addictive personalities
Some people have addictive personalities and they can get addicted to anything including the chemicals released in the brain when you gamble, both those released while you are in action and those that are released when you win.
I went off on a game at the fair when I was fifteen. Aside from the game being insanely tough to begin with, the operator had a pedal to step on to make the game impossible. Lost sixty dollars total, forty after I realized I should quit. Largely quit gambling after that, only wagering on pool and playing in a weekly poker game that you had to use the change collected during the week as your stake. If I had kept a total over ten years of wagering on a pool table it easily topped a quarter million but that was comparatively small bets nightly. As small as I bet when I realized I was ten thousand ahead I knew I would never be in the hole playing pool. Of course ten thousand in seventies dollars was a bit more than ten thousand today.
Lost a couple hundred playing ponies recklessly but that was only a minor inconvenience, I had it to lose. However, after that I always put racetrack money in a separate stash than other money and got ahead of the ponies and still am.
I have seen people lose far more on casino gambling and horses than pool. A friend died and left his widow two mortgages on their home that should have been paid off. She had to go bankrupt. He had good pensions, blew it all including the mortgages at casinos. I knew a fellow that worked on the Alaska pipeline for several years for free. He chased losses at the horse tracks and had a company checkbook with him! They gave him the choice between the pipeline for fairly fast restitution or prison. In a few months he had embezzled several hundred thousand, cashing several $500 to $2000 checks per visit to the track when he ran out of personal money. Of course he never meant to take company money, he was just going to use it to bet a few races then pay it all back when he hit. He got deeper and deeper fast!
Competition delivers it's own high but it doesn't have to involve money. If it leaves you chasing losses you might think twice! If it is no big deal, have fun!
Hu