Gambling, Reconsidered
Thinking about: Your life
In my previous post, I described the role dopamine plays in your life. It is one component of the biological incentive system that is “wired” into you. This system rewards you for doing certain things, such as gaining social status or having an orgasm—activities that, in your distant ancestral past, would have increased your chances of surviving and reproducing. The reward comes in the form of a little burst of the neurotransmitter dopamine, and it feels oh-so-good.
Your world is profoundly different from that of your distant ancestors, meaning that your incentive system is antiquated. Yes, it will reward you for having an orgasm, but it will also reward you for checking your email or solving a Wordle puzzle, activities that have no impact on your ability to survive and reproduce. We clever humans have also figured out how to “game” our incentive system. We can, for example, get a major dopamine high by snorting cocaine.
In this post, we will turn our attention to gambling. Why do so many people engage in this activity? The obvious answer is that they want to win money. A case can be made, though, that people have multiple motivations for gambling, and that winning money probably isn’t at the top of the list. Allow me to explain.
When I was a kid—in Nevada in the 1960s—slot machines had handles to pull and mechanical reels that would spin and stop, with the final position determining whether and how much you were paid. These days, though, slot machines have screens to touch instead of handles to pull, and their reels are virtual. And whereas the reels of old slot machines had only one “payline” that determined whether you won or lost, the new machines have several.
Slot machines are set to yield a profit for the casino. If you make a hundred ten-dollar bets, you might come away $1000 poorer, in the highly unlikely event that you lose every spin. It might take you ten minutes to make these bets. Get lucky, and you might come away with thousands of dollars. The average player, however, will likely come away with between $920 and $940, and 30–40 percent of those who make the bets I have described will come out ahead.*
To gain insight into the psychology of gambling, suppose a casino introduced a virtual slot machine. To play it, you would deposit $1000 and push a button. The virtual machine would then simulate a hundred spins, using the same algorithm as if you were actually playing spin by spin. A second later, it would tell you how your virtual bets had turned out—no sounds and fancy graphics, just a bottom-line number. You might get nothing, and you might get thousands of dollars, but because the virtual slot’s payout rate was set the same as that of a standard machine, the average player would be paid between $920 and $940.
This machine is clearly more efficient than standard machines: Why spend ten minutes pushing a button when you can get an equivalent payout in a second? Despite this efficiency, few people would want to play such a machine. The standard machine, after all, will provide them with a series of dopamine hits. The virtual machine would likely provide them with none at all.** If you are among those who would have little interest in playing a virtual slot machine, it is evidence that you aren’t in it for the money; you are instead in it for the dopamine. And indeed, when we visit a casino, we can find people who will sit for hours at a slot machine, mindlessly pushing its buttons. They have been transmogrified into dopamine-driven zombies. Oh, the humanity!
This brings us to esports betting, in which people make online bets on sporting events. Sports betting used to be illegal in most of the US, and if you did bet, you went to a bookie to do it. These days, you can engage in esports betting, with the two primary American platforms being DraftKings and FanDuel. Such betting has become quite popular, particularly among males between 18 and 35.
Suppose that Sam is among them. Why does Sam gamble? There is, of course, the prospect of making money, but not to be forgotten, there is the dopamine factor. If Sam follows sports—as he likely does—he can get a dopamine rush when his favorite team scores. If he has bet on a game, though, this rush will be potentiated: Not only did his favorite team score, but in doing so, might have won him a bet. A double dopamine hit! But this is only the beginning. By telling his friends about his winning bets, Sam can boost his social status, resulting in additional dopamine hits. Furthermore, if Sam makes enough bets on an esports platform, it might grant him VIP status. This can mean getting free tickets to sporting events. Imagine the dopamine rush that will accompany sharing this news with his friends and relatives, and watching as they turn green with envy.
There is, however, a snag. Sam is unlikely to gain VIP status unless he has a history of making losing bets. More generally, if an esports platform suspects that Sam has genuine sports insight that gives him an edge—or even worse, that he is acting on inside information—it will likely respond by reducing the amount he can bet or even by terminating his account.
Because of the multiple dopamine hits it provides, many unsuspecting individuals have become addicted to esports betting. As a result, they might have fallen deep into debt—in some cases, so deep that suicide seems like their only way out. Sports gambling also has side effects. It can undermine the integrity of sports. It can also result in athletes being threatened or even attacked.
If you are an esports gambler, you would do well to rethink the role it plays in your life. You might be convinced that you have a knack for picking winners, but there is an excellent chance that you have instead fallen victim to confirmation bias: You remember your winning bets while conveniently forgetting all those you lost. To find out whether this is the case, you need only do a bit of math. Compare the total amount you have deposited in your esports account with the sum of your current account balance plus any withdrawals you have made. If the former amount is greater than the latter, your “knack for picking winners” is likely an illusion. Sorry, Sam.
I will end with a word of warning for any “Sams” who might read this post. If your esports platform is being nice to you, it is bad news. It likely means that they have marked you as a sucker. Sorry again.
*These are the statistics for Las Vegas. Elsewhere, the amount will vary, depending on local regulations.
**The exception is if they end up winning. On learning this, they will experience a dopamine rush, but unless their win is huge, this rush will be less than the sum of all the rushes they would have experienced by grinding away at a standard slot machine.
Dopamine is a dangerous bugger. I went entirely off sugar a week ago and have had very unpleasant withdrawals. I looked it up online, and it turns out...dopamine! That's why I was so drawn to the sugar poison...
Fascinating. Thanks.