As reported by: Philadelphia Inquirer
All the doom and gloom over the economy has Tony Marty seeking sanctuary in a familiar place.
Behind a slot machine.

Marty, 41, has intensified his gambling habit during this economic downturn. He used to frequent the casinos in Atlantic City once a month; now, he's at a gambling hall in the Philadelphia suburbs at least once a week.

"I'm thinking anything can happen at any time . . . at any spin," said Marty, who drove to Philadelphia Park Casino in Bensalem last week after his graveyard shift at a Cherry Hill baked-goods company. "You never know. I could walk out of here able to pay off my house or car."

Experts say that gamblers such as Marty thrive in uncertainty and that an unstable economy only fuels their pastime - which helps explain high profits at the year-old Philadelphia-area slots parlors.

A sampling of more than half a dozen area gamblers last week showed that they were making tough choices, like any consumer, on issues ranging from where to gamble to how often.

"Uncertainty is a realm that these risk-taking personalities thrive in and thrive on," said Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University who has studied risk-taking, thrill-seeking, and human motivational behavior for decades. "Uncertainty, by an economy going shaky on all of us or unsteady, is exciting to them.

"It just raises their arousal and gets their juices going," he said.

Robert Goodman, author of The Luck Business and an expert on economic development at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., said there were two types of gamblers during recessionary times.


Article By: Philadelphia Inquirer