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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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.
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