Predicting the Future

I think there has to be some kind of primal human instinct towards the god- like ability to predict the future, that explains our obsession with the illogicality of Gambling.

We currently like to talk of gambling as if it is a chemical addiction to the excitement or thrill of winning. But there is almost a spiritual reverence for the ability to predict the future. We don’t just feel like winners. We don’t just feel lucky. We feel powerful and omnipotent in a sphere.

In a way the forces that act upon us to make prop betts are the same forces that led to the development of shamanism or even religion its self. That’s why religion helps addicts and gamblers and sinners. It gives them the same thing they are seeking in a bottle or a needle or at the craps table:
An experience of power beyond the might of human potential.
​A higher power.

AA recognizes this long ago and seized on it to give people what they are looking for. In a more and more secular world on high alert for looming natural disaster, gambling and the mythic power over nature that it mimics will become an increasing temptation.