zlacker

>>jimbob+(OP)
The older I get the more I hate gambling. When i was younger I tended to think "hey it's their choice" but i've realized how unfair our society is in terms of things like this.

Food, gambling, etc. are all backed by hordes of brilliant well paid people trying to get you to ruin your life so they make money. On the other side is just regular people like us stressed out trying to survive.

This isn't some "freedom" issue, it's an incredibly huge power asymmetry and I think "we the people" need protection from these forces

>>snapca+0M2
My real wake-up call was the introductory class in my data science master's program. We spent a whole week learning about all the clever tricks Harrah's data scientists found to keep people in the gambling halls. The course's instructor really lionized Harrah's for doing this, and loved to talk about how much profit it made for the company.

For my part, I was horrified. I couldn't find a way to see some of these tricks the use as anything but a form of highly evolved confidence artistry. Legal con artistry, sure. But a legal scam is still a scam. Even if the people getting scammed never wise to the scam, it's still a scam.

The arguments about tax revenues and suchlike don't make me feel any better about it. All I see in their success is a demonstration that a great many people will happily turn a blind eye to abusive behavior if they believe they can materially benefit from doing so. And, of course, they never do, anyway. The promises of professional con artists that our communities will benefit if we grant them imprimatur for their operations turned out to also be a scam. Con artists pulling a con; quelle surprise!

>>bunder+Q33
> We spent a whole week learning about all the clever tricks Harrah's data scientists found to keep people in the gambling halls.

What sort of stuff are they pulling? Like sending down a five dollar cocktail to keep someone spending 20 bucks a hand at the craps table?

>>Simon_+Sm3
Among other things, yeah. On an individualized basis. They figure out, for example, how much of a losing streak will get a particular person to leave the table, and how likely they are to keep playing if someone shows up and gives them a free drink as thanks for being a Gold Star VIP or whatever, and how much more money they can expect to lose if you given them that drink, and use all that data to optimize who gets free drinks when.

I used to date someone whose father had a rather severe gambling addiction, and this is exactly what kept him coming back. When he talked about it, it was clear that what he was hooked on was the feeling of being a winner. Someone surprising you with a free drink and telling you it's because you're part of an exclusive club for winners gives some people that feeling even when they're objectively losing.

And that is the textbook definition confidence artistry: tricking people into thinking you're their special friend as a means to extract money from them.