Tag: gambling addiction

If approved, the project could launch as soon as 2021.

Gambling venues in Japan have been asked by government officials to implement facial recognition systems in order to restrict access to their facilities by those suffering from gambling dependency.

The move will attempt to address concerns over a possible increase in gambling addiction with the launch of a long-gestating casino resort project, which was approved in 2018.

The proposal offers a multi-pronged strategy, including increased treatment and support for those who suffer from gambling dependency, and assistance from the gambling industry itself and the National Police Agency to enforce stricter regulation of illegal gambling. The government is currently seeking public opinion on their plan, and if approved, will launch in 2021, which will coincide with the construction of casino resorts.

As the Nikkei Asian Review reported, concerns over gambling addiction held up legislation approving the establishment of casino resorts for nearly two decades. A 2017 survey by the country’s Ministry of Health Labor and Welfare suggested that gambling addiction impacted 3.6% of Japan’s adult population – an estimated 3.2 million people – which is considerably higher that rates in countries like France, where it stands at 1.2%, and the United States, where statistics suggest that approximately 1% of adults meet the criteria for gambling dependency. 

But with the July 20, 2018 passage of the legalization bill, the government has sought to ally fears through programs like the facial recognition systems. These would be installed in racetracks and pachinko parlors across the country, and would identify people with gambling addiction whose families have requested that they be restricted from entering such places. The request system will reportedly be introduced in pachinko parlors by March of 2020.

In addition to the facial recognition and request systems, the government has proposed additional measures for 2020, including a limit on the number of tickets that identified gambling addicts may purchase online for horse and boat racing, as well as the installation of consultation offices on and treatment and support centers for gambling addiction in all major cities and prefectures.

The government has also schedule a public survey on issues tangential to gambling addiction, including its relationship to poverty, abuse, suicide and debt.

Prior to those efforts, the government’s Welfare Ministry has reached out to the gambling industry itself to develop guidelines for advertising that will not, as the Japan Times stated, “fuel people’s desire to gamble.” The Education Ministry will increase education in the nation’s schools about gambling dependency, while the National Police Agency will instruct its regional police departments to enforce tighter restrictions on illegal gambling.

According to Gambling Insider, the government has submitted its proposal to the public, which will be able to weigh on the strategies until March 27, 2019. If it gains public approval for its plan, the government will finalize its policy by the end of April 2019 and begin implementing facial recognition systems in 2021.

View the original article at thefix.com

The experiment’s goal was to understand which regions of the brain wield influence over decision-making.

The behavior of a pair of monkeys with a taste for juice—and gambling—may suggest that risky decisions, from high stakes betting to criminal behavior, is less of a personality trait and more an issue of brain circuitry.

Scientists conducted an experiment in which the monkeys were taught to play a computer game that rewarded them with juice, the amount of which varied depending on the risk level of their decision.

When the scientists found that a region of the brain involved with eye movements became activated when the monkeys took greater risks, they temporarily deactivated the region—and found that the test subjects made far less rash decisions.

The research suggests that risk preference is not fixed but adaptable, and by understanding the brain function involved in those decisions, help could be provided for individuals who have “decision-making disorders” like substance or gambling dependency.

The research, conducted by scientists from Johns Hopkins University and published in the September 2018 edition of Current Biology, sought to determine whether risk-taking was a personality trait—in short, “that some people are risk takers and others are not,” said study co-author and Johns Hopkins associate professor Veit Stuphorn. 

The scientists devised a computer game in which the test subjects—two rhesus macaques—were offered two choices: one, which provided a guaranteed but small amount of juice, and the other, which might bring a more substantial amount of juice, or none at all. To indicate their choice, the monkey would move their eyes in each round.

What the scientists found was that the monkeys consistently chose the bigger but less safe option, even in the face of getting consistent but smaller amounts of juice instead of none at all.

They also discovered that the supplementary eye field (SEF)—a region in the frontal lobe of primates’ cerebral cortex that is involved in eye movement, and possibly in the eye’s role in decision-making—became very active when the monkeys earned a larger reward.

But as NPR noted, the activity didn’t prove that it correlated with the monkeys’ behavior, so the scientists temporarily deactivated that area of the brain through cooling. Once inactive, the monkeys made safer bets by choosing the smaller but consistent option for juice.

The study findings do not conclusively determine that the SEF is responsible for high-risk decision-making; rather, it suggests that making risky decisions is not a set and permanent aspect of an individual’s personality.

The brain might alter those choices based on a number of factors, including the level of reward. It’s also possible that other regions of the brain may be complicit in making high-risk choices. 

Understanding which regions of the brain wield influence over decision-making could have far-ranging implications in the treatment of conditions that involve rash choices.

“One would be to help people who have decision-making disorders, whether that’s problem gambling or addiction, or other things like that,” said Michael Platt, the James S. Riepe University Professor of neuroscience, marketing and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. “We might be able to develop more effective therapies.”

View the original article at thefix.com