Angie Bachmann - Gambler: Victim Or Dependent

In chapter nine of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and in Business by Charles Duhigg, Duhigg introduces Angie Bachmann a stay at home mom that finds herself an intensely boring day after day. Over time, Bachmann starts to feel unappreciated by her family since her children started to become more dependent as they grew older and her husband was a land surveyor which caused him to leave for work in the morning and come back during the afternoon. To treat herself one afternoon she decides to get dressed up and go to the casino, she made strict rules for herself like going to the casino every Friday afternoon as a once a week reward. Once Bachmann's parents got sick in 2000, she started flying to Tennessee to see them every other week. When she would return home, she felt like her family didn't need her, the only way to ease the tension was to hit the casino. At this point, Bachmann has been gambling for years and gambled Monday, Wednesday, Friday accumulating a dangerous line of credit. These strict rules were no longer in place, she hardly knew it was a problem until it took over her life. By the summer of 2001, Bachmann was in twenty-thousand dollars of debt that she kept hidden from her husband. After this she tried to clean up her act, she thought she beat the compulsion, but she hadn't, a couple of years later she declared bankruptcy. Angie's lawyer argued that she gambled out of habit, not a choice.

The question on who should be held responsible for Angie Bachmann's gambling debts has been a matter of debate over years, with various scholars holding her responsible for this. Other scholars associate the casino to be responsible for her gambling debts. Angie Bachmann is a pseudonym, but the events are real life happenings. Her gambling habits developed over years. She was married but didn’t have a meaningful job. Out of boredom and loneliness, Angie began going to gamble at the riverboat casino. After her first visit, she began attending to the casino once in a week, then twice in a week. Over 6 years, Angie Bachmann had become a regular visitor to the riverboat casino, gambling for over 3 hours in a day. Over decades of gambling, Angie remained a normal mom, under no influence of drugs. She could gamble and win at times, but losing was consistency in her gambling (Boing Boing. 2018).

As documented in the article by Boing Boing (2018), things went out of control when Angie Bachmann lost everything in gambling. She had lost a million dollar inheritance to the casino and placed a secret mortgage on her house. She could not pay for her $125,000 promissory notes, which prompted the casino to sue her for owing them $125,000 and $375,000 penalties. She was left with nothing, except her lawyer to defend her for had been held responsible for her gambling debts.

However, Angie Bachmann should not be held responsible for her gambling debts. Her visit to the casino was not her own liking. Her gambling habits are defended by the neurological discoveries on the aspect of habit formation. Angie’s pathological gambling behavior that led to huge losses is defended by three elements of habit formation. These elements include cue, routine and reward, which later build up the habit of regular gambling until she lost everything in a casino (Duhigg, 2012).

As documented by Duhigg (2012) the process of habit formation begins with a trigger. This is a force that drives someone to assume an automatic mode of action. It creates uncontrollable urge towards a particular action. In the case of Angie Bachmann, the stimuli that build up her gambling habit were boredom and loneliness. Whenever she was bored at home, she drove to riverboat casino to gamble. Another cue that justifies Angie’s gambling habit is her family. Whenever he picked up a quarrel or a fight with her husband or children, her next destination was the casino. In this case, her family can be held responsible for building up the gambling character in her.

The cue consequently builds up a routine, and Angie became a regular visitor to the casino. The frequencies of her visit build up an addiction, which made her a frequent gambler. The reward catalyzed the aspect of routine (Duhigg, 2012). Whenever Angie was bored or irritated, the casino seemed to be the solution to her dampness. The reward helps the person to determine whether a particular behavior is worthy to adopt in future. Based on the fact that Angie Bachmann gained excitement in the casino after experiencing depressions at home was justifiable for her to embrace frequent gambling habits. Another element of reward that can defend her gambling habits is the probability of winning. Although it was not on regular basis, Angie won at times. In one occasion, she went to the casino with $80 in her purse, and after few hours of gambling, she went home with $530, enough to buy her groceries and pay for the home telephone bill (Boing Boing, 2018). Any rewarding behavior according to Duhigg (2012) is worthy to adopt, and this virtual established the gambling habit in Angie that later led to huge gambling debts and lose her million inheritance.

The gambling companies have adopted enticing tricks to retain their gamblers and earnest as much money from them. The ‘power of habit’ helped the casino to manipulate the behavior of Angie Bachmann. The casino took the advantage of the fact that there is no law that obligates a casino operator not to entice or contact gamblers that it knows or should know are compulsive gamblers and went ahead to entice Angie. The casino offered her free suites, credit, and booze. According to her lawyer, the casino took advantage of her inability to control her gambling habits and preyed on her (Duhigg, 2012).

However, habits are not destiny. One has the provision to amend their habits upon evaluation of their outcomes. According to the Rat Park experiments, addiction is not a physical force (Slater, 2005). Although her lawyer cites addition as a driving force that led to the gambling debts, Angie Bachmann could have taken control of the situation upon losing at her first stages of gambling. However, she gambled over decades of losing, although she admits having the knowhow of losing a lot of money. Again, she was not responsible for her persisted gambling even upon frequent loses. A research shows that the casinos are designed in an appealing nature that builds up an optimistic perception even on losing. A research by Reza Habib; a cognitive neuroscientist explains how the gambling operators are taking advantage of pathological gamblers. In most casino slots, the gambling machines have three provisions; win, near miss and lose. The modern machines have been programmed with more provisions of ‘near miss to manipulate the gambling habits.

According to the experiment by Reza Habib, no problem gamblers perceive the ‘near miss’ as a qual loss. In actual sense, it is a loss because the gambler gains nothing other than an appealing note. To this group of gamblers, this is a warning to quit before things get worse. On contrary, the pathological gamblers have lost a lot in gambling, and the ‘near miss’ convinces them that they will win if they persist gambling. Angie gambling habits had turned her to the pathological gambler, and she always anticipated winning. Other she gambled more on loss, the near miss perception builds the passion to gamble more, with zeal and anxiety building in her hope to recover what she had initially lost to the casinos (Boing Boing, 2018).

In conclusion, the power of habit theory justifies that Angie Bachmann is not responsible for her gambling debts. She was a victim of pathological gambling, which was developed by cue, routine and reward elements of habit formation revolving around her family and the casino. Circumstances introduced her to gambling, and the prevailing situations build up this character to frequent gambling that led her to lose lots of money and property. The casinos took advantage of the established habit to exploit her. Although the lawyer presented these arguments before the court, the court could not buy her arguments.