Pathological gamblers: Hostages of fate

This article analyzes the origin and psychological dynamics of gambling addiction based on the concept of rapture, in the sense of both ecstasy and captivity. The “big win” acts as a founding, almost mystical experience, giving the gambler an illusion of omnipotence and existential legitimacy. But this moment of grace turns into captivity: The gambler endlessly seeks to reproduce this initial jouissance. The author draws on several psychoanalytic interpretations—moral masochism, symbolic debt, “overpayment”—to understand this pathological repetition in which loss, guilt, and the search for meaning become intertwined.