premise: We suffer a suspension of judgement when we hand over a card to purchase something and spend funds that we intended to use for something essential or unintentionally create an unauthorized overdraft. These spur-of-the-moment lapses are more likely to occur when we pay for something electronically or with credit than with hard cash. This is because of a widely held perception that electronic money and credit are somehow not as real or valuable as notes and coins. Retailers play on this emotional weakness with offers of in- store cards and buy now play later deals. But, nowhere is our Achilles heel exploited more than on the internet where it is impossible to pay with ready money and perhaps the sites that have perfected this form of exploitation are those that offer gambling. The sites regulated by the Gaming Commission have safeguards but the unregulated sites set out to encourage people to stake more to recover their losses and do not provide facilities to allow the gambler to set limits on how much they will fritter.
hypothesis: We suffer a suspension of judgement when we hand over a card to purchase something.