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How they get you hooked

Last updated: 30 August 2024

Gambling products and services are designed to take advantage of how your brain works. Here are some of the things they use to get you hooked.


The Gamblers Fallacy

I haven’t won all night…so I must be due for a big payout if I keep going!

This is wishful thinking, plain and simple. You have no greater chance of a payout than you did when you first sat down.

Gambling exploits our misunderstanding of statistical probability and our ingrained belief in luck, even though statistics always prove us wrong.

The 'near miss' Effect

It was so close that time, I nearly had a big win!

A near-miss will trigger the same areas in your brain as if you had really won. These are also the same areas which are involved in drug addiction.

All forms of gambling exploit this effect, but pokie machines in particular are programmed to show as many near-misses as they can get away with. Most countries legislate how many times they can do this.

Immersive Enviroments

How long was I playing?

Casinos, pokie machines and online gambling sites make you forget the outside world through clever design. They use dark backgrounds and deep but bright colours to attract and stimulate your brain. They use sound and light at random times to disorient you and trigger the near-miss effect.

Most casinos have few clocks or windows so you lose track of time. In some countries pokies are required by law to tell the person at regular intervals how long they have been playing—this helps to break the gambling trance.

Brain Stimulation

It was so exciting, I lost track of how much I was spending!

The anticipation of gambling causes raised heart rate, shallow breathing and other nervous system responses.

Winning and losing cause even greater responses, which are tied directly into our brain’s reward centres.
Machine design amplifies these even more.

The reward areas of your brain take all the bell-ringing and light-flashing as good news and reward your neurons with large hits of dopamine.

And this happens even when you are losing!

Whai Awhina?
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