- Making you think you’re in control
- Disguising your losses as wins
- Celebrating near misses
- Giving you free money
When it comes to online casino games and slots, Kim Lund feels that something less cunning is going on: that firms are simply watching what makes money and repeating it in a robotic process of trial and error. “My main gripe with the industry is that it has, to a large degree, been run by people who don’t love it, who treat gamblers as dumb sheep. They see gambling like petrol: ‘We have a commodity – how do we sell it? What else can we sell them while they’re at the gas station?’”
The result is an evolutionary mechanism that rewards the development of addictive content while absolving anyone from the responsibility for its impact.
In an extract from Rob Davies’ book Jackpot, he discusses the dark nudges used by betting companies tempt and manipulate users: