Lesson
Overview of the Gambling Illusion
Learn how the gambling industry uses media, math and manipulation of the brain to keep people gambling.
Overview of the Gambling Illusion
Why can I be totally in control of my gambling one moment, and then lose control the next?
How come I can’t stick within my budget?
How come I can’t stop thinking of gambling all the time?
If you’ve found yourself asking any of those questions recently, you are not alone. Many gamblers who enjoy a healthy relationship with gambling under normal circumstances can have negative and scary experiences with gambling at some point.
If that’s happened to you, it’s a good time to reassess your relationship with gambling, and make sure it is fitting into your life the way you want it to.
In this lesson we’ll explore how the gambling illusion is created, and what we can do to see beyond it.
The 3 Pillars of the Gambling Illusion
Whenever and wherever you gamble, every aspect of the experience is specifically designed to keep you as engaged as possible for as long as possible.
We mean every aspect, from the design of the carpet on the casino floor, to the Terms & Conditions of the welcome bonus offered by the Sportsbook.
At Evive, we call this overall design The Gambling Illusion and it has 3 fundamental pillars:
Media
Mathematics
Manipulation of the Brain
As you continue with Evive, we’ll dissect each pillar in great detail. Just like peering behind the curtain in a magic show, once you see how the trick is performed, it loses its power. If you fundamentally understand how the gambling illusion is created, you're less likely to fall victim to it.
M1 - Media
Gambling operators are brilliant marketers, and they spend A LOT of money crafting the popular image of gambling. In fact, in 2021, online gambling advertising spent $1 billion dollars. That number is expected to double to $2 billion in 2023.
Overall, the gambling operator’s marketing efforts are designed to create a favorable image of the activity, attract a steady flow of customers, and encourage them to spend more time and money on gambling. They do this through a number of different tools:
Traditional advertisements
Social media influencers
Paid partnerships
Celebrity endorsements
“Free” bonuses
We’ll examine each in greater detail to see exactly how they work, and what they’re really selling.
M2 - Math
The reason for this is the mathematical design of every casino game. There are 2 fundamental principles at work that keep casinos winning over the long run, the Law of Probability/Expected Value and the Law of Large Numbers.
The first ensures that casino games are designed so that the gambling operator always has the mathematical advantage. The second ensures that the more repetitions of an event, the more likely the actual outcomes are to represent the statistical probability.
What does this mean for the gambler?
It means while you may be able to win in the very short term, over the long-run, you can not gamble profitably* Yes, the asterisk is there because there are professional gamblers that do profit in the long-run, but they represent a itsy bitsy, teeny-tiny percentage of the overall gambling population. We’re talking less than 1%...and even those who win often need to front an extraordinary sum. We’ll talk about professional gambling in greater detail in another lesson.
M3 - Manipulation of the Brain
Finally, there is the trickiest part of the illusion, the way in which gambling affects the brain.
At a high level, think of it like this:
When you gamble, your brain releases a chemical called dopamine
Dopamine, sometimes called “The Happiness Chemical” is the core component of our brain’s reward system.
As the slot whirls, the roulette ball spins, or the big game takes place, dopamine surges through our brains, waiting for the outcome of the risk to be revealed.
The surge of dopamine can have many different effects on us. It can make us feel a “thrill”, anxiety, fear, sweaty palms, increased heart rate, etc.
However, when that event is over, we experience a drop in dopamine, as we have just depleted our stores.
That drop causes our brains to request more dopamine, and how do we do that? You guessed it, by having the urge to gamble again.
And what if you lost (the mostly likely outcome)? The cycle still happens, as much of the dopamine release happened in the waiting period, before you knew the result.
Let's Reflect
Reflect on a time when you felt drawn to continue gambling even when you knew the odds were against you. What factors influenced your decision to keep playing?
Reflect on your own experiences with the gambling environment. How do you think your understanding of the gambling illusion can help you make more informed decisions in the future?
Closing Thought
By recognizing the strategies gambling operators use to keep us gambling, we can make more informed choices.
Armed with knowledge, we can take control of our gambling behavior and make decisions that support our well-being.
It's important to remember that while the illusion may be strong, we have the power to navigate the situation in a way that aligns with our values and goals.