7 ms·

Casinos like to say that roughly 2% of players become addicted. What they fail to mention is that approximately half of all their revenue comes from these 2%.

Casinos like to say that roughly 2% of players become addicted. What they fail to mention is that approximately half of all their revenue comes from these 2%. A more telling statistic is that approximately 10% of players account for 90% of all casino revenue [1]. The numbers are quite similar for games with IAP [2]. While every casino in the US displays signage claiming to support "responsible gaming" and claims to have policies in place to stop addicts from gambling, the reality is that if addicts were stopped, all casinos would be closed and bankrupt within a month. No capital-intensive industry could survive if 90% of their revenue suddenly vanished. And with that, we arrive at the truth: casinos are built explicitly for the creation and exploitation of addiction. This is pretty evil, but it will continue happening as long as politicians can be bought to keep it legal. The only meaningful way to address it is to focus resources on treatment and prevention. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626104579123383535635644 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023046261045791233... [2] http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-12-12-monetizing-games-crucial-advice-from-key-players http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-12-12-monetizing-...

Red_Tarsius 11y ago
> it will continue happening as long as politicians can be bought to keep it legal. It's quite a complex issue. How do politicians regulate games without infringing on players' freedom? How do they discern lawful play from illegal play? Treatment, prevention and awareness is the only practical solution.
- wpietri 11y ago
  > How do politicians regulate games without infringing on players' freedom? You don't seem to understand that addicts aren't free. If, as downandout suggests, the industry can't exist without the addicts, then the choice isn't one of freedom versus tyranny. It's a choice of which infringement on freedom we find worse: a predatory industry ruining people's lives or the state saying, "Sorry, you can only play games for fun, not money."
  - eikenberry 11y ago
    > You don't seem to understand that addicts aren't free. Yes they are. Quit trying to overload the term. Are they slaves? No. Are they in prison? No. Freedom means the freedom from the tyranny of others, not from yourself.
    - enraged_camel 11y ago
      >>Freedom means the freedom from the tyranny of others, not from yourself. That's your own completely arbitrary definition of freedom.
      - eikenberry 11y ago
        http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freedom http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freedom
    - mapt 11y ago
      I find myself agreeing. Psychological addictions are a real problem, but not one that I am comfortable involuntarily treating, so long as they do not directly harm other people. On the other hand, I am in favor of regulation sufficient to make the worst-case-scenario equal to the worst-case-scenario of unemployment. The real social problem is only externalized beyond individual and dependents when the stereotypical problem gambler starts seeking lines of credit to further their addiction; This is to be avoided at considerable cost, because not only are their incentives compromised in a manner associated with addiction, but also in a manner associated with fear of whatever private sticks their patrons have to get them to repay the debt, and they have no legal means to do so.
      - wpietri 11y ago
        This is a pretty low-empathy position. You're basically saying that exploiting people for profit is ok as long as it only harms those directly exploited plus their dependents. I don't necessarily think we should ban anything that people could get addicted to. But I'm generally in favor of stopping people making money off of addicts. And I'm thoroughly in favor of banning people from trying to create new addicts. As an example, I think the cigarette advertising bans, mandatory on-pack warnings, and high cigarette taxes are swell.
icebraining 11y ago
Regarding the 2%, you're assuming that the data from Bwin - an Internet gambling site - is representative of the casino industry as a whole. And that 10% account for 90% of revenue doesn't mean that those 10% are addicted. There's obviously a long tail of people that only enter a casino once a year or less, which will obviously contribute little to its revenue. That doesn't mean semi-regular players must be addicted. I don't doubt that there are addicted people, but I don't agree that the data you mention indicates a large problem.
- downandout 11y ago
  The numbers in land based casinos won't be identical, but they are close enough. Having looked into this issue, the data (not just from these two sources) is rather conclusive that the vast majority of casino revenue comes from problem gamblers, despite the fact that only a small percentage of their customers fall into this category.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Well, without access to such data, I have to say I remain unconvinced.
- hoopd 11y ago
  If you gamble regularly and lose money regularly, it's very likely it's addiction that's bringing you back. It's hard to be a "healthy" semi-regular losing player, the ones I can think of off the top of my head are people with good jobs who hit the casinos a few times a month as a social event and lose what they would have spent at a bar anyway. They may drop $500 each per month, but the problem gambler may drop $10k in a week. It doesn't take many problem gamblers to get to 90% of the money coming in.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Why do you say it's hard to be a semi-regular losing player? Besides the millions who player in lotteries (which is not the same, granted), my experience is from Spain, where many bars and coffee shops have slot machines (like this[1]) and you see lots of people playing for 5-15 minutes and then leaving. [1] https://marroturismo.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/tragaperras.jpg https://marroturismo.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/tragaperras...
CPLX 11y ago
Your supposition is that the casino industry adheres somewhat to the Pareto principal. This is neither surprising nor dispositive of its dependence on addiction, a term that you neither define nor measure convincingly here.
throwaway43 11y ago
Most online social games also make most of their revenues from approximately 2 % of their players. They even use casino terminology , bucketing their users into minnows , whales and what not. For free to play games most users spend almost nothing. But there are these users that spends thousands of dollars on the game as if it were nothing.
- killface 11y ago
  I enjoy playing summoners war, but recognize it as basically a slot machine. There are people on there who clearly have spent a LOT of money. I've chatted with a few of them (the largest that someone admitted to was $5,000), and most of them claimed to be well-off enough that it wasn't an issue. One claimed to be the son of a successful investment banker. One was from China and said he doesn't even know how much money they have, but they always have plenty. Nobody I talked with has been all like, "yeah, i am hurting myself and racking up debt, but I just can't stop" Of course, if you assume even half of those people are lying, that's where the addiction is. You'll tell yourself stories and tell others stories, so they don't see you as a weak person.
learnstats2 11y ago
> 10% of players account for 90% of all casino revenue. You're suggesting that this is unusual but it's just the Pareto Principle, which applies to... pretty much every set of data ever, and serves as no evidence for anything. I'm not against what you are saying, but you need to find a better argument than this.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
woah 11y ago
Prohibition is a failed war
civilian 11y ago
We also keep it legal because prohibition would cause more harms and would lower us as a people for making a victimless activity outlaw'd. If gambling was outlawed, gamblers & casino owners would find other ways. A fool and his money. (Also if gambling was outlawed, where the fuck would we get VC money from?)
joesmo 11y ago
I agree on the purpose of casinos, but I fail to see how it's evil to give people what they want and what they would seek out and do on the black market anyway if it wasn't legal. Just because they're legal doesn't mean that we can't focus on treatment or prevention. Keeping casinos legal removes a lot of the other problems that illegal gambling brings. Basically, by keeping gambling legal the damage that gambling does can be minimized and generally limited to the gambler. Once you make it illegal and bring in the black market, while gambling itself is a victimless crime, the industry that now supports it illegally is not. Same as any other industry that deals with highly addictive things that people have immense desire for.
wdr1 11y ago
> This is pretty evil, but it will continue happening as long as politicians can be bought to keep it legal. You could make this exact same argument for liquor sales. The top 10% of regular drinkers have 10 drinks a day. If they reduced their consumption to that of the next decile, total ethanol sales would fall by 60 percent.[1] We tried banning alcohol sales. It didn't work very well. [1] http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/10/05/the-alcohol-industry-needs-alcoholism-to-thrive/ http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/10/05/the-alcohol-...
- hollerith 11y ago
  >We tried banning alcohol sales. It didn't work very well. That might be persuasive if it were the only relevant information we had. But most US states maintained a complete ban on gambling for most of their existence, and those bans worked pretty well.
  - cma 11y ago
    The alcohol ban might have worked prior to automobiles. Maybe the gambling ban only worked prior to the internet, at least until there was federal and not state level action on going after online gambling.
- droopyEyelids 11y ago
  We still don't culturally embrace alcohol as a good thing. You don't see the states advertising vodka like they advertise the lottery. There is a lot of room between making something illegal, and promoting it to take advantage of people.
  - pekk 11y ago
    The lottery is a form of gambling, but is also pretty different from casinos.
  - CONTRARlAN 11y ago
    > We still don't culturally embrace alcohol as a good thing. You don't see the states advertising vodka like they advertise the lottery. I'm having a hard time with this. Something doesn't have to be endorsed by the state to be culturally embraced, which seems to be what I'm understanding when I view both sentences in tandem. Apologies if I'm getting that wrong. But if I view the first sentence in isolation: > We still don't culturally embrace alcohol as a good thing. I'm still baffled, but for different reasons. Alcohol is endorsed, celebrated, and embraced from top to bottom in nearly all corners of contemporary society. It's served nearly everywhere, consuming it is the cultural norm, not consuming it is viewed with suspicion, it's lauded as being crucial to one's enjoyment of an evening, social gathering, sporting event, flight, etc. Entire business models exist that would otherwise be unprofitable if not for alcohol sales. Many establishments are essentially loss leaders but for their alcohol sales (which are supposedly tangential to their primary business offering). 2.5 million deaths are alcohol-related every year. It's a factor in 40% of all violent crimes. 24% of incidents involving police have alcohol as a factor. And yet, sit around at dinner with a group of guys and order a soft drink, and it's often viewed as abnormal behavior. Why? Because, for reasons passing understanding, we culturally embrace alcohol as a good thing.
tomjen3 11y ago
You seem to assume that because people spend a hell of a lot of money they are necessarily addicted. This isn't so, a lot of these people just have a lot of money (e.g many of the whales that spend a lot on IAP for free-to-play games are rich saudis).
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

Red_Tarsius 11y ago

> it will continue happening as long as politicians can be bought to keep it legal. It's quite a complex issue. How do politicians regulate games without infringing on players' freedom? How do they discern lawful play from illegal play? Treatment, prevention and awareness is the only practical solution.

wpietri 11y ago
> How do politicians regulate games without infringing on players' freedom? You don't seem to understand that addicts aren't free. If, as downandout suggests, the industry can't exist without the addicts, then the choice isn't one of freedom versus tyranny. It's a choice of which infringement on freedom we find worse: a predatory industry ruining people's lives or the state saying, "Sorry, you can only play games for fun, not money."
- eikenberry 11y ago
  > You don't seem to understand that addicts aren't free. Yes they are. Quit trying to overload the term. Are they slaves? No. Are they in prison? No. Freedom means the freedom from the tyranny of others, not from yourself.
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    >>Freedom means the freedom from the tyranny of others, not from yourself. That's your own completely arbitrary definition of freedom.
    - eikenberry 11y ago
      http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freedom http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freedom
  - mapt 11y ago
    I find myself agreeing. Psychological addictions are a real problem, but not one that I am comfortable involuntarily treating, so long as they do not directly harm other people. On the other hand, I am in favor of regulation sufficient to make the worst-case-scenario equal to the worst-case-scenario of unemployment. The real social problem is only externalized beyond individual and dependents when the stereotypical problem gambler starts seeking lines of credit to further their addiction; This is to be avoided at considerable cost, because not only are their incentives compromised in a manner associated with addiction, but also in a manner associated with fear of whatever private sticks their patrons have to get them to repay the debt, and they have no legal means to do so.
    - wpietri 11y ago
      This is a pretty low-empathy position. You're basically saying that exploiting people for profit is ok as long as it only harms those directly exploited plus their dependents. I don't necessarily think we should ban anything that people could get addicted to. But I'm generally in favor of stopping people making money off of addicts. And I'm thoroughly in favor of banning people from trying to create new addicts. As an example, I think the cigarette advertising bans, mandatory on-pack warnings, and high cigarette taxes are swell.

icebraining 11y ago

Regarding the 2%, you're assuming that the data from Bwin - an Internet gambling site - is representative of the casino industry as a whole. And that 10% account for 90% of revenue doesn't mean that those 10% are addicted. There's obviously a long tail of people that only enter a casino once a year or less, which will obviously contribute little to its revenue. That doesn't mean semi-regular players must be addicted. I don't doubt that there are addicted people, but I don't agree that the data you mention indicates a large problem.

downandout 11y ago
The numbers in land based casinos won't be identical, but they are close enough. Having looked into this issue, the data (not just from these two sources) is rather conclusive that the vast majority of casino revenue comes from problem gamblers, despite the fact that only a small percentage of their customers fall into this category.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Well, without access to such data, I have to say I remain unconvinced.
hoopd 11y ago
If you gamble regularly and lose money regularly, it's very likely it's addiction that's bringing you back. It's hard to be a "healthy" semi-regular losing player, the ones I can think of off the top of my head are people with good jobs who hit the casinos a few times a month as a social event and lose what they would have spent at a bar anyway. They may drop $500 each per month, but the problem gambler may drop $10k in a week. It doesn't take many problem gamblers to get to 90% of the money coming in.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Why do you say it's hard to be a semi-regular losing player? Besides the millions who player in lotteries (which is not the same, granted), my experience is from Spain, where many bars and coffee shops have slot machines (like this[1]) and you see lots of people playing for 5-15 minutes and then leaving. [1] https://marroturismo.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/tragaperras.jpg https://marroturismo.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/tragaperras...

CPLX 11y ago

Your supposition is that the casino industry adheres somewhat to the Pareto principal. This is neither surprising nor dispositive of its dependence on addiction, a term that you neither define nor measure convincingly here.

throwaway43 11y ago

Most online social games also make most of their revenues from approximately 2 % of their players. They even use casino terminology , bucketing their users into minnows , whales and what not. For free to play games most users spend almost nothing. But there are these users that spends thousands of dollars on the game as if it were nothing.

killface 11y ago
I enjoy playing summoners war, but recognize it as basically a slot machine. There are people on there who clearly have spent a LOT of money. I've chatted with a few of them (the largest that someone admitted to was $5,000), and most of them claimed to be well-off enough that it wasn't an issue. One claimed to be the son of a successful investment banker. One was from China and said he doesn't even know how much money they have, but they always have plenty. Nobody I talked with has been all like, "yeah, i am hurting myself and racking up debt, but I just can't stop" Of course, if you assume even half of those people are lying, that's where the addiction is. You'll tell yourself stories and tell others stories, so they don't see you as a weak person.

learnstats2 11y ago

> 10% of players account for 90% of all casino revenue. You're suggesting that this is unusual but it's just the Pareto Principle, which applies to... pretty much every set of data ever, and serves as no evidence for anything. I'm not against what you are saying, but you need to find a better argument than this.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

woah 11y ago

Prohibition is a failed war

civilian 11y ago

We also keep it legal because prohibition would cause more harms and would lower us as a people for making a victimless activity outlaw'd. If gambling was outlawed, gamblers & casino owners would find other ways. A fool and his money. (Also if gambling was outlawed, where the fuck would we get VC money from?)

joesmo 11y ago

I agree on the purpose of casinos, but I fail to see how it's evil to give people what they want and what they would seek out and do on the black market anyway if it wasn't legal. Just because they're legal doesn't mean that we can't focus on treatment or prevention. Keeping casinos legal removes a lot of the other problems that illegal gambling brings. Basically, by keeping gambling legal the damage that gambling does can be minimized and generally limited to the gambler. Once you make it illegal and bring in the black market, while gambling itself is a victimless crime, the industry that now supports it illegally is not. Same as any other industry that deals with highly addictive things that people have immense desire for.

wdr1 11y ago

> This is pretty evil, but it will continue happening as long as politicians can be bought to keep it legal. You could make this exact same argument for liquor sales. The top 10% of regular drinkers have 10 drinks a day. If they reduced their consumption to that of the next decile, total ethanol sales would fall by 60 percent.[1] We tried banning alcohol sales. It didn't work very well. [1] http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/10/05/the-alcohol-industry-needs-alcoholism-to-thrive/ http://www.the-american-interest.com/2014/10/05/the-alcohol-...

hollerith 11y ago
>We tried banning alcohol sales. It didn't work very well. That might be persuasive if it were the only relevant information we had. But most US states maintained a complete ban on gambling for most of their existence, and those bans worked pretty well.
- cma 11y ago
  The alcohol ban might have worked prior to automobiles. Maybe the gambling ban only worked prior to the internet, at least until there was federal and not state level action on going after online gambling.
droopyEyelids 11y ago
We still don't culturally embrace alcohol as a good thing. You don't see the states advertising vodka like they advertise the lottery. There is a lot of room between making something illegal, and promoting it to take advantage of people.
- pekk 11y ago
  The lottery is a form of gambling, but is also pretty different from casinos.
- CONTRARlAN 11y ago
  > We still don't culturally embrace alcohol as a good thing. You don't see the states advertising vodka like they advertise the lottery. I'm having a hard time with this. Something doesn't have to be endorsed by the state to be culturally embraced, which seems to be what I'm understanding when I view both sentences in tandem. Apologies if I'm getting that wrong. But if I view the first sentence in isolation: > We still don't culturally embrace alcohol as a good thing. I'm still baffled, but for different reasons. Alcohol is endorsed, celebrated, and embraced from top to bottom in nearly all corners of contemporary society. It's served nearly everywhere, consuming it is the cultural norm, not consuming it is viewed with suspicion, it's lauded as being crucial to one's enjoyment of an evening, social gathering, sporting event, flight, etc. Entire business models exist that would otherwise be unprofitable if not for alcohol sales. Many establishments are essentially loss leaders but for their alcohol sales (which are supposedly tangential to their primary business offering). 2.5 million deaths are alcohol-related every year. It's a factor in 40% of all violent crimes. 24% of incidents involving police have alcohol as a factor. And yet, sit around at dinner with a group of guys and order a soft drink, and it's often viewed as abnormal behavior. Why? Because, for reasons passing understanding, we culturally embrace alcohol as a good thing.

tomjen3 11y ago

You seem to assume that because people spend a hell of a lot of money they are necessarily addicted. This isn't so, a lot of these people just have a lot of money (e.g many of the whales that spend a lot on IAP for free-to-play games are rich saudis).

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]