How come people get addicted to slot machines and continue to play hoping to win, if it’s obviously a game designed to make you lose (it gives you back less money than what you put in)?
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Because people fundamentally believe in luck and/or the principle of ‘this machine is due to pay out because *xyz*. Beyond that, slot machines are *built* to prey on people. All those shining lights, the sounds, all the flashing things on the screen … All of that is very carefully designed to feed players dopamine.
I worked in a casino for about 16 years. It’s pretty obvious heavy players are addicted
Sunk cost fallacy – when starting out you use like 100 bucks – you eventually lose those, but you already “invested” the 100, so by quitting now you lose them forever, but if you *keep playing* you have a chance to recover those 100 you lost.
So you invest another 100 bucks, losing those too, that makes it total of 200 bucks lost, or “invested”, if you end now, you lose 200 bucks, but if you keep playing……
It’s a never ending, vicious cycle of addiction and a false hope of recovering your loss
Sunk cost fallacy happens not only with money, but with time as well – if i’m in relationship for 8 months, it’s going terrible, but i can’t bring myself to end the relationship because i have already “invested” 8 months of my time, which would go to waste if i end the relationship right now, so i keep going….
You know how you pull up reddit everyday and make posts and comments, hoping that people will like them?
Dopamine, dopamine is the answer.
A number of mechanisms are at play here. One important one is that people, and some more than others, have a tendency to ignore losses and be overly focused on winnings. So that one $100 win is more salient to them than the $200 they lost while playing so far. In particular, they crave the reward feeling (largely mediated in the brain by the release of a chemical called *dopamine*) that they get when they win, while they are or have become desensitized to the negative feeling associated with a loss.
Another mechanism is the idea that, if you just get one more win, you can make up for your losses (at least partly) and then after that you can quit. Of course the problem is, (1) the odds are still against you so while you will eventually win, on average you always rack up more losses and (2) people don’t actually quit when they do hit that win. They get the rush they were after and then think “I’m on a roll now, let’s just try for one more win”, and then sink themselves deeper into the hole.
Ultimately none of this is rational, of course. Gambling never is. It preys on the weaknesses of human psychology that make us act irrationally against our better judgment. Ultimately it’s not all that different from any other addiction: the addict craves the rewarding feeling that comes with the addictive behavior, and in pursuit of this feeling they are willing to make sacrifices that are not rationally justifiable against the reward they bring. And because of how our brain chemistry works, the addict becomes desensitized and needs more and more “hits” to get the same level of reward.
It’s when you see a sign on the machine that proudly announces that it has a 78% payout – as if that’s a good thing. So, statistically, for every 100 you put in, you will lose 22 (pick your favourite monetary unit).
My friend had a healthy approach to casinos – he would set aside a fixed amount of money (say £50) and, if he lost that, he would leave. If he won a substantial amount he would take £50 out of the winnings and put it in his back pocket. He would then play with the remainder. Once that was gone, again he left.
[Gambling is one of the most insidious addictions](https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/compulsive-gambling/symptoms-causes/syc-20355178). It plays on our reward system, but worse than that, it is a randomized reward system.
Humans and dogs are different, but the [most effective dog training is done with randomized reward.](https://betternaturedogtraining.com/2022/04/28/reinforcement_schedules/)
If you know the pattern you know what to expect, and for those unfortunate enough to win big at the start, they keep chasing the high.
Worse than a drug addiction, gambling addictions are f[ar too late to help once negative repercussions start to shows](https://www.easternct.edu/news/_stories-and-releases/2023/03-march/gambling-in-connecticut-when-does-it-become-a-problem.html)
Almost winning gives a rush. Not as much as winning, but enough to be addictive. That’s why the machines are so complicated. No one would play a game where you press a button and a light says “you lose” slightly more often than it says “you win”, but slot machines, roulette, dice and cards all do exactly that, except in an exciting way.
Also, actual addiction is more about the problems that the excitement brings a temporary relief from. If your life is filled with constant worries, it can be extremely freeing to get rid of those once in a while. If the activity or substance you attach to causes even more worries in the long run, you have even more reason to escape, and if you’re not careful you get trapped in a feedback loop.
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