A Philosophical Comparison Between Gambling and Scam Victims – 2024
A Philosophical Comparison Between Gambling and Scam Victims
Understanding Blaise Pascal’s work on probability and decision-making on Scam Victims by analyzing the gambler’s behavior through Pascal’s Wager
Primary Category: Scam Victim Recovery Psychology
Author:
• Tim McGuinness, Ph.D. – Anthropologist, Scientist, Director of the Society of Citizens Against Relationship Scams Inc.
About This Article
Blaise Pascal’s analysis of the gambler provides valuable insights into the psychology of scam victims.
Pascal observed that gamblers are driven by the hope of winning, even when logic dictates the risks outweigh the potential reward. Scam victims mirror this behavior, focusing on the promised benefits of a scam and ignoring warning signs.
Cognitive biases such as optimism bias, the sunk cost fallacy, and confirmation bias reinforce this behavior. Both gamblers and scam victims rely on emotional impulses over rational thought, making it difficult to break free from destructive cycles of hope and risk.
