How Video Gambling Machines Exploit You.

After escaping from the law on several occasions, Kim Yoo-Chul and Choi Mi-Sun were finally arrested, their crime was terrible in fact and caused a global controversy, and it involved a serious addiction to the Internet. Kim and Choi are both from South Korea and were arrested earlier this year for allowing their baby to die of starvation while they spent up to 12 hours a day in a nearby internet cafe playing the game Pirus, to which they were addicted. The couple met online, then got together in real life but continued their virtual lives together in Pirus, giving birth to a virtual baby and a real baby- the latter of which they largely ignored. They neglected their biological baby in favour of their pixelated version.

 

The story made global headlines and Daily Mail readers throughout England were incensed, the story spread like wildfire through the World Wide Web. Many people called for punishments and sanctions against the couple, some even said they should be starved to death too.

 

It is easy to point fingers and tar the couple with the brush of ‘socio-path’, anyone who lives in the virtual world rather than the real world must have problems dealing with society, so socio-path seems like an apt label. However, this story is indicative of a fairly general trend that is sweeping the world, albeit not to such a serious degree, yet worrying nonetheless. This is true in Korea at least, possibly the virtual world offers an escapism that is much needed. Suggestive of this trend is the recently opened treatment centre specifically designed to deal with computer-game based addictions in Seoul. Further, a story running in The Korea Herald described how a man in his early twenties had murdered his mother after she criticised him for playing games on his computer too much, after the murder he returned to finish his game- presumably he created a virtual mother too, one who could not criticise his gaming habits or risk annihilation herself.

 

These habits can be understood more easily if we adopt a neurological perspective with which to consider them, living in a virtual world, raising a virtual baby or having a virtual mother, can be more ‘rewarding’ than the real-world equivalents. In the real world you do not receive points for changing a nappy, probably just smudges on your clothes, in a virtual world you can correct mistakes...all in all you create the world in which you want to live, rather than the world creating you.

 

What has all this got to do with gambling? You might be asking, after all, this site is dedicated to the world of gambling. Well, most research into the problems of video games have focused largely on gambling video machines and have considered in particular the ways in which they exploit the vulnerability of the problem gambler- such vulnerabilities are easily exploited because they are extremely easy to predict. Most video games are also modelled on the same techniques, their aim is to have you spending your money on their software, rather than on gambling, but the techniques they use remain the same.

 

Primarily, such video gambling machines are designed to trick the brain into playing for longer, one such technique used is that of the ‘near miss’. These inadvertently trigger the reward centres in the brain, they induce failures of judgement, for example, a ‘near miss’ creates the illusion that it is possible to win the game more often than is the case. At the point of a near miss, a person will continue playing in the misguided belief that they are getting closer and closer to a win. A near miss will trigger a surge of dopamine in the brain as it assumes too early that it is going to win, the game is lost, but the chemicals are still there, heightening perception and causing mild feelings of euphoria- who would not continue playing to get that buzz? Alternatively, if you consider this from another perspective, the games are being designed in such a way as to make them addictive.

 

An anthropologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Natasha Dow Schull, has described in her book Addiction by Design, the way in which video machine manufacturers exploit the human tendency towards addiction. Using an interview technique, Ms Schull reveals how gambling machine designers use tricks and manipulation strategies to induce compulsive gambling in players. For example, the Cash point technology allows players to transfer money directly from their bank accounts into the gambling machines, meaning that the games are a lot more accessible and that people will be able to play for longer- a person who is allowed to walk away from the machine to get more funds may change their mind while they are away from the machine, but take away that cooling-off period and they are a lot more likely to part with their money. There is even a term for this technique within the gambling video machine manufacturing industry, they call it ‘play to extinction’- a worrying narrative indeed, and it implies the urge to milk the gambler dry.

 

The majority of techniques used by gambling machine manufacturers are designed to ensure that the players maximise the time they spend on the machine, thus increasing the profits generated by the machine. In order to do this they design the games in such a way as to confuse our poor brains

 ‘to increase psychological and financial investment’ so that individuals will ‘disappear’ into the world of the virtual game on which they are playing (as per some of the gamblers in Ms Schulls’ book). One woman even said: ‘You’re not playing for money; you’re playing for credit. Credit so you can sit there longer, which is the goal. It’s not about winning; it’s about continuing to play.’ In order to part a normally functioning person from their hard-earned money, misrepresentation of choice is a key factor that severs the link between good judgement and behaviour.

 

During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, it was estimated that around 45% of the floor space in Las Vegas casinos were occupied by gambling machines (as opposed to table games), but today’s figure is estimated in the region of 80% of floor space dedicated to gambling machines. You may assume that such a change could be due to cost cutting within the casinos, machines do not require the same level of labour as table games do. However, the truth is probably more akin to the fact that video machines are more able to induce addictive behaviours in gamblers than other types of casino games. Computer scientist, Kevin Harrigan from the Ontario’s University of Waterloo, has proven how an artificially generated ‘near miss’ is able to induce a player to play on. In Ontario, it has been estimated that around 60% of all revenue generated by slot machines comes from problem gamblers- further proof that the techniques work well.  

 

When it comes to the video game, most governments and research bodies are looking in the wrong place, they are considering the problem from an ideological perspective- the games are too violent and are leading people into violence, for example. However, the problem is psychological, rather than ideological, and this is the direction future studies should be taking.

 

Behavioural economics is well placed to research the problem. Two prominent scientists in the field, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, won a Nobel prize recently for their research into the tendency of economic actors to misjudge the importance of the choices they make. Basically, what they are saying is that there are certain types of misjudgements that are easily predicted, and it is these that video manufacturers exploit. Knowing these chinks of human weakness allows the designers to build in ways that make it more likely that an individual will spend his money.

 

The moral of the story? You may feel that you march to the sound of your own drum, but stop and take the time to consider the ways in which you are being made to part with your cash. You know it well of the sales industry, no doubt, but think about it when you gamble too.