Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Gambling pt. 1

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Gambling pt. 1 · Why We Do What We Do

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  You're listening to Why we do what we do? Welcome to Why we Do
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  what we do. I am your all in host Abraham and I am your
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  twenty one host Shane or a psychology podcast. We talk about all of the
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  things that people do. We've been talking for several weeks now about addiction and
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  the topic surrounding addiction, and today we are expanding on that discussion by moving
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  into behavioral addictions. And so what we will be discussing today is gambling.
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  Yeah, gambling not at all a very complicated thing, right, super easy
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  to explain, not terribly complicated to treat like. I'm sure it's a very
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  easy discussion, quickest, easiest, most simple to unpack. No, gambling
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  obviously multi fast, complex thing. Yes, So we will be talking about
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  gambling itself. We'll be talking about addiction of gambling. We'll be talking about
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  casinos also, pretty much everything related to gambling, I think, and that's
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  a lot unpacked, So it'll be a relatively surface level I think, dive
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  into everything. But the really the point of this is to talk about gambling
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  as it relates to addiction and what we can do about it. Yes,
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  it's one of those things where I don't see a lot of this in my
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  hometown because there is, or there used to be, a dog racing track
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  and that's about the only thing that existed as far as gambling in my world.
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  But every now and again, there's gonna be these casino cruises that show
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  up out of our town that like go go out into like international waters a
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  couple of miles and then they could do all the gambling they want. Yeah,
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  but that's about as much gambling as happens in my town that I've seen.
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  When I lived in Florida, I did take one of those cruises,
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  because, you know, being from the VTA, I missed it. Oh
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  yeah, how was it? It was fun, It was really cool though
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  they did a really good job. Well, I love it. Well,
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  we're not actually here to celebrate the virtues of gambling. We're here to talk
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  about the problems of gambling as it relates to addictive behaviors. But we'd also
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  like to start by acknowledging the day on which this is released and any holidays
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  that people may be trying to observe. And they're like, I'm not trying
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  to listen to podcasts today because I'm trying to celebrate donate a day's wage to
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  charity Day. Yeah, I mean if you like that sort of thing.
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  It's also Free Trade Day. I think you and I both backed that pretty
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  hard. Yeah, I would say. So. It's National Coconut Cream Pie
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  Day for those of you who are into that sort of thing. Yeah.
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  It's also National and Panada Day for those of you who are into that sort
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  of thing. I personally enjoy good empanada, Yeah, sat mmm mmm,
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  National give someone a cupcake Day. Yeah, but like be mindful of allergies
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  fair. It's also National have a Coke Day. Wow, good job Coke
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  for finding a way to shoe shoehorn yourself. Also into holidays, yeah,
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  I mean, if you didn't already take Christmas, you know right. It
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  is National night Shift Workers Day, And you know, these are people who
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  help society run and they need the recognition here that it would be very difficult
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  for us to have the kind of society we have now if we didn't have
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  night shift workers. So we're sorry that we've asked you to do this,
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  and we thank you for your service. Yeah, and just be clear,
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  we're not talking about vampires. We're talking about people that just work very late
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  nights. Third shift since that. That's true. Now vampires are very different
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  concern. It's also National Root Canal Appreciation Day. I've had a root canal,
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  do not appreciate it? Yes, that seems like a hard pill to
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  swallow. Yeah, I can really get on board with this though. It
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  is No socks Day. Yeah, well, okay, I used to be
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  a no socks person all the time, and I think that's just like a
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  remnant of like growing up in a punk and hardcore scene where nobody valued hygiene,
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  and over the last you know, two decades, I started wearing socks
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  again and that was a better choice. I'm so glad to started wearing socks.
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  I prefer to be barefoot as often as possible still to this day.
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  Yeah, I mean barefoot without shoes, but socks without no socks with shoes
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  problem very stinky. Oh yeah, no, definitely, I always wear socks
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  with my shoes. But yeah, I can just be barefoot or wear sandals.
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  I'm very happy. Yeah, that's the way to do it. It's
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  also v Day, which is I think arguably far more important than No Socks
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  Day. But I mean, because I guess it depends on your perspective.
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  It is world Ovarian Cancer Day, so be on the lookout for ovarian cancer
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  to let it get you today. Yeah, make sure you get your screenings.
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  It is air Quality Awareness week, so make sure you're puffing that good
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  air. It's Arson Awareness week, puffing bad air. Yeah, air quality
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  awareness and arson do not go together. Yeah. It's also be kind of
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  Animals Week, which you know, I feel like there's a lot of those
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  weeks, but we always love them. Yeah, it's be kind of Animals
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  as a reminder kind Yeah, Drinking Water Week, this is good. Water
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  is good. Yeah. It's also Flexible Work Arrangement Week. Big fan of
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  that, definitely. And Holocaust Remembrance Week. That's important one, yes,
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  but there are people that don't believe that it happened, and those people are
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  very ridiculous. Anyway. We'd also like to wish everyone a gets sort of
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  become a de facto Star Wars month, so I think we can we can
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  point that out as well. It is I yeah, by the time it
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  is we so this does not fall on May the Fourth Be with You or
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  Revenge of the Fifth, but please celebrate Star Wars. Yeah. All right,
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  but as we said, we are actually here to talk about addiction.
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  And specifically we have moved into and are continuing our discussion with behavioral addictions.
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  And if you have been listening along with us, great. All of these
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  episodes that we have done on addiction are means to be stand alone. They're
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  just a single deep dive into a topic. They're just all happened to be
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  themed around addiction, which was an intentional choice. And if you haven't listen
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  to any of the previous ones, you don't need to to get into the
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  context of what we'll be discussing today. But I do encourage you to go
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  back and check them out. I'm very proud of the work we've done so
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  far, yeah on our discussions with addiction. But if you are just joining
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  us, that's totally fine. We're happy to have you here. If you
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  like what you hear today and would like to support us, you can join
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  us on Patreon. You can leave us a rating and a review. You
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  can follow us on whatever thing you follow us on. You can maybe start
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  a casino and call it why we do what we do. Actually don't do
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  that, that's not something we probably should have our name on. Maybe instead
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  sort of a support group for people who are recovering from from gambling addiction that
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  would be maybe more in line with what we would be willing to endorse.
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  Yeah, either way, you do you let's talk about our topic du jour,
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  Shane. Yes, So let's start with a general definition of behavioral addictions.
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  So what we're talking about here is a repetitious, highly reinforced behavior that
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  occurs excessively to the point of being harmful and persists to spite the harm.
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  Very in line with what we've seen with some other types of addictions out there.
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  So basically, the behavior happens or whatever this thing is, it happens
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  too much and it causes harm. Often, common or even necessary behaviors like
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  sex or eating are part of the behavioral addictions paradigm, but we also might
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  include totally unnecessary types of behaviors like watching TV, using the internet, and
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  gambling. Yes, these are the kinds of areas where we might see behavioral
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  addictions as opposed to the addictions that we've talked about a lot in describing the
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  sort of chemical addictions, addictions to substances things like drugs and alcohol, cigarettes,
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  that sort of thing, in my case, caffeine right. Same now
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  with these behavioral addictions, though they have a lot in common with the chemical
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  addictions when we get into these, and these generally seem to maintain in part
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  due to the highly rewarding nature of the just the experience of engaging in those
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  behaviors at all. And it's the habits and the routine that forms around these
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  behaviors, and then there's some often emotional attachment to the kinds of patterns in
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  the habit and the routine, the things that we do that start to look
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  like addiction. We start to get attached to the sequence of events as it
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  were. Yeah. Absolutely, And so what's actually interesting is on our episode
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  on sex addiction, we found that there was actually no APA criterion for what
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  that looks like. It didn't really exist in the same way that some of
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  these other behavioral addictions look like. So gambling is actually recognized by the APA
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  gambling addictions specifically as of twenty thirteen, and there are some specific criteria that
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  we've got to look at. So the first is that you need to gamble
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  with increasing amounts to achieve the desired excitement. So basically you'll hear this term
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  in kind of the drug world as well, where they talk about kind of
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  chasing the purple dragon, where it's kind of the idea that like you're always
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  kind of like trying, you have to do a little bit more and a
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  little bit more to get the same high that you got before. There's a
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  lot of overlap and the description of gambling dependency or I think gambling disorders maybe
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  with call it, yeah in the APA, as it compares to substances.
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  Here's another one actually, so another criteria is restless or irritable when trying to
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  cut down or stop gambling. And again, you can just take out gambling
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  then replace it with other addiction and it would make it just as much sense.
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  Yeah, I mean, replace that with caffeine and bam, you got
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  us. Yeah. Repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop
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  gambling sounds familiar, yep. Frequent thoughts about gambling, such as reliving past
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  gambling or planning future gambling. Often gambling when feeling distressed after losing money,
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  gambling often returning to get even. And this is that important sort of chasing
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  the dragon thing. This is referred to as chasing one's losses, and that's
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  actually very commonly described in one of the ways that I think people start to
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  get hooked is that they're chasing their loss. So sort of if you've lost
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  twenty bucks, it's like, we want me to keep gambling until I get
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  that twenty bucks back. Yeah. Absolutely, there's also to hide gambling activity.
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  Sounds familiar. Yeah, we have risking or losing a close relationship,
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  a job or a school or job opportunity because of gambling. Yeah. I
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  mean I've heard of people like putting their deeds up for their houses and stuff
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  in some situations. Yeah, and then also relying on others to help with
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  money problems caused by gambling. Yeah. And the way that criteria work for
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  the APA, and this is true of this as well, and most of
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  their diagnoses is that you had to have at least four of these symptoms that
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  persisted for like six months or a year or something like that. But that's
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  essentially how it shakes out to how you would go about diagnosing a pattern of
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  gambling as being a gambling disorder or dependency or addiction in this case. Right,
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  So I think it's probably worth getting into what gambling actually is, and
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  so yeah, just for you know, because we like definition. So,
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  gambling is basically comprised of games of chance in which money or some other valuable.
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  You know, it could be a tangible, it could be some property,
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  it could be I mean historically, I am sure that people have been
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  waged. I mean talk about Star Wars. Yeah, that's exactly how Anakin
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  Skywalker ended up in Qui gon Jinin's party. And that's why we have Darth
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  Vader. So if he didn't gamble and save him or save Shmi instead,
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  would have been a different issue. So anyway, this valuable is wagered,
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  and it's wagered for winning, so whoever wins gets the bounty or the pot
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  right. And then gambling addiction is when people continue to repeatedly wager the money
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  in gambling, even if they lose all or most of that money, they'll
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  just keep trying to find anything that they can wager to sort of continue to
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  chase this, either chase the loss or to continue to maintain the routine,
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  the habit, if you will. So that's what's happening in the gambling addiction
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  when that starts to form. Right, So about five thousand years ago,
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  there was actually evidence of gambling. So there was a six sided dice like
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  object, and these objects were uncovered by archaeologists. They hypothesize that they were
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  used for games like and likely associated with wagers and things of that nature.
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  So I would imagine, you know, it's interesting to think that gambling has
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  existed for I would imagine to some degree as long as there's been like a
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  formal society in place, very probably to the point where people could make wagers
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  about things it seems like they maybe were. And that actually means that this
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  gambling thing, or this ability to wager likely predates currency like actual money,
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  and so people would have instead wagered things like food, animals, weapons,
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  anything that was a resource really, but they had access to fresh water,
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  they might even wager that, And archaeologists believe that the evidence may actually suggest
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  that wager like bending occurred thousands of years before even the dice that they found,
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  Like, eventually people sort of figured out that they could start wagering on
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  chance like objects, like if you were to have a s excited three D
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  object that you could throw it and didn't know what side it was going to
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  land on, that you could start wagering against that. But before that they
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  could wager on all kinds of things. You know, whether it rains today
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  or you know what direction, I don't know, something would fall if it
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  fell, you know, they could wager on ken anything or like, you
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  know, at what time stamp ads are going to show up in a show
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  we were gambling that you listen to the ads. I guess let's keep talking
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  about the history of gambling. You know. I was thinking about the last
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  little segment about like wagering weapons, and I would be so bummed if I
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  lost a sword to a dice game, like I you know, like I
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  was like, I really liked my sword and I was like really happy with
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  it, and then I lost it because of some dice game, you know,
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  because I because I guess that it was going to rain that day or
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  something. Yeah, man, I'd be so upset about that. So China
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  actually has really good historical records. Gambling arose among the working class Chinese citizens
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  for entertainment and to distract an escape briefly from their labors at the time.
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  So it was kind of like just just a fun game to kind of play
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  and mess around with. Yeah, because they did such a good job I
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  think of tracking historical events as they took place, China is actually one of
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  the best places we can go to and look to see what has developed over
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  the course of human history because there's so many places where records have been lost,
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  right, So dice were very common. So after the point at which
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  they had been discovered, obviously, they started becoming more popular in various places.
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  Dice were very common as well as an off sited precursor to chess called
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  all right, I look this up. I'm gonna try liubo. Maybe it's
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  like l i U with an accent mark, bo with an accent mark.
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  Right, anyway, so these I'm gonna say lia boo liabo. These competitions
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  and tournaments began, and that once this has sort of developed and the rules
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  were formalized, and this did include gamble, particularly on who was going to
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  win, right, Also playing cards, which I think are commonly associated with
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  gambling, especially when we think about like you know, I guess and all
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  that. Yeah, the first playing cards were likely invented in China around eight
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  hundred CE, and we're almost certainly used for gambling soon after they were invented,
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  if not immediately after, Like it was like right then, and these
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  cards show up as like, ah, we can gamble with these. Yes.
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  The Romans loved gambling, and they established taverns that had the primary objective
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  of being places to engage and wagered gaming. But important to note that although
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  they did have these sort of gambling houses that they did these sort of like
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  pubs where people would go and gamble, that was actually not the purpose of
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  it. It was intended to be a pub. So this was not technically
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  a casino yet. And I imagine much like how poker games at a saloon
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  in the Old West, the saloon wasn't a casino, right. There wasn't
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  a managing sort of quote unquote house as much as it was just a place
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  that serves alcohol and facilitated people doing their own gaming. And I think that
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  was what was going on in these Roman taverns based on what I was reading
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  about them, is it wasn't so much that they were like set up to
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  administer games and sort of regulate games. It was like just a place you
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  could come drink and you could play games, and that was a thing that
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  people wanted to do there, and so they would commonly, but you didn't
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  really have to either. Do you think that Plato had his own Like he
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  owned his own and called it Plato's cave. Now I'm just picturing like dudes
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  in robes and sandals like kicking bat wing doors open and being mad like about
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  somebody like arguing their philosophical viewpoint over a game of cards. I love that.
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  Let's go with yes, yeah, yeah, I love that. All
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  right. So lotteries, lotteries, we've talked about that before. Lotteries are
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  a lot of fun. Lotteries emerged in Rome and medieval Europe to serve the
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  same purpose they served today, fund public projects through game like bets wild yeah,
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  And I mean it's kind of a fun idea, like the the way
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  that you can encourage people to voluntarily donate their money to public projects without collecting
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  it in the form of taxes they would do in these lotteries, And I
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  mean there's almost no way you're going to get your money back. You don't
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  even get anything necessarily explicitly in return for it, but you like get a
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  chance to win a bunch of money, and that was good enough. So
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  it was kind of clever in that way they that they did that, So
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  you know, it is what it is, all right. Eight hundred years
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  later, though, in the sixteen hundreds, sixteen thirty eight, specifically,
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  the very first known casino, the Casino di Venizia, opens in Venice,
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  Italy. And here this is where we get the first instance in which the
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  sort of quote unquote house you might hear like the house always wins. The
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  house is the managing company that they now orchestrate and manage the exchange of money,
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  and they have employees who implement and administer the games. And so now
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  you have the entity being the place where you go to gamble, are also
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  regulating the gambling that's going on, and which does have the added benefit of
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  like, you aren't going to have people trying to attack each other for cheating,
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  because the casino is going to be very much watching for that and will
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  be cracking down on any potential instance of cheating or even just winning too much
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  and anyway, so they're less likely to sort of result in shootouts and I
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  guess just attacking each other more generally. I don't know that there was a
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  lot of shootouts in the sixteen hundreds. Philosophical stabbings, yeah, exactly,
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  philosophical just devastating philosophical arguments being held at one another. Uh huh. But
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  in this case, this is sort of the first actual casino. I'm still
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  stuck on like the Roman, these houses and just like somebody getting really mad
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  and going Socrates. Anyway, So the first slot machine, called the Liberty
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  Bell is built in eighteen ninety four by Charles Fay, San Francisco, with
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  a jackpot payout of fifty cents. It's funny because it looks like, I
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  mean, it doesn't look like modern slot machines, but it's still got the
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  same basic mechanisms. It's got the scrolling drums with the pictures, it's got
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  the lever, yeah, and it's got the little slot where your money will
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  fall out. Like it's the same thing, except it's just not digitized.
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  Yeah, you would basically you'd pop your little coin in there, and it's
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  a fully mechanized, non electric slot machine where you'd be you'd put your money
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  in, it would spin those drums and if it landed on the three,
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  then it would pay out money. And this was so wildly successful that this
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  guy basically switched to full time manufacturing slot machines. He's kind of just a
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  tinker or an inventor, as I was reading about him, But those are
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  the first ones. Yeah, you're you're whopping payout of fifty cents if you
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  were lucky. It's a big deal, which I guess, And yeah,
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  in the late eighteen hundreds, was probably a pretty decent chunk of change.
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  Yeah, I mean it would have bought like at least a bottle whisky,
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  Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. And of course there are other forms of
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  gambling. So we've talked about sort of cards and dice and slot machines,
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  but of course there are sports betting, horse and dog racing fights. I
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  mean these actually, as we'd mentioned, they probably represent some of the oldest
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  forms of gambling. Before there were games of chance, it was a lot
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  of games of skill and a little bit luck, where people would bet on
• 20:19
  things like races, they would bet on things like fights, they would bet
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  on things with animals and weather and whatnot. Anyway, so those are the
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  kinds of things that exist, and obviously those are still a round today.
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  A lot of people still bet on these various sort of animal based activities and
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  then people fighting each other type things. I still think that generally speaking,
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  most of the big fights that happened happen in Vegas because they'll set up the
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  sort of gambling infrastructure for people to wager on those fights down there. Yeah.
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  Absolutely, So we brought up Vegas a couple of times. And we've
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  been talking about kind of the house. Let's talk about casinos because this is
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  kind of where it all happens, like, or at least a lot of
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  it happens. So and when I say a lot, I mean we talk
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  about a lot of gambling happens in this in casinos. So as far as
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  money goes, Casino's made sixty six point five billion dollars billion with a B
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  in two thousand, Yeah, with a B. Now this is to be
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  clear, this is they made that. That's not necessarily counting payouts or anything
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  like that, right, Like, this is just like what they brought in
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  or is this the or this is this a profit? I believe that's a
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  profit. Woo Okay, it's a lot of money for profit, which is
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  actually a little more that in sixty six point five billion than we made.
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  You know, we didn't make anywhere near that and up to the fifty three
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  billion dollars made in twenty twenty one, so gambling money. Casinos are making
• 21:41
  more money going forward. They're still kind of producing. It's I mean,
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  they're in Casinos are a wild place if you've ever been in one, but
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  they're making a lot of money, like and just know it's important to know
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  that they are. So basically, yeah, the whole point of that is
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  that between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty three, they made thirteen zero point
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  five billion dollars more over that two year span than they normally do or we're
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  making at least, and so like, the difference between twenty twenty one and
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  twenty twenty three is like more money than one hundred people will make in their
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  entire lifetime put together. Yeah, but it's about as much money that we
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  make on the podcast at a little more. Yeah, let's talk about casinos
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  because they're actually very relevant and understanding the role of gambling here because they want
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  to really facilitate as much gambling as possible. So casinos, although they will
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  sponsor gambling addiction treatment programs, they are fans of creating gambling addicts at least
• 22:45
  for until they've milked them dry. That's your drug dealer giving you a referral
• 22:48
  to a treatment center, right, Yeah, exactly. So casinos have tried
• 22:53
  all kinds of unique architecture, from luxury to themes to elaborate set peace is
• 23:00
  in terms of trying to just make themselves stand out and be very competitive with
• 23:06
  other casinos. And then this guy named Bill Friedman comes along, and so
• 23:11
  he's a former gambling addict who later in his life made a fortune and of
• 23:17
  a legitimate fortune consulting to casinos with design principles about how to sort of range
• 23:23
  their environments. He also taught at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas and
• 23:30
  where he teaches his design principles and his other sort of economic principles there.
• 23:33
  And he largely based his suggestions on observations and a mathematical quantification, trying to
• 23:41
  like really deliberately compare the ratios of things. And so he was basically saying,
• 23:45
  you know, the ends justify the means here, whatever we do that
• 23:48
  increases these things the better. And so they're looking at total casino wins,
• 23:55
  sought a machine to occupancy rate and player counts. Those were this specific number
• 24:00
  they wanted to measure to evaluate sort of the effectiveness of various designs. And
• 24:03
  he wrote this just massive tome of a book that was like six hundred pages,
• 24:08
  which he sells for well over two hundred dollars a pop. And so
• 24:12
  there's a great YouTube video I was watching on this where they they sort of
• 24:18
  made the joke that his first lesson to casinos was sell a book for over
• 24:22
  two hundred dollars. But if you're really committed to the gambling thing, then
• 24:25
  here are some design principles to include nice. So he developed these thirteen design
• 24:30
  principles and he calls it gaming design, and it's sort of framed as gambling
• 24:36
  win rules. Like, so basically, in no particular order, we're going
• 24:40
  to kind of go over some of the principles that he talks about. And
• 24:41
  the first one is perception beats reality. Then the next one is a physically
• 24:47
  segmented space beats a completely open barn, okay, and then he also says
• 24:52
  the mas layout beats the long, wide, straight passageways and aisles. So
• 24:56
  if you ever been in a casino, yeah, it's a little bit confusing.
• 25:00
  I got lost in New York, New York several times. Yeah,
• 25:03
  they specifically make it difficult to find your way out. Again. Yeah,
• 25:07
  gambling equipment immediately inside casino entrances beats vacant raised entrance landings and empty lobbies.
• 25:14
  So you walk in, you're surrounded by gambling immediately. Yeah. Number five
• 25:18
  was a compact and congested gambling equipment layout beats vacant and spacious floor layouts.
• 25:25
  Number six short lines of sight beat expansive visible depth. It's so funny going
• 25:30
  through these in every casino I've been, and I'm like, yeah, this
• 25:33
  is all like they all listen to this guy. Oh, yes, they
• 25:36
  very much did. Number seven is an organized gambling equipment layout with focal points
• 25:40
  of interest beats a floor layout that lacks ex sensive organization. He also has
• 25:45
  his number eight low ceilings beat high ceilings. Golden nugget is so it's terrifying.
• 25:51
  I'm I'm six foot three and I feel like I could touch the roof
• 25:53
  and it's so scary. I don't like that feeling. Number nine is gambling
• 25:59
  equipment as the core beats impressive and memorable decorations. Yeah. So again,
• 26:03
  just more and more gambling equipment around. Number ten multiple interior settings and gambling
• 26:10
  ambiances beats a single atmosphere throughout, so that you wanted basically a lot of
• 26:15
  different sort of feels rather than a sort of unified feeling or theme throughout an
• 26:21
  entire casino. Yeah. Eleven is pathways emphasizing the gambling equipment beat the yellow
• 26:26
  brick road YEP. Segregated sit down facilities beat contiguous ones, and then number
• 26:33
  thirteen standard decre beats interior casino themes. All right, So those were the
• 26:38
  sort of thirteen design principles that he came up with, and I think most
• 26:41
  people sort of emphasize a few of those, But if you have ever stepped
• 26:45
  foot inside a casino, you will almost certainly notice these things right away.
• 26:51
  There's a lot of curved paths, there's a lot of low ceilings, there's
• 26:53
  a lot of like just packed in sort of congested areas that are just full
• 26:57
  of slot machines. And it's because these people really bought his design principles.
• 27:03
  They really went all in on like this is how you do gaming. And
• 27:07
  he does report in his own book whether or not this is actually based on
• 27:11
  data that when he switched from a ninety degree entrance to a curved entrance,
• 27:15
  that it doubled the amount of people coming into the casino, and that would
• 27:19
  be a pretty high return on investment, you know, just that simple design
• 27:22
  principle if it were accurate. But this is something that people have started to
• 27:27
  research. So with these design principles, there are other things that people will
• 27:32
  notice about casinos and for one thing, his whole treat us on this his
• 27:36
  ideas, his thesis. This is where the idea that there are no clocks
• 27:40
  or windows, Yeah, and no ninety degree angles in a casino, that
• 27:44
  came from him, Like that was his idea. We want people to help
• 27:47
  to lose their sense of time and not know what time it is, to
• 27:49
  not see the daylight outside. And so when you're in casinos, they're often
• 27:53
  very they're often very dark. I mean there is a lot of light going
• 27:57
  on because the machine are so full of light, and like they want people
• 28:02
  to find to be able to, you know, not run into each other,
• 28:03
  and they don't certainly don't want people being able to cheat or steal.
• 28:07
  So, like there is a lot of light, but there's very little in
• 28:11
  most cases, no natural sunlight coming in. They'll even specifically put like the
• 28:15
  sort of double reflective stuff on the doors so you can't easily see out the
• 28:19
  door outside. Yeah, and they'll put mirrors everywhere inside as well, so
• 28:23
  it creates an even greater Yeah, it makes it look bigger and more congested.
• 28:29
  Yeah, And when you go in, you notice like all the equipment
• 28:32
  has packed together really tightly, and people tend to go to the ones that
• 28:36
  are like right on the paths, like I see, I see that a
• 28:37
  lot. Like nobody's like kind of wandering inside of them, and the paths
• 28:41
  are pretty easy to It's it's easy, I mean, it is wild.
• 28:45
  When you read this, you go, oh, yeah, all of these
• 28:48
  things. Every casino that I've ever been in has had that exact thing going
• 28:52
  on. And really the general thesis is this, right, it's the idea
• 28:55
  that we want to make it as easy as possible to get gambling opportunities,
• 28:59
  make it as difficult possible to leave. That's really kind of what his His
• 29:03
  goal was, increase opportunities, bring people in, and make it really difficult
• 29:07
  for people to go away. And honestly, you can you can hear that
• 29:10
  and think, yeah, that logic does kind of make sense, Like the
• 29:12
  idea of get people in, keep them there as long as possible, it
• 29:17
  does make some amount of sense in terms of is this the way to best
• 29:22
  I guess, get the most out of your gambling atmosphere and to beat the
• 29:26
  competition, which was incidentally the name of his book, So I mean not
• 29:30
  that long, but that was part of the title, was beat the competition.
• 29:33
  But anyway, like you look at that and you think like, Okay,
• 29:37
  I sort of I do sort of think that, But also how many
• 29:40
  people are like I love going to casinos. The atmosphere, everything, it's
• 29:44
  so great. I really enjoyed in there. I think a lot of people
• 29:47
  feel a little stressed out when they go into casinos and it can feel very
• 29:52
  overwhelming and very busy and very I guess chaotic. And that's kind of by
• 29:56
  those design principles. So some people have suggest other things. Unfortunately, some
• 30:02
  people have suggested ads. Welcome back. Sorry that we had to do that
• 30:12
  to you. It's part of our design principles of podcasts. I don't know
• 30:15
  if you've read the book about the thirteen steps in doing that. One is
• 30:18
  having good mics. Two is making sure there's ads all over the place sure.
• 30:22
  Three is making sure you can't escape. There is a new design kid
• 30:26
  on the block though. So we just talked about Freedman's kind of design principles
• 30:30
  and how you know, a lot of his design principles are They are actually
• 30:34
  kind of insidious when you think about it. It's like trapping people in a
• 30:37
  place where they can gamble a whole bunch. It's kind of bad, but
• 30:40
  yeah, there is a new person that's doing this and playground design by Roger
• 30:44
  Thomas enters the chat. Not Rob Thomas of Matchbox twenty fame. We're talking
• 30:48
  about Roger Thomas. Okay, so very different person. And one of the
• 30:52
  things that he started looking at was comfortable, luxurious spaces that make guests feel
• 30:57
  relaxed and not one to leave because they're relaxed, they're not stressed out and
• 31:02
  anxious. They're like, ah, I feel comfortable here, so I'm gonna
• 31:04
  stay here. Yeah. Honestly, his design principles are almost the exact opposite
• 31:10
  of Freedman's in any ways. Yeah, so he has an emphasis on high
• 31:15
  ceilings where Friedman emphasized low ceilings. Thomas emphasized beautiful ornate decorations where Friedman said
• 31:21
  no decorations, the slot machines of the decorations. Thomas suggested skylines like let
• 31:26
  people see sunlight and clouds and see outside, create this oh, this feeling
• 31:30
  of openness and sort of large I guess welcoming space. And those clear linees
• 31:37
  a site too. And that's actually something that think is really important. Like
• 31:38
  when we start talking about this, because when you if you go into casinos
• 31:42
  that are designed by Freedman. There is no clear line of sight you walk
• 31:45
  in, and it's very easy to get lost. It's very yeah, like
• 31:48
  the a lot of the equipment is very tall too, so you can't see
• 31:52
  up and above the stuff. So like there is that kind of piece and
• 31:56
  I think it's actually really fascinating thinking about kind of doing an opposite approach this.
• 32:00
  And Thomas actually partnered with Steve Winn to implement these principles at the Las
• 32:04
  Vegas casino at the Bellagio that's the one with the fountains, right, yeah,
• 32:08
  okay, the fountains are so fun. Yeah. Now, the result
• 32:12
  was for the Bolagio, so Thomas came in they were going to experiment on
• 32:15
  this. The result was the largest profits of any gaming location in the history
• 32:20
  of Las Vegas, generating four times more profit per room than the average casino.
• 32:25
  Yeah. Wow, yeah, that's I mean, it would be honestly,
• 32:30
  it would have been impressive if it was even like ten percent higher,
• 32:34
  but four times higher that is a huge amount. Yeah. So yeah.
• 32:39
  Steve Wynn famously owns a bunch of Vegas casinos and is I think one of
• 32:44
  the more well known casino owners down there. Not least of which for some
• 32:49
  sexual assault scandal or something that he got wrapped up in and like had to
• 32:52
  step down as having any involvement with his casinos. But anyway, point being
• 32:58
  that, like he did in this new design principle thing, and his casinos
• 33:01
  just saw crazy record profits after doing so. And the research kind of supports
• 33:07
  this as well. I mean, if you think about it, when people
• 33:08
  tend to feel more relaxed and comfortable, they choose to stay longer in places.
• 33:13
  Yeah, they stay longer in places when they're comfortable and relaxed, and
• 33:15
  they do less so in settings that are ugly and stressful. And so it's
• 33:21
  not like a huge logical leap to assume that building a place that feels inviting,
• 33:28
  welcoming, not chaotic, and comfortable would entice you more than a place
• 33:32
  that feels like you're going to get lost, never finds your way out again,
• 33:38
  and are going to be overwhelmed by the sites, smells, sounds,
• 33:42
  and noise that are going on. And then also, as we said,
• 33:45
  like the research is showing the same thing that people tend to want to spend
• 33:47
  more time in these places anyway, right, And I mean you think about
• 33:52
  too, like the goal of a casino is to keep people in it right
• 33:55
  where, And I think about design principles around places like that. Food restaurants
• 34:00
  too. The goal of the fast food restaurant is not to keep people in
• 34:02
  it. It's to get people out, right, Like it's having a lot
• 34:06
  of people come in and a lot of people leave so that you have like
• 34:08
  space for the next person. So that's why a lot of times when you
• 34:10
  sit in a fast food restaurant, like the seats are kind of uncomfortable,
• 34:15
  I would imagine because they don't want you there. They want you to come
• 34:17
  in by the food and go right. That's not really the purpose of that
• 34:21
  place. But anyway, I just think about that a lot and it's like,
• 34:23
  Yeah, if I were more comfortable, I would absolutely hang out there
• 34:27
  more. Yeah. Now that being said, let's talk about probabilities, because
• 34:30
  I think this is going to lead into kind of how people get trapped a
• 34:35
  little bit inside of the gambling world. Now, you'll hear the phrase the
• 34:38
  house always wins, and we kind of mentioned this before, but the house
• 34:40
  doesn't always really win, but they do have an advantage. The probability of
• 34:45
  winning a coin toss is fifty to fifty. Right, it's either going to
• 34:47
  be heads or it's going to be tails, as long as the coin is
• 34:50
  fair and the flip is fair. The probability of winning roulette, though,
• 34:53
  is pretty close to that. Unless you're playing a lot and a lot and
• 34:55
  a lot, you're playing over and over and over again, then the house
• 34:58
  has a significant advantage because you're more likely to lose the more you play.
• 35:02
  But the house has a two point seven percent advantage in roulette, Texas hold
• 35:07
  them about a point ninety seven percent advantage. Blackjack only gives the casino a
• 35:12
  point two eight or point five advantage. So there's not a huge advantage in
• 35:16
  these games as long as they're fair. Keeping in mind that that sixty six
• 35:21
  billion dollar advantage they're winning on these raise or thin sort of statistical advantages where
• 35:28
  in Texas hold them like it's less than a percent in blackjack, it's like
• 35:32
  barely half a percent or less. Right, those are the kind of advantages
• 35:37
  where they're coming out ahead with those huge profits that they're making. And so
• 35:43
  just keeping in mind like that speaks to the volume at which people are engaging
• 35:46
  in their various games and systems and that sort of thing. Now all of
• 35:53
  our behaviors have some kind of schedule reinforcement negative or positive or both going on
• 36:00
  all of them. Right. That's I think a maybe shocking thing for some
• 36:04
  people to hear. But everything that we're doing has some schedule of reinforcement attached
• 36:08
  to it, meaning that there is a reason that we do all those things,
• 36:12
  and it's either to get out. It's either to avoid something we don't
• 36:15
  like, or to get something we do like, generally speaking, or some
• 36:19
  combination of both of those things. And most behaviors have a specific motivation which
• 36:23
  is satisfied being in reinforcement, and then that behavior is unlikely to occur again
• 36:29
  until the motivation builds back up. And as an example of that, like
• 36:32
  when we go a period of time without eating, we start to feel hungry,
• 36:37
  and then once we eat, then we don't feel hungry anymore and we
• 36:40
  feel good, and then we are not going to continue eating for a period
• 36:45
  of time. We're going to sort of rest until that motivation builds back up.
• 36:47
  So the engaging and the eating part satisfies that motivation, but the motivation
• 36:52
  will eventually come back, but it'll be a while while we're not eating until
• 36:57
  it does. Right, and some behaviors for some people require very little in
• 37:01
  terms of building motivation, and some are easily reinforced but not easily satisfied and
• 37:07
  have a high probability of contacting success. So we have kind of some behaviors
• 37:10
  that are just these interesting kind of traps or loops that we get in.
• 37:15
  Yeah, and so in the early nineteen hundreds, BF Skinner, a famous
• 37:19
  psychologist and behaviorist. BF Skinner found different delivery schedules of reinforcement resulted in very
• 37:27
  predictable patterns of behavior. And so when he found out that reinforcement based on
• 37:31
  behavior after certain periods of time which are called interval schedules, or after certain
• 37:37
  numbers of behaviors which are called ratio schedules, they can occur at a constant
• 37:42
  predictable rates. So reinforcement can occur sort of predictability those that's called fixed,
• 37:47
  and then at unpredictable intervals, and that's called variable. And so basically you
• 37:53
  have these variable fixed ratio or variable ratio and fixed interval or variable intervals.
• 37:59
  Speaking to how predictably the reinforcement occurs, and whether it happens because of time
• 38:04
  or it happens based on a number of responses, that you engage, and
• 38:07
  that's the simplest way I think to understand it. As an example, like
• 38:12
  checking your mail, assuming that getting mail is a reinforcer, checking your mail
• 38:15
  will be reinforced on a variable interval schedule. Unless you have a very by
• 38:20
  the clock mail delivery person. Most of the time they're going to be there
• 38:23
  at different times. But the longer you wait, the more likely it is
• 38:27
  that when you go out there there will be mail once you make it out.
• 38:30
  So it's like it's close to a fix, but it is a variable
• 38:32
  schedule. And then a ratio is like let's just say, most things operating
• 38:37
  on an fr one in our world. Although there are things that are on
• 38:40
  an interval, there are plenty of things that are on an interval or I
• 38:43
  mean on a like a very stretched out ratio schedule. But most of the
• 38:47
  time, like flipping a light switch turns on the light pretty much every time,
• 38:51
  pressing a button to turn on your TV turns on the TV pretty much
• 38:53
  every time. There's a lot of things that we do that reinforcement is pretty
• 38:58
  much constant, but there are plenty of things I think particularly this isn't really
• 39:01
  I guess it's kind of a ratio, a variable ratio of like telling jokes
• 39:05
  and getting people to laugh, right, Like, nope, that's an fr
• 39:07
  one for me, babe. But anyway, point being that those are sort
• 39:14
  of some schedules that exist, and really the thing that he found was that
• 39:16
  ratio schedules, which again are based on how many behaviors occur, those produce
• 39:22
  the most constant rates of behavior. So you're just really or the most consistent
• 39:25
  rates of behavior. You really have a pretty predictable rate at which people will
• 39:29
  perform. And the variable ratio in particular has both the highest rate and the
• 39:34
  most consistent rate of behavior and relative reinforcement there So, depending on what kind
• 39:40
  of scheduled reinforcement you have, you could have very predictable rates of behavior occur
• 39:45
  in correspondence to that reinforcement. Right. So that means like when we think
• 39:50
  about this, like this variable ratio, which is kind of like you know,
• 39:53
  it's basically a set criterion that a behavior is reinforced within a certain range
• 39:59
  of response, Right, So if you have like you know, a VR
• 40:02
  ten, then that response that you engage in is reinforced anywhere in that range
• 40:07
  of the first response to a tenth to response at any any point in time
• 40:12
  in that frame like it averages like ten, it averages a ten. Right,
• 40:15
  So you would think that gambling uses variable ratio schedules of reinforcement. As
• 40:20
  a matter of fact, a lot of examples of variable ratio schedules use gambling
• 40:24
  as an example of that. Here's the kicker and all the behavior ants are
• 40:29
  gonna get mad at us. They don't use variable schedules of reinforcement a variable
• 40:32
  ratio specifically. There are other types that we didn't mention, and one of
• 40:36
  them is called random. Whereas variable ratios produce reinforcement unpredictably but at an average
• 40:40
  distribution, random schedules have a set probability that resets every single time. So
• 40:47
  you engage in the response, you win or you lose. Either way,
• 40:51
  that probability is reset the next time there's a trial or the next time there's
• 40:55
  an opportunity. And it does depend on like the kind of gamble that you're
• 41:00
  doing. For most of the ones where we're talking about games of chance that
• 41:02
  involve dice and it can involve cards, it makes perfect sense for a game
• 41:07
  that depends on the chance of specific game elements such as dice are cards to
• 41:10
  think of it as a random ratio, and because of this, the probability
• 41:15
  of rolling a particular number resets every time the dice has rolled. It is
• 41:20
  always one to six right, So statistically certain patterns are likely to emerge,
• 41:24
  or at least be perceived to emerge after many rolls. But technically there is
• 41:30
  an equal chance that you roll any one of the six numbers every time that
• 41:34
  you roll the dice. This is a random ratio six schedule, meaning that
• 41:38
  you roll the dice, you could technically roll like one hundred ones in a
• 41:45
  row. It's statistically unlikely. But every time you roll the dice, there's
• 41:49
  a one and six chance at a land on one right, and there's a
• 41:52
  one and six chance that all land on six, and does not change when
• 41:57
  you roll the dice. It does not technically become more likely that your roll
• 42:00
  a six. The longer you roll it becomes statistically more likely, because it's
• 42:06
  unlikely that you're going to have that uneven of a distribution of like that random
• 42:09
  schedule, but it doesn't become actually more likely, Like there is no actual
• 42:15
  guarantee that you're getting closer to rolling a six. It never averages out right.
• 42:20
  That's really important like with variable ratio schedules, it averages out. Like
• 42:22
  with a random schedule, it never averages out because every time you roll like
• 42:27
  it is a one to six, Like you just said. Yeah, and
• 42:30
  here's the thing. These are extremely powerful because you can't actually have multiple jackpots
• 42:34
  in a row or interspersed, and sometimes that's enough. These are extremely unpredictable,
• 42:39
  and also the house does not want you predicting the point at which you
• 42:43
  will likely get close to a payout, as would be the case with a
• 42:45
  variable ratio schedule. They want it completely unknown. So more randomized schedules,
• 42:50
  more randomized games, more randomized chances, and randomized probabilities are better for the
• 42:54
  house overall, but still produce enough reinforcement for you to contin You need to
• 43:00
  engage in the response and continue to pour into the house. Yeah, exactly
• 43:04
  is that you think about if you were gambling and you knew that if you
• 43:07
  waited long enough, you would get the big payout, and you just maybe
• 43:12
  like you start gambling really really low because you're like, if this was on
• 43:15
  a variable ratio schedule, the longer you go, the closer you're going to
• 43:19
  get to that payout, Like, you will get there eventually you will,
• 43:22
  because that's how ratio schedules work. They eventually produce reinforcement. And so what
• 43:27
  you would do is, like, let's just say that it was sort of
• 43:29
  working on like a variable ratio fifty, right, Like every fifty bets or
• 43:35
  an average of every fifty bets, you would get like a payoff. And
• 43:38
  so what you'd probably do, if you're a savvy gambler, is you'd probably
• 43:42
  start by placing a lot of really small bets to get those responses out of
• 43:45
  the way, and then you'd slowly increase your bets as you got closer to
• 43:49
  about the time that it was going to pay out. Then you get your
• 43:51
  big payout, and then you walk away. Casinos don't want that, like,
• 43:54
  they don't want you being able to predict when that payout's coming. They
• 43:57
  wanted to be super random and variable and unpredictable basically, so a random ratio
• 44:02
  schedule makes way more sense for a casino. And that's actually how games of
• 44:07
  chance work. They're not working on a variable ratio schedule. They're working on
• 44:10
  a random ratio schedule. That again, were the probability resets. And I
• 44:15
  actually think and I could not find I could not confirm this, but I
• 44:20
  have I live in Nevada, so I've been to a lot of casinos.
• 44:22
  I think at least with slot machines and any game where they can they can
• 44:27
  program the probabilities. I think that they work on a progressive random ratio schedule,
• 44:32
  meaning that the probability actually decreases the longer you play, where it goes
• 44:39
  from maybe like a one to ten at first, to like a one to
• 44:42
  fifteen later, and a one to twenty and a one to thirty. I
• 44:45
  don't actually know if that's true, because the thing is like, how would
• 44:49
  the machine know who you are? Well, they've actually specifically tried to control
• 44:52
  for that. Now they'll give you specifically membership cards that you put that in
• 44:57
  the machine and you can use that to cash out with that's important thing.
• 45:00
  It basically loads on the card like how much you've earned, and so they
• 45:04
  can then track who's at the machines, and they also can have like cameras
• 45:07
  and stuff at the machines. So like there's a way to do it.
• 45:10
  But at the very least I know that that they work on a random ratio.
• 45:14
  It's possible it's a progressive random ratio that was unable to verify that,
• 45:17
  but those are sort of the schedules that are going on with the various gambling
• 45:21
  systems out a casino. Oh man, it is wild the more you get
• 45:24
  into it, like how much is working against you in this situation? And
• 45:29
  I mean it's really important to understand the schedules because this is how we're starting
• 45:32
  to unpack how the gambling addiction part of this works. And that's why we
• 45:37
  started talking about like casinos and then talking about the schedules, because this is
• 45:42
  all building up to how do they turn this into a habit that becomes really
• 45:47
  difficult to break? Right, So since we're talking about schedules, I think
• 45:52
  one of the things that we have to talk about though, is I want
• 45:53
  to go back to a variable interval schedule because you know, as we go
• 45:58
  through these episodes, we can kind of talk about ads here and there,
• 46:00
  and we can kind of like mention them, but they only really play after
• 46:04
  a certain period of time passes. So yeah, we haven't even started talking
• 46:15
  about the actual addiction part. But it was important to set up I think
• 46:19
  all the important like the features of gambling that I think foster the development of
• 46:23
  this as a habit and so because we're going so long and we have so
• 46:28
  much to cover, let's actually split this into a two parter. We will
• 46:31
  come back yep, which was not what I intended it all for this,
• 46:37
  But we'll come back next time and we'll talk about addiction and treatment and some
• 46:40
  other interesting tidbits. But there's just there's so much here to cover. I
• 46:45
  thought we could do it in a single episode, but I think we're just
• 46:46
  gonna we're gonna run too long if we try and cover it all in that
• 46:50
  amount of time. Yeah, and we want to make sure that you know
• 46:52
  you're getting these bite sized chunks of this and not just having to consume not
• 46:57
  George Carlin, Dan Carlin, two very different people, a Dan Carlin size
• 47:01
  episode which is six or seven hours. Like, we haven't gotten to that
• 47:05
  stage yet, so like maybe one day, but not right now. Yeah,
• 47:08
  yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, all right. We usually end
• 47:10
  by talking about some things that we recommend, but because we're sort of making
• 47:14
  the last minute decision to split this off, we will recommend some things next
• 47:17
  time. If you would like to support the show, you can join our
• 47:20
  wonderful group of patrons and over there you could access to all kinds of bonus
• 47:23
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• 47:28
  that we like to celebrate every time by reading out their names and appreciation for
• 47:32
  who they are and who they've been for us. And that includes Mike,
• 47:35
  m Megan, Leila, Mike T, Justin Kim, Joshua, Brad,
• 47:38
  Stephanie, Olivia, Brian, Ashley, Kiara, Christi and Michelle. Thank
• 47:44
  you patrons so much, love y'all so much, from the bottom of our
• 47:46
  hearts. Yes. In addition, I could not do this without my team
• 47:50
  writing and fact checking from Shane and myself. Thank you for recording with me
• 47:53
  today. Shane anytime, anytime, Happy to be here, audio engineering in
• 47:57
  production from Justin Greenhouse Alls. So writing from Jess is back with us now,
• 48:01
  so here on the list. Yeah, writing in fact checking from Jess,
• 48:06
  Shane and myself and then our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson. And
• 48:10
  as I said, we will not do recommendations this time. Oh and thank
• 48:14
  you all for listening like we appreciate that very much. Yeah, we love
• 48:16
  it. We hope you're enjoying it. Please feel free to reach out to
• 48:20
  us, send us some notes, some emails, some messages, let us
• 48:22
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• 48:25
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• 48:29
  you can, of course reach out to us on the social media platforms,
• 48:31
  or you can email us directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com. But
• 48:37
  I think that that's all I have before we come back for next episode.
• 48:39
  Anything else on your end or anything that I forgot Shane, No, We're
• 48:44
  excited to continue the series, all right, see you back here next week
• 48:46
  to finish up our discussion on gambling addiction. This is Abraham and this is
• 48:50
  Shane. We're out. See ya. You've been listening to Why We Do
• 48:53
  what We Do. You can learn more about this and other episodes by going
• 48:58
  to WWD ww D podcast dot com. Thanks for listening, and we hope
• 49:04
  you have an awesome day