I HAVE YET to meet a rich gambler, by which I mean someone who has made his fortune through gambling (give or take the odd lottery winner). If you talk to hardcore betters, as I have, you will find that they are happy to stew in a soup of contradictions.

They feel certain that a big win awaits them, rather than the loser feeding the neighbouring slot machine. They believe that they alone have the gift to defy the odds. All the while, the evidence under their noses screams otherwise. They may have lost their homes, their families, their jobs — but they remain convinced that their misfortune will end with the Big One, a life-changing victory over the odds.

On the other hand, I have never met a poor casino owner. This discrepancy just doesn’t seem to figure in the mental landscape of a gambler. Now two psychology professors at Drake University in Iowa have described the skewed belief systems of problem gamblers in more detail. In a paper in the Journal of Gambling Studies, W. Scott Wood and Maria Clapham show that, not surprisingly, gambling addicts differ from occasional gamblers in their attitudes to chance.

In particular, problem gamblers believe much more strongly than the general population that they are in control. “Gamblers often display what psychologists call cognitive errors,” says Wood. “The first belief is an illusion of control. For example, they may believe that, if they watch slots closely and see one lose over and over, then the machine is ‘due’ for a payout. Or they may think that they have a particular skill in playing one particular casino game or another. Such beliefs are incorrect.”

The second cognitive error is a belief in superstition. Wood and Clapham are developing a questionnaire to assess these two beliefs. They reckon that people who score highly are more likely to develop a gambling problem. Wood sums up: “The odds always favour the house. The more you play, the more likely you are to lose — and there is no skill, insight, or lucky charm that can change that.”

According to Dr Emanuel Moran, adviser on gambling to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, deregulation in Australia resulted in a third of the gambling industry’s revenue being derived from problem gamblers. In short, supercasinos, permitted by the Gambling Act last year, should prepare to embrace the cognitively challenged.

The restrained gambler such as me — a generous £5 flutter on the Grand National, plus the odd extravagant £3 wager at Sandown — is also at risk, according to Moran. A big initial win, the tantalising clatter of a coin payout, are subtle psychological cues to keep players at the table. Environment is key — for example, studies in America show that the incidence of pathological gambling among students rises if they live near gambling cities such as Las Vegas.

“In commercial gambling, the odds are stacked against the gambler — so the longer you play the more you’ll lose,” Moran says. “You can reach a point where you’ve lost so much that you go in for chasing losses, hoping the next one will be a big win. That is inherent in gambling, not the gambler. It really is a mug’s game.”

I ask only to advise you of my disapproval of financial frivolity (which you may already have gleaned).

So I found myself nodding vigorously in assent at the moneysaving advice issued in The Scientist, aimed at researchers who are not as well versed as myself in such lowbrow arts as haggling.

The journal advises that a lab can shave as much as $29,000 off its annual budget by adopting various skinflint measures. These include asking for free samples of expensive chemicals; scaling down chemical recipes so that waste is avoided; avoiding expensive reagents when cheap ones will do; re-using some disposable items; being sparing in the use of expensive sterile items; upgrading old apparatus rather than buying new; playing off suppliers against each other.

Another tip is to scavenge equipment from biotech companies that have gone bust. How satisfying it must seem to an impoverished university academic to be able to feast on the rotting corpse of capitalism!

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