Vocabularies of Motives for Gambling Behavior

In an examination of the verbal explanations ordinary gamblers provide for their conduct, it was found that the motive of “play, leisure, and recreation” was most often given to explain their behavior, with the related motive of “relieving boredom and generating excitement” ranking a distant second. Significant variations in these responses were found according to sex and social class. Explanations of why other people gamble differed markedly from explanations of one's own gambling behavior. Regarding this finding, we suggest that respondents were providing socially acceptable vocabularies of motives to defend self by neutralizing the social stigma attached to gambling and/or by justifying one's monetary gains and losses.