ registered internet users under the age of 16 would see their connection to online games pulled between midnight and 6 am each day.

The move comes in response to what South Korean officials say is a rising tide of internet addiction in the country. High profile cases illustrating the nation’s problems in recent months include a murder suicide by a 15 year old boy whose mother was trying to limit his game play, the death at the computer of a 32 year old man who had spent 5 continuous days online with few breaks and the infamous case of the parents whose infant died of neglect as the couple played an online parenting game at an internet café near their apartment.

Commenting on the need for the law, the minister in charge of the proposed measure, Jo Rin, said, "The thing about online games is, once you are in it, it is extremely hard to get out of it, especially if you are a young kid. A lot of kids play games all night long and have trouble studying at school and going about their normal lives during daytime. We believe the law is necessary to ensure their health and a right to sleep."

South Korea is one of the world’s most effectively connected nations, which has resulted, according to government figures, to an estimated 2 million South Koreans with internet addictions.

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Clark County, WA -- "Girls Gone Wild" creator Joe Francis, who is being sued by the Wynn Casino for $2 million in gambling debts, filed a countersuit claiming that Wynn deceives high rollers with the help of alcohol, prostitutes and illegal drugs.

Despite immediate counterclaims for defamation by Wynn, filed on Tuesday, Joe Francis’ star lawyer David Houston threatens that this is only the beginning and that his celebrity client and high-roller Francis was deceived by Wynn. The legal team will gather evidence from Wynn's other high rollers.

Francis suit was a response to the Wynn casino’s claims for 2 million in outstanding gambling debts. Filed in the Clark County Superior Court, WA, Francis countersuit states that Wynn and the casino’s VIP host Larry Altschul made promises to him and induced him to stay and gamble while using diversions and creating phony markers to obtain money by "false pretenses." Francis also alleges the Wynn "intentionally miscalculates markers and forges the high rollers' signatures in order to change a high rollers' win to a loss."

The Wynn Casino responded with a statement to celebrity gossip site TMZ.com, stating that Joe Francis’ claims are not only false but scurrilous beyond imagination. “He will be held accountable for those statements."

…and holding gamblers accountable is exactly what the scrupulous Steve Wynn does best.  Sounds to us like another big gamble for Francis; and, as always the odds favor the house.

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An internet addiction clinic in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong claims to have successfully treated 3000 game and internet addicted youths using electroshock therapy.

More than 3000 gaming and internet addicted teens have received treatment for their e-addictions at Dr. Yang Yongxin's addiction clinic in the Eastern Chinese province of Shandong. Yongxin eschews more conventional therapeutic methods of addiction treatment, using electroshock therapy (ECT) instead; a form of aversion therapy that he says, "clears the mind."

Parents pay $878 per month for the four month treatment program and must consent in writing to the use of ECT in treatment.

Dr. Yongxin uses small (1-5 milliamp) electro shocks as punishment for clinic transgressions, as a form aversion therapy. Offenses at the clinic meriting electro punishments include:

• Sitting on the director's chair
• Locking the door to the bathroom
• Eating chocolate
• Talking about anything other their internet addiction

In Dr. Yongxin's view, ECT is simply a "refreshment therapy, which is mild and not dangerous" which relaxes troubled teens. Critics disagree, saying that ECT therapy can cause memory loss and that although it may cause subdued behavior, it does not offer effective treatment for addiction (ECT can be an effective treatment for serious clinical depression).

The director of China's first internet addiction treatment center, Tao Ran, has been critical of Yongxin's methods, noting that no other clinic in the world uses ECT therapy for internet addiction. Ran uses a combination of psychotherapy and medication at his clinic.

A mother named Xu, whose son had gone through Dr. Yongxin's ECT therapy program, shrugged off any criticism of the program saying, "Compared with being on mind altering drugs for three months, electroshock is a safe and effective way to make my son calm and obedient." She said that she felt angry about media criticism of the clinic and the good work it does.

More than 40 million Chinese youth play online games and although government regulations limit game play to 3 hours per day, analysts say that the rules do not effectively limit the play of motivated young Chinese gamers.

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