Problem Gambling Pioneer: Fyodor Dostoevsky
Two years after Nevada obtained U.S. statehood in 1864, Fyodor Dostoevsky was making inroads into the psyche of the disordered gambler, creating a blueprint that psychoanalysts and other scientists have been studying for more than a century.
"[Dostoevsky's The Gambler] is the best case history [of disordered gambling] in literature," said Richard J. Rosenthal, co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, who has published five articles on Dostoevsky and the psychology of his novels, including The Gambler. "It's loaded with insight on problem and pathological gambling."
Dostoevsky was born in 1821 in Moscow into an affluent family. His father, a doctor, encouraged his education, and Dostoevsky later graduated with a military engineering degree. At 17, his mother died and, two years later, his father was found dead from a brain hemorrhage, which some believe was the result of foul play. Many speculate that it was the death of his father at such an early age that spawned Dostoevsky's obsession with gambling.
Rather than pursuing a career in engineering, Dostoevsky focused on his writing and in 1846 completed his first two novels, Poor Folk and The Double. Before his death in 1881, he completed more than 50 works, including The Gambler, an autobiographical novella that mirrors Dostoevsky's own addiction to gambling.
In The Gambler, which he dictated in less than one month, Dostoevsky writes about Alexei Ivanovich, a young tutor whose obsessions drive him to uncontrollable gambling activity - both in and out of the casino. Dostoevsky's writing colorfully illustrates the protagonist's unadulterated conscious and pathological behaviors. In one passage, Dostoevsky describes Ivanovich as he enters the casino: "… I entered the gaming rooms with an angry feeling in my heart. At first glance the scene irritated me. …[T]he crowd oppressed me." And later, as he places a bet, Ivanovich thinks, "With a feeling like a sick qualm, as though I would like to make my way out of the crowd and go home, I staked another fifty gulden - this time on red."
"Dostoevsky is so filled with psychological insight into the characters' personalities about the gambling; it's easy to speculate what Dostoevsky knew [about gambling] and why he continued to gamble," said Rosenthal. "He was so aware of the self-deceptions and the self-destructiveness of the disorder."
Many consider Dostoevsky to be one of the greatest psychological authors in history because of his ability to describe in great detail the inner workings of the mind, especially in conjunction with self-destructive behaviors. Friedrich Nietzsche called Dostoevsky the "only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn."
Robert Lindner, who studied compulsive gambling in the mid-20th century, used Dostoevsky's account as a template for his own study of problem gamblers, comparing the life stories of his subjects with that of Dostoevsky's Alexei, and found numerous similarities. This shows the evergreen nature of Dostoevsky's story, as it can be closely compared to modern scenarios of disordered gambling. Rosenthal agrees, saying: "There are a lot of parallels between the characters in Dostoevsky's writings and real case scenario. …The similarities are so strong."
Even today, The Gambler is analyzed and scrutinized by scientists searching to further decipher the gambling disorder and uncover its causes. Rosenthal, in one of his research papers, uses the novel to develop hypotheses about problem gambling behaviors, such as the gambler's motivation is not to win - an argument also made by Sigmund Freud, who studied Dostoevsky's gambling - and the gambler subconsciously wants to lose - also a theory of Freud's, which, in Dostoevsky's case, he pinned to parental loss in early childhood. Conversely, Raif Geha, chief of immunology at Children's Hospital in Boston, in his study of Dostoevsky and The Gambler, sees Alexei's motivation to gamble not to lose, but, indeed, to win - and win not only money, but also win back his late mother, brought on by the guilt of losing his father. "We suspect that self-punishment and defeat for the gambler are probably paradoxical but unintended," Geha concludes.
In addition to the sciences, Dostoevsky also influenced the arts and humanities. The Gambler (as well as a number of his other works) has been adapted for the stage - as both a play and opera - as well as the movie screen.
"I don't think [Dostoevsky] intended to be a pioneer or educate people about problem gambling," Rosenthal said. "He wrote what he knew about - one of them being gambling. And somehow, he was able to use it and create something brilliant."
