My first job out of Uni was making "games" for slot machines. My soul is forever damaged (not joking). I have horror stories over how much thought goes into the "design."
In a given jurisdiction (State/Province/County) there will be rules about the payout percentage. Anywhere from 90 to 98%. So lets assume 95% percent payout. In the long run, you give me a dollar, I give you back $0.95. Most of the time its zero, sometimes its a bit more than you put in to spin and once in a blue moon its huge. But, on average, you give me a dollar, I give you $0.95.
This is where biology / psychology comes into play. All the games from all the manufactures pay the same (in the long run) in a given state (its the law). The trick is to find the magic reward frequency (think Skinner box from Psych 1000). Occasionally a huge one with not much in between? Lots of little wins and hardly any super huge jackpots? Most of the reward frequencies don't work. The person can escape thinking the game is not fun. There are a few rare evil/magic frequencies that just trap the poor person.
Here is where it gets super evil. When one manufacturer's new game starts to do well in market, other manufacturers will do research (study the content of the reels (the spinning things) from a video capture) and reverse engineer the game's math/reward frequency.
So the same way that AI RNN is a exploring a multidimensional problem space and trying to jump out of local optima to find the true optimal solution. The gambling industry is exploring the dimensions of the mind trying to find the optimal Skinner box to take all your money. They are exploiting a bug in our brains design. We evolved to run around the Savannah and throw things with weird accuracy. We just are not built to defend against it. They should be banned.
I would instead suggest mandating a payout percentage of 100%, i.e. the machines make no profit for the owner. Venues might still buy them as ‘entertainment’ but not as profit centres. Instead they would be a customer attraction cost (purchase price plus electricity) for venues like bars and clubs, just like hiring live entertainment.
Gamblers will still gamble on them, thinking they'll be the lucky ones to get the jackpot (and beat the odds) but there would be far less of them around because they wouldn't be profitable to own in themselves. And there would be no motive to make them addictive (because again, no profit motive).
> The gambling industry is exploring the dimensions of the mind trying to find the optimal Skinner box to take all your money. They are exploiting a bug in our brains design. We evolved to run around the Savannah and throw things with weird accuracy. We just are not built to defend against it. They should be banned.
So we should ban viral mechanics, those old Facebook games, dark UI/UX patterns, and pay-to-play mobile games as well? They often work in the same manner, and yet you yourself appear to know the risks and appear to be immune to them.
For the record: I like gambling. I like drinking, too. I have neither a gambling addiction nor an alcohol addiction. Should I be disallowed these things I find pleasurable because a subset of the population abuses these things?
Most of the slots these days are just cabinets with touchscreen LCDs, a bill changer, a player's card reader, and a computer running software. Of course it's evil, but I'm surprised they aren't split testing the reward frequencies, and then having the software adjust automatically to the one that generates the most total action for the game. That way they wouldn't have to ripoff other manufacturers' games when they start doing well....all the games would be optimized over time for maximum appeal/profit/addiction.
"Richardson’s employer, Colombo Candy & Tobacco Wholesale. Richardson, the company’s controller, embezzled $4.1 million over the course of two years to support her gambling addiction. (In 2014, Richardson, then 54, was sentenced to 14 to 20 years in prison for the crime.) The thefts ultimately put the company out of business."
So a company based on exploiting human addiction caused another company based on exploiting human addiction to go out of business. I can just barely hear the world's tiniest violin playing the saddest song for them.
The casino industry is full of contradictions. Steve Wynn's father was a degenerate gambler who died with serious gambling debts. Sheldon Adelson, who has made billions from gambling addiction, has spent millions fighting online gambling. Why? Here's a direct quote [1]:
"[My father] was poor, but he loved to gamble. I saw the cost of a family immersion into losing money on gaming. When I look at people like that, I see the faces of my parents."
Yet he has no issues with taking money from such families on an unprecedented scale - as long as it's in person. You have to be very...."morally flexible"......to work anywhere near the gaming industry. It is built specifically to create and exploit gambling addiction - roughly 50% of revenue comes from 2% of players.
A really great short documentary on this subject is Louis Theroux's "Gambling in Las Vegas". His frank manner really cuts to the core of not only the length to which addicts will justify gambling but also to the lengths to which the casino employees justify their enabling.
Reminds of the strategies freemium devs employ where they do their best to snare "whales" who are players who will causally drop thousands of dollars on various in-game powerups and skins. There was a report a few months ago claiming these players are responsible for 70% of an app's revenue!
I imagine its similar for casinos, so they have no real incentive to actually stop addiction as addicts are their revenue generating "whales."
Thanks for sharing—my family was ripped apart due to my father's unbridled gambling. Although it's conceivable that casinos play their part in motivating people to gamble, much of the addiction is a battle within the individuals.
That's a great documentary. I'd like to see a followup on some of the people he interviewed. Some research online will show that the "Mattress King" had lost his young son shortly before this was filmed
Wow, that's amazing for the ways the people interviewed will talk about gambling (especially the different ways that they resist Theroux's efforts to get them to talk about the expected outcome of a gambling session, think about how much money they're losing, or identify a point at which they would stop).
There's a really good book about the design of the slot machines, called Addiction by Design. It talks about the different UI and design elements that go into keeping the gambler engaged and why they keep spending more money. It's a really amazing and enlightening book to read if you're interested in learning more about the mechanics of the slot machines and the designs of the casino.
I absolutely don't understand the draw of slot machines. I watched a woman playing a smartphone version on the subway; for three stops, she just kept hitting the "spin" button and watching the results.
I admit to not knowing how they work, but do they typically have any more interaction than "pull lever, sporadically receive reward"?
The one time I was in a casino I accompanied a coworker who gambled to one of the low dollar casinos in Colorado. What I noticed were poor people who came with $100 and wanted--or needed--to leave with $200, and of course the business model says that very few of them did. I bought a $10 bucket of quarters out of boredom and after 10 or so minutes I had $11.25, which is an incredible annualized return but not what gamblers are looking for. I noticed people going from one machine to another--"this one is cold", "maybe this is the right one", etc. It was very sad, and I learned that low dollar gambling can be insidious when the players are poor and look to the casino for money they need. The big dollar losses may make better headlines, but the self-delusion and suffering are the same.
Does anyone else think certain video games are the equivalent of slot machine? I'm not just talking about simple phone games, but more complex, team based pick up games as well - if you rely on a matchmaker that knows to an approximation the skill of each player, is it not randomizing ones chance to win? I live with gaming addicts and used to be one - they spend every waking hour on their pcs while not at work. It's their freedom to do whatever they want with their lives but it feels like they're wasting all the early parts of their lives away.
Not trying to be edgy, but it strikes me as odd that, once you remove the obvious historic legacy and economic benefits to government, problem gambling is legal in 2016, but recreational drugs are not.
I wouldn't be against a law that prevented people from gambling large amounts of money unless they could prove the money was theirs. (ETA: whew, a quadruple negative.) The IRS could provide a form that confirmed that someone reported X amount of income, and you should only be allowed to gamble X-Y for some nominal value of Y. This wouldn't be that hard to enforce (the time isn't too significant when you're dealing with large amounts of money), and I don't think there's much public interest in being able to gamble unlimited amounts of money and keep it secret from the government.
Is there some problem with the above? Is there a compelling reason this would harm civil liberties that I'm missing? It's not worse than banning gambling altogether, and should prevent most embezzling or gambling borrowed funds.
Great article. I have a Internet addiction and this is eerily similar.
Like slot machines that pump random awards and chance into slot user, I feel the surge of social approval and dopamine rush too when I get a Reddit upvote, a Facebook Like, IG comment, Tumblr reblog etc.
Also like how gambling addicts get into a "zombie flow-state" when they're one with the machine, I feel the same way scrolling through pages after pages of Hacker News/Reddit/NYTimes/ESPN/YouTube popular channels. The thrill is gone, but the mechanics of pulling the slots pulley is embedded in my brain, watching one more YouTube video of a political pundit railing about the election, one more reaction video about a Internet meme, sometimes even re-watching video's like re-watching music lyrics video to relive the laughter, that feeling - and only in the middle of the video wondering how I got there, like sometimes driving to a destination other than your work office but your brain goes on autopilot and takes the other turn to your office; and you don't realize it until you're there.
Also like how casino's are a very anonymous and comforting place to addicts, I feel very safe and comfortable in hanging out with like-minded individuals on online forums whom I only know a vague outline of, but whose weariness and anonymity like mine are just as addicted and plugged into the zombie human-machine interface; I feel intuned and comfortable with. Like the anti-social meme's ("Ez game, Ez lyfe") on online games, alt-right memes on some Subreddits (Pepe memes, Trump is a racist) and IT memes on HN (for Elon Musk's new Tesla model, against Holmes' Theranos, for Peter Thiel's Fellowship, against Peter Thiel's endorsements, employees vs. funders), I commiserate with the anger and rage; and the identification of these online communities, just to feel like I am a part of something and also to direct my emotions to have some kind of drama & risk in my otherwise sterile electronic life; sometimes I feel I feel simultaneous the negative emotions and positive identifications on both sides of the argument.
I guess at least my addiction isn't too bad given I'm only losing on my account balance of time and attention although that feeling of coming out of a six hours bender on the net trying to find the perfect co-working space in my city, debating through all the Yelp/CityData threads for the pro's and con's, feels eerily like coming out a casino sliding doors to bright sunlight at 8AM after a 18hr binge at the blackjack table; somehow in the back of your mind, you already accepted that you'll be economically bankrupt in exchange for a chase for an emotional high - almost a spiritual transcendence, but somehow you wound up just feeling morally bankrupt.
You are not alone. I feel the same way every now and then. The most obvious sign is when I catch myself typing the URL of the website I just opened right there again at the top.
And then I go through my habits and get better internet hygiene. One such thing that helped was setting time limits or when I switched for instance to using Google Reader.
Unfortunately google killed it, so I was lost for a while.
Another trick that worked for a bit was using Calibre to dump websites/articles (from RSS feeds) into a daily .epub for my Kindle. Browsing the web on an offline device is really nice, as it removes the impulse for clicking on links.
I'm a recovering gambling addict (since 22 June 1998), but what you described is why I shuttered my Facebook account. I had recognised for a while that the behaviour was compulsive and unhealthy but I still was self-justifying as to why I needed it. As of last Sunday evening I'm FB-free and the world hasn't caved in. I've also given up on Slashdot for similar reasons (I accept that I am powerless over other people's opinions). I'm of an age where my friends will still respond to communication via other means (e.g. the telephone as a device for real-time, synchronous, two-way verbal exchange).
If anyone is unsure whether they have a problem that could be described as an addiction, just google "addiction 20 questions" and apply what you find to your own behaviour. Bottom line, if your behaviour is compulsive even in the face of intellectual awareness that it is being done to the detriment of self or others, where weak rationalisations are used to self-justify excess indulgence in <substance/behaviour>, then you could fairly describe it as an addiction to <substance/behaviour>.
Players become so absorbed in the machines that they leave young children unattended, wet themselves without noticing, and neglect to eat for hours.
Sounds like video games. (Disclosure: I'm developing a multiplayer game, precisely because I feel the underlying similarities to resort casinos in multiplayer games insult my intelligence.)
My guess is that he took an equity loan on the house. Based on their website, PNC looks to be like most other banks as far as business model and services offered, so a plain ol' home equity line of credit makes the most sense.
He may have lied to the bank about his income and credit history. Addicts tend to do that kind of thing. Before 2008, it was trivially easy to get away with it.
I have zero sympathy for gambling addicts. They voluntarily choose to enter into unfavorable financial transactions (i.e. make -EV bets). As long as the casino's encouragements don't step over the line from aggressive marketing into fraud or coercion.
Yes, they exploit human psychology to convince people to spend money, potentially large amounts of money, unwisely on something they don't actually need. That's the purpose of the entire field of marketing, from advertising jingles on the radio in the 1930's to the sexy elf girl on the Everquest box in the 1990's to the reward point cards popping up at every store in the 2010's.
Yes, it's shitty, slimy, exploitative and more than a little creepy. I personally hate marketing, and in fact I've met very few people that enjoy being targeted by it. But the fact of the matter is, as long as you have large societies of people talking to each other, businesses will be built on speaking to customers and convincing them to part with their money for some product of very questionable value. If you legalize, you can regulate and tax, so that the games are relatively clean and fair, and enforcement of disputes is handled relatively non-violently through the legal system. Otherwise, you'll just drive it underground.
> They voluntarily choose to enter into unfavorable financial transactions (i.e. make -EV bets).
No. They are uneducated and they need help. They are not making rational decisions as described, they are navigating by their feelings.
I helped provide social welfare for people like this in a side gig. One woman was just the _nicest_ you could ever meet; she helped everyone. But when she stepped into a casino, something in her subconscious told her that the universe was finally going to reward her goodness.
I still try to stay in touch with her daughter, who graduated from high school as a homeless kid.
The family was terribly affected. But I still sympathize with the mom. She didn't voluntarily choose this problem. It doesn't even take sophisticated software to manipulate her. People continue to help her move forward, though, and she can change and is mostly OK these days.
> That's the purpose of the entire field of marketing
I disagree; that's simply black and white thinking. If you hear "let's sell people something" and think, "oh, they want to exploit somebody," that's not how it actually works; it's just your perception. Do _some_ people and organizations work in an exploitative way? Sure. Do they all? No. I just don't believe that putting out the guy with the sandwich board equates with manipulation, or that any manipulation is all of the same degree.
The HN audience converges with the audience that absolutely despises marketing; this is due to their preferred cognitive toolset which is very analytical and uncomfortable with the power of emotion. Others have different toolsets. They see marketing as a way to get people on both ends of a deal good outcomes in a mostly-good world.
> I personally hate marketing
I wouldn't trust that; marketing is just a reflection of human cognitive functions which are probably not a preferred part of your personal approach to life. A huge segment of society sees it as a way to move forward productively, even though it does carry risk like anything else.
I see a lot of parallels between gambling and video games, specifically in how video game reward mechanisms resemble gambling with the way the brain responds to intense situations and risk/reward scenarios—simply put, you can get quite a rush from either, and there's an entire industry built up around both to profit from this.
I'd love to see a thorough comparison between these two. I think there's a lot of room to explore similarity in stigmas around addiction and indulgence in these pastimes, how people justify it, and the addiction mechanisms at play. Maybe there's even an exploration of healthy gambling habits that mirror healthy entertainment habits? I'd love to read about this stuff.
Jonathan Blow has a great presentation on the mechanisms of video game addiction and the role of the game designer in building ethically responsible games [0]. I highly recommend it to anybody who's interested in exploring this line of thinking.
I'd love to see a thorough comparison between these two.
Oh, I think you'd find parallels with a lot of things beyond just games and gambling. I say that because I've recently recognized in myself a few of those parallels. Take the mandolin that I've taken up in the last couple of years (having played other stringed instruments for decades). Though not a formal study or anything, I see the same kinds of feelings when I nail a difficult riff as I do when I finally beat that final boss in BioShockingGrandAutoDuty. The difference is that it might take a few years before one gets to that "nail the riff" state on an instrument, whereas a slot machine and CallOfBattleHalo have very low bars.
I can even see some addictive qualities (for my personality, at least). When I've got a tune that I've been working on rattling around in my head, I find that there are times that I have a...compulsion?...to get my fingers on a fretboard and try a different approach or a different fingering. Hard to describe, but it very much parallels what it's like when I've got a new game and am itching to get home and play it.
The difference is, of course, that few people complain when you've gotten really damned good on that instrument and I imagine very few people have lost their house because they play their mandolin too much (though some might lose their house because they thought music was a viable career). So we probably just don't give it much thought beyond those behaviors that are easily demonstrated to be destructive.
Casinos profit in many ways, but some of them include:
- Even if a game is played sticking to optimal strategy, odds are in favor of the house. Through game rules, and/or house rules.
- Many players are tourists that do not know how to play optimally. Those subdize players that win, and leave a margin overall.
- They encourage drinking by offering alcohol for free to make people less inhibited, less risk averse and diminish their ability to play to the best of their ability.
- Players do not use currency directly, but chips. Chips have a more playful connotation than currency, and create a level of indirection that subconsciously distracts people from the fact they are dealing with money.
Then, some personality traits and mental health conditions can contribute to less risk aversion and other aspects that lead to unreasonable gambling.
> Or was he the victim—as the suit alleged—of a system carefully calibrated to prey upon his weakness, one that robbed him of his money, his hope, and ultimately his life
Isn't this all businesses in a capitalist system? Try to get as money as you can from people legally.
Of course you're right. The quoted statement is part of a broader attack on self-responsibility that is taking place in the western world. We all are poor poor beings who bear no responsibilities for our flaws. Bad at school? It's a mental disorder. Gambling addiction? It's a bug in the brain. Everybody else is responsible for one's woes. This way of thinking is incredibly toxic and prevents human flourishing. To blame other people for your faults is to deny yourself the opportunity for betterment. And I say that as someone who doesn't necessarily believe in free will.
Our state voted to fund programs for veterans, seniors and the disabled from taxes collected via expanded (online and other) gambling a few years ago. Luckily, we voted against a public referendum to expand the number of casinos in the state this election; most likely because nobody wants one in their backyard.
Still, the government funding its expenditures via regressive and actively harmful methods always rubbed me the wrong way.
Here is my proposal to eliminate problem gambling forever: scrap all laws restricting gambling. I know this might sound surprising (ok possibly crazy) but hear me on...
Today it is extremely expensive to open a casino. I'm not sure what the laws for offline casino are, but license costs for a new online casino are 100s of 1000s to millions USD per year. Subsequently there are very few companies that compete in this space -> there is artificially limited supply -> the price for gambling is high. The price for gambling is the players average loss per bet (called the house edge). It varies from a few % to over 10% for most casino games. It's what makes the gambler loose in the long run.
Say online gambling were legal in the US. There would be way way more online casinos competing for the player. This competition would drive down the house edge to either very close to or actually 0. A 0% house edge would do away with problem gambling. Gambling addicts make 1000s of bets per day, and the law of big numbers dictates that they would not loose money over the long run. This does not even factor in that online casinos would be VC funded, and would not need to make a profit for a long time, which would drive down the price even further.
This isn't just a lofty libertarian theory. The bitcoin gambling market is largely deregulated and the house edge in bitcoin casinos is way lower (1% - 0.1%) than for regulated casinos. Recall that regulated casinos have to somehow pay huge licensing costs to the state, that's money that their players have to loose.
Long story short, it is my conviction that online gambling laws are what make gambling addicts loose money (and much more, see article). Do away with the regulation and the market forces will lead to a state where gambling addicts do not loose any more money.
I've worked at 3 gaming manufacturers including implementing the payout table. Near misses were never coded into the design. If they did occur, they were consequences of the way the reels were physically laid out. That choice was made from an excel sheet that outlines how many types of each award were expected. The primary statistics the mathematicians cared about were volatility (std deviation) and hold percentage. I can almost guarantee that no modern manufacturers have coded logic that says "If a loss was chosen, re-arrange the loss to appear close to a winning combination". There is no need to do that.
Also, virtual reel maps allow you to have wins over 10,000 units. That enables choice, some people might want to play a large-award machine. There is no deceit there. If the award says "8 million dollars", you know that winning symbol does not have a 1/22 chance of coming up. I have played megabucks, a progressive slot with a $10mm award, for a couple hours. I believe I got one winning megabucks symbol on the first reel, perhaps 4-6 times. That seems in line with its rough expected probability. No deceit. If the first symbol, and (!!) the second symbol came up with their true 1/22 probability, but conveniently the third symbol always missed, it might fool some people initially. But the people who play these machines often would figure it out and their gambler's superstition would kick in. They'd say "those machines are rigged, I've gotten 2/3 winning symbols hundreds of times but I never get the third. I wont play them anymore."
For anyone who is outright against all gambling, its important to remember that you will never shut it down. If you make it illegal, people will go online, or the mafia will have their "numbers" game, people will bet on sports through bookies, etc. The shadier the source, the dirtier it gets. I've heard of casinos in south america that had "inaugural wins", where they'd rig the machine to pay them the first time they sit down in order to hook them. That is sick.
The first reform I'd like to see is the $1200 tax limit increased. Thats an unfair tax on everyone, addict or not. It should be raised to account for the cost of living and inflation. I don't think it's been changed in at least the last 15 years.
Second, I think the optimal solution here is to legislate some sort of "gambler's bankruptcy", where someone surrenders their assets to a court, which then puts them on a forced budget and severely impedes their ability to gamble. That way it could perhaps prevent them from being homeless, sued, etc.
Third, I think that if you embezzle or otherwise use stolen funds to gamble that should absolutely be recoverable by the victim. If I buy stolen property, the court has no problem seizing that from me and returning it to its rightful owner. If the casinos sell entertainment and receive stolen funds, they absolutely should suffer the consequences just like an ordinary citizen. If they see a "whale" coming in and extend all these benefits to them, it should be their onus to verify that person's income.
[+] [-] Tistel|9 years ago|reply
In a given jurisdiction (State/Province/County) there will be rules about the payout percentage. Anywhere from 90 to 98%. So lets assume 95% percent payout. In the long run, you give me a dollar, I give you back $0.95. Most of the time its zero, sometimes its a bit more than you put in to spin and once in a blue moon its huge. But, on average, you give me a dollar, I give you $0.95.
This is where biology / psychology comes into play. All the games from all the manufactures pay the same (in the long run) in a given state (its the law). The trick is to find the magic reward frequency (think Skinner box from Psych 1000). Occasionally a huge one with not much in between? Lots of little wins and hardly any super huge jackpots? Most of the reward frequencies don't work. The person can escape thinking the game is not fun. There are a few rare evil/magic frequencies that just trap the poor person.
Here is where it gets super evil. When one manufacturer's new game starts to do well in market, other manufacturers will do research (study the content of the reels (the spinning things) from a video capture) and reverse engineer the game's math/reward frequency.
So the same way that AI RNN is a exploring a multidimensional problem space and trying to jump out of local optima to find the true optimal solution. The gambling industry is exploring the dimensions of the mind trying to find the optimal Skinner box to take all your money. They are exploiting a bug in our brains design. We evolved to run around the Savannah and throw things with weird accuracy. We just are not built to defend against it. They should be banned.
[+] [-] oska|9 years ago|reply
I would instead suggest mandating a payout percentage of 100%, i.e. the machines make no profit for the owner. Venues might still buy them as ‘entertainment’ but not as profit centres. Instead they would be a customer attraction cost (purchase price plus electricity) for venues like bars and clubs, just like hiring live entertainment.
Gamblers will still gamble on them, thinking they'll be the lucky ones to get the jackpot (and beat the odds) but there would be far less of them around because they wouldn't be profitable to own in themselves. And there would be no motive to make them addictive (because again, no profit motive).
[+] [-] micaksica|9 years ago|reply
So we should ban viral mechanics, those old Facebook games, dark UI/UX patterns, and pay-to-play mobile games as well? They often work in the same manner, and yet you yourself appear to know the risks and appear to be immune to them.
For the record: I like gambling. I like drinking, too. I have neither a gambling addiction nor an alcohol addiction. Should I be disallowed these things I find pleasurable because a subset of the population abuses these things?
[+] [-] downandout|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheOtherHobbes|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billmalarky|9 years ago|reply
So a company based on exploiting human addiction caused another company based on exploiting human addiction to go out of business. I can just barely hear the world's tiniest violin playing the saddest song for them.
[+] [-] downandout|9 years ago|reply
"[My father] was poor, but he loved to gamble. I saw the cost of a family immersion into losing money on gaming. When I look at people like that, I see the faces of my parents."
Yet he has no issues with taking money from such families on an unprecedented scale - as long as it's in person. You have to be very...."morally flexible"......to work anywhere near the gaming industry. It is built specifically to create and exploit gambling addiction - roughly 50% of revenue comes from 2% of players.
[1] http://www.fool.com/investing/high-growth/2014/10/20/g2e-201...
[+] [-] mgkimsal|9 years ago|reply
(yes, those companies paid taxes too)
[+] [-] unknownsavage|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] komon|9 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJRYUZbxwyA
[+] [-] overcast|9 years ago|reply
Better version that doesn't have all kind of broken artifacts.
I enjoy hearing the justification of "friendship" between the high roller, and his fixer. Pretty hilarious.
[+] [-] drzaiusapelord|9 years ago|reply
I imagine its similar for casinos, so they have no real incentive to actually stop addiction as addicts are their revenue generating "whales."
[+] [-] itsmemattchung|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kirykl|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schoen|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|9 years ago|reply
They are nearly a continuous eye roll of outraged geeks complaining about how states like NY were an affront to freedom and liberty.
Edit: The downvotes are awesome on this topic. Folks love their crack.
[+] [-] Demcox|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imroot|9 years ago|reply
https://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Design-Machine-Gambling-Veg...
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|9 years ago|reply
I admit to not knowing how they work, but do they typically have any more interaction than "pull lever, sporadically receive reward"?
[+] [-] mfringel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saretired|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taurath|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] l33tbro|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oxide|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ikeboy|9 years ago|reply
Is there some problem with the above? Is there a compelling reason this would harm civil liberties that I'm missing? It's not worse than banning gambling altogether, and should prevent most embezzling or gambling borrowed funds.
[+] [-] noname123|9 years ago|reply
Like slot machines that pump random awards and chance into slot user, I feel the surge of social approval and dopamine rush too when I get a Reddit upvote, a Facebook Like, IG comment, Tumblr reblog etc.
Also like how gambling addicts get into a "zombie flow-state" when they're one with the machine, I feel the same way scrolling through pages after pages of Hacker News/Reddit/NYTimes/ESPN/YouTube popular channels. The thrill is gone, but the mechanics of pulling the slots pulley is embedded in my brain, watching one more YouTube video of a political pundit railing about the election, one more reaction video about a Internet meme, sometimes even re-watching video's like re-watching music lyrics video to relive the laughter, that feeling - and only in the middle of the video wondering how I got there, like sometimes driving to a destination other than your work office but your brain goes on autopilot and takes the other turn to your office; and you don't realize it until you're there.
Also like how casino's are a very anonymous and comforting place to addicts, I feel very safe and comfortable in hanging out with like-minded individuals on online forums whom I only know a vague outline of, but whose weariness and anonymity like mine are just as addicted and plugged into the zombie human-machine interface; I feel intuned and comfortable with. Like the anti-social meme's ("Ez game, Ez lyfe") on online games, alt-right memes on some Subreddits (Pepe memes, Trump is a racist) and IT memes on HN (for Elon Musk's new Tesla model, against Holmes' Theranos, for Peter Thiel's Fellowship, against Peter Thiel's endorsements, employees vs. funders), I commiserate with the anger and rage; and the identification of these online communities, just to feel like I am a part of something and also to direct my emotions to have some kind of drama & risk in my otherwise sterile electronic life; sometimes I feel I feel simultaneous the negative emotions and positive identifications on both sides of the argument.
I guess at least my addiction isn't too bad given I'm only losing on my account balance of time and attention although that feeling of coming out of a six hours bender on the net trying to find the perfect co-working space in my city, debating through all the Yelp/CityData threads for the pro's and con's, feels eerily like coming out a casino sliding doors to bright sunlight at 8AM after a 18hr binge at the blackjack table; somehow in the back of your mind, you already accepted that you'll be economically bankrupt in exchange for a chase for an emotional high - almost a spiritual transcendence, but somehow you wound up just feeling morally bankrupt.
[+] [-] enqk|9 years ago|reply
And then I go through my habits and get better internet hygiene. One such thing that helped was setting time limits or when I switched for instance to using Google Reader.
Unfortunately google killed it, so I was lost for a while.
Another trick that worked for a bit was using Calibre to dump websites/articles (from RSS feeds) into a daily .epub for my Kindle. Browsing the web on an offline device is really nice, as it removes the impulse for clicking on links.
[+] [-] phs318u|9 years ago|reply
If anyone is unsure whether they have a problem that could be described as an addiction, just google "addiction 20 questions" and apply what you find to your own behaviour. Bottom line, if your behaviour is compulsive even in the face of intellectual awareness that it is being done to the detriment of self or others, where weak rationalisations are used to self-justify excess indulgence in <substance/behaviour>, then you could fairly describe it as an addiction to <substance/behaviour>.
[+] [-] kelvin0|9 years ago|reply
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5497778/
It's an episode of the Series 'Black Mirror'. Well worth the watch.
[+] [-] stcredzero|9 years ago|reply
Sounds like video games. (Disclosure: I'm developing a multiplayer game, precisely because I feel the underlying similarities to resort casinos in multiplayer games insult my intelligence.)
[+] [-] gambiting|9 years ago|reply
The man had no job, maxed out credit card, and a bank gave him a loan of 110k? Am I crazy to think this is insane on the bank's behalf?
[+] [-] mikestew|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Retric|9 years ago|reply
Another consideration is the person making the loan at PNC can be better off even if PNC is worse off.
[+] [-] twblalock|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zardo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kenji|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csense|9 years ago|reply
Yes, they exploit human psychology to convince people to spend money, potentially large amounts of money, unwisely on something they don't actually need. That's the purpose of the entire field of marketing, from advertising jingles on the radio in the 1930's to the sexy elf girl on the Everquest box in the 1990's to the reward point cards popping up at every store in the 2010's.
Yes, it's shitty, slimy, exploitative and more than a little creepy. I personally hate marketing, and in fact I've met very few people that enjoy being targeted by it. But the fact of the matter is, as long as you have large societies of people talking to each other, businesses will be built on speaking to customers and convincing them to part with their money for some product of very questionable value. If you legalize, you can regulate and tax, so that the games are relatively clean and fair, and enforcement of disputes is handled relatively non-violently through the legal system. Otherwise, you'll just drive it underground.
[+] [-] themodelplumber|9 years ago|reply
No. They are uneducated and they need help. They are not making rational decisions as described, they are navigating by their feelings.
I helped provide social welfare for people like this in a side gig. One woman was just the _nicest_ you could ever meet; she helped everyone. But when she stepped into a casino, something in her subconscious told her that the universe was finally going to reward her goodness.
I still try to stay in touch with her daughter, who graduated from high school as a homeless kid.
The family was terribly affected. But I still sympathize with the mom. She didn't voluntarily choose this problem. It doesn't even take sophisticated software to manipulate her. People continue to help her move forward, though, and she can change and is mostly OK these days.
> That's the purpose of the entire field of marketing
I disagree; that's simply black and white thinking. If you hear "let's sell people something" and think, "oh, they want to exploit somebody," that's not how it actually works; it's just your perception. Do _some_ people and organizations work in an exploitative way? Sure. Do they all? No. I just don't believe that putting out the guy with the sandwich board equates with manipulation, or that any manipulation is all of the same degree.
The HN audience converges with the audience that absolutely despises marketing; this is due to their preferred cognitive toolset which is very analytical and uncomfortable with the power of emotion. Others have different toolsets. They see marketing as a way to get people on both ends of a deal good outcomes in a mostly-good world.
> I personally hate marketing
I wouldn't trust that; marketing is just a reflection of human cognitive functions which are probably not a preferred part of your personal approach to life. A huge segment of society sees it as a way to move forward productively, even though it does carry risk like anything else.
[+] [-] kens|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JasonSage|9 years ago|reply
I'd love to see a thorough comparison between these two. I think there's a lot of room to explore similarity in stigmas around addiction and indulgence in these pastimes, how people justify it, and the addiction mechanisms at play. Maybe there's even an exploration of healthy gambling habits that mirror healthy entertainment habits? I'd love to read about this stuff.
Jonathan Blow has a great presentation on the mechanisms of video game addiction and the role of the game designer in building ethically responsible games [0]. I highly recommend it to anybody who's interested in exploring this line of thinking.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqFu5O-oPmU
[+] [-] mikestew|9 years ago|reply
Oh, I think you'd find parallels with a lot of things beyond just games and gambling. I say that because I've recently recognized in myself a few of those parallels. Take the mandolin that I've taken up in the last couple of years (having played other stringed instruments for decades). Though not a formal study or anything, I see the same kinds of feelings when I nail a difficult riff as I do when I finally beat that final boss in BioShockingGrandAutoDuty. The difference is that it might take a few years before one gets to that "nail the riff" state on an instrument, whereas a slot machine and CallOfBattleHalo have very low bars.
I can even see some addictive qualities (for my personality, at least). When I've got a tune that I've been working on rattling around in my head, I find that there are times that I have a...compulsion?...to get my fingers on a fretboard and try a different approach or a different fingering. Hard to describe, but it very much parallels what it's like when I've got a new game and am itching to get home and play it.
The difference is, of course, that few people complain when you've gotten really damned good on that instrument and I imagine very few people have lost their house because they play their mandolin too much (though some might lose their house because they thought music was a viable career). So we probably just don't give it much thought beyond those behaviors that are easily demonstrated to be destructive.
[+] [-] partycoder|9 years ago|reply
- Even if a game is played sticking to optimal strategy, odds are in favor of the house. Through game rules, and/or house rules.
- Many players are tourists that do not know how to play optimally. Those subdize players that win, and leave a margin overall.
- They encourage drinking by offering alcohol for free to make people less inhibited, less risk averse and diminish their ability to play to the best of their ability.
- There are cognitive biases that create the perception of a higher probability of winning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy
- Players do not use currency directly, but chips. Chips have a more playful connotation than currency, and create a level of indirection that subconsciously distracts people from the fact they are dealing with money.
Then, some personality traits and mental health conditions can contribute to less risk aversion and other aspects that lead to unreasonable gambling.
[+] [-] choward|9 years ago|reply
Isn't this all businesses in a capitalist system? Try to get as money as you can from people legally.
[+] [-] grzm|9 years ago|reply
- Is capitalism in and of itself good?
- Are humans purely rational beings? Should they be treated as such?
- Does legality imply ethics? If it's legal does that mean it's good?
- Laws change. Does that mean that ethics change at the same time as laws?
- If people want to create laws and regulations that prevent them from making common mistakes at the expense of pure freedom, is that okay?
There's limited information in your comment, so please don't take these questions as an assumption on my part of what you believe.
[+] [-] Kenji|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Smushman|9 years ago|reply
Based on that - I think an open informational model would go a long way.
I imagine this would be a history or graphing of win vs. loss and dollar amounts or similar statistics for the customer/gambler.
It could be provided on say a slip of paper, presented each time the customer goes to the cage or buys chips at the tables.
The customer could even refuse the paper if they 'wanted to bury their head in the sand'.
[+] [-] fucking_tragedy|9 years ago|reply
Still, the government funding its expenditures via regressive and actively harmful methods always rubbed me the wrong way.
[+] [-] fastbetshenry|9 years ago|reply
Today it is extremely expensive to open a casino. I'm not sure what the laws for offline casino are, but license costs for a new online casino are 100s of 1000s to millions USD per year. Subsequently there are very few companies that compete in this space -> there is artificially limited supply -> the price for gambling is high. The price for gambling is the players average loss per bet (called the house edge). It varies from a few % to over 10% for most casino games. It's what makes the gambler loose in the long run.
Say online gambling were legal in the US. There would be way way more online casinos competing for the player. This competition would drive down the house edge to either very close to or actually 0. A 0% house edge would do away with problem gambling. Gambling addicts make 1000s of bets per day, and the law of big numbers dictates that they would not loose money over the long run. This does not even factor in that online casinos would be VC funded, and would not need to make a profit for a long time, which would drive down the price even further.
This isn't just a lofty libertarian theory. The bitcoin gambling market is largely deregulated and the house edge in bitcoin casinos is way lower (1% - 0.1%) than for regulated casinos. Recall that regulated casinos have to somehow pay huge licensing costs to the state, that's money that their players have to loose.
Long story short, it is my conviction that online gambling laws are what make gambling addicts loose money (and much more, see article). Do away with the regulation and the market forces will lead to a state where gambling addicts do not loose any more money.
(full disclosure: I run a bitcoin casino)
[+] [-] digler999|9 years ago|reply
Also, virtual reel maps allow you to have wins over 10,000 units. That enables choice, some people might want to play a large-award machine. There is no deceit there. If the award says "8 million dollars", you know that winning symbol does not have a 1/22 chance of coming up. I have played megabucks, a progressive slot with a $10mm award, for a couple hours. I believe I got one winning megabucks symbol on the first reel, perhaps 4-6 times. That seems in line with its rough expected probability. No deceit. If the first symbol, and (!!) the second symbol came up with their true 1/22 probability, but conveniently the third symbol always missed, it might fool some people initially. But the people who play these machines often would figure it out and their gambler's superstition would kick in. They'd say "those machines are rigged, I've gotten 2/3 winning symbols hundreds of times but I never get the third. I wont play them anymore."
For anyone who is outright against all gambling, its important to remember that you will never shut it down. If you make it illegal, people will go online, or the mafia will have their "numbers" game, people will bet on sports through bookies, etc. The shadier the source, the dirtier it gets. I've heard of casinos in south america that had "inaugural wins", where they'd rig the machine to pay them the first time they sit down in order to hook them. That is sick.
The first reform I'd like to see is the $1200 tax limit increased. Thats an unfair tax on everyone, addict or not. It should be raised to account for the cost of living and inflation. I don't think it's been changed in at least the last 15 years.
Second, I think the optimal solution here is to legislate some sort of "gambler's bankruptcy", where someone surrenders their assets to a court, which then puts them on a forced budget and severely impedes their ability to gamble. That way it could perhaps prevent them from being homeless, sued, etc.
Third, I think that if you embezzle or otherwise use stolen funds to gamble that should absolutely be recoverable by the victim. If I buy stolen property, the court has no problem seizing that from me and returning it to its rightful owner. If the casinos sell entertainment and receive stolen funds, they absolutely should suffer the consequences just like an ordinary citizen. If they see a "whale" coming in and extend all these benefits to them, it should be their onus to verify that person's income.