◎ Deng Anqing
Many years ago, I read a short story by novelist Yan Geling, "The Riddle of Las Vegas", and I was extremely impressed. The protagonist of the novel, Lao Xue, 65 years old, is a very disciplined chemistry teacher, during a visit to the United States, he personally experienced the gambling game in Las Vegas. As the saying goes, "small gambling is pleasant", go to a small play as an experience on the line, never expected that the original thrifty and simple old Xue was instantly awakened by gambling to the depths of the soul's desire, completely lost in the casino. In order to raise gambling funds, the old Xue Meng, who stayed in the United States, deceived his relatives and friends, advertised on the cold and windy streets, and saved money by cutting back on food and clothing, just to continue gambling. And he gambled not for the sake of winning or losing money, his absolute concentration in the gambling process, the complete selflessness, and the methodical operation of the action, more like a conscientious occupation: "Such a Puritan gambling stick, so that the original debauchery and indulgence of gambling, and all the evil elements have changed." 」 ”
I believe that The old Xue in Yan Geling's pen must have his archetypal characters. Especially if you read the book "Luck Bait", you will find that not only foreign tourists like Lao Xue are addicted to gambling, but even Las Vegas locals have a lot of gambling addicts. Why? Many people will naturally blame gamblers for poor self-control, personality defects, etc., and they gamble to ruin their homes and live on the streets, which do not deserve sympathy at all. This is part of the truth, of course, but the author of this book, Natasha Dow Shure, is not satisfied with this, and she wants to explore the deeper reasons: is gambling addictive really just because of the gambler himself? The answer is not so simple.
With nearly two decades of fieldwork experience and keen insight as an anthropologist, the author has been focusing on the gambling industry for many years, with a large number of gamblers, gambling machine designers, managers and so on. She said in the preface to the book: "As I went deeper, it became increasingly clear to me that to better understand the experience of these gamblers, I had to have a better understanding of the machines they used. To achieve this, I once again expanded my research and began to teach myself the history and working principles of gambling machines, while also beginning to understand the design methods and marketing strategies of gambling technology vendors. I spent a lot of time at UNLV's Gambling Research Center, studying the annual journals, press releases and annual reports of the gambling machine manufacturing industry. In addition, I started attending gambling technology expos and seminars, interviewing industry executives, developers, and marketing experts. ”
After long-term in-depth research and observation, the authors found that the phenomenon of gambling machine addiction cannot be isolated from gamblers or gambling machines, but the interaction process between the two is its "disease". How this interactive process is carried out is to be said in two parts. Let's start with gamblers. In the eyes of people who do not gamble, gambling addicts are in order to win large sums of money through gambling, and "winning" is the purpose. But the authors have found through research that gambling addicts do not gamble to win money, but as one gambler put it: "To keep playing: to stay in the labyrinth of machines and forget everything else." Reading through the book, you will find that the word "lost" is the key word in the whole book. What is a "lost state"? One gambler replied, "Like in the eye of a storm, I would describe it this way." You can see the machine in front of you clearly, but everything else in the world seems to be spinning around you, and you can't hear anything. You seem to be out of this world, you have entered the world of machines, where there are only you and machines. ”
The term "lost" is a jerky 19th-century hypnotic term, but over time it has given rise to new meanings in new contexts. And among the gamblers the authors interviewed, they added a modern meaning to the word: like watching TV, like computers processing information, like driving a car. "You're in a trance, as if you've turned on autopilot mode." One gambler said so. "The labyrinth is like a magnet, it pulls you over and sucks you there." Another said. In biographer Marie Soderner's description, video gambling is like "a trance-like state of concentration, and simply maintaining this state can bring great satisfaction." What makes gamblers addicted is not the opportunity to win money, but the calm state of freedom from the distractions of the world and the suspension of subjectivity when sitting in front of the machine to gamble.
Let's talk about gambling machines. Gamblers have a need to enter the "lost world", and the gambling industry will respond to this demand, the ultimate goal of which is as a Las Vegas executive put it: "Whenever we buy 50 slot machines, I always think of them as 50 mouse clips." You have to do something to catch the rats. It's our responsibility to squeeze as much money out of our customers as possible. The word "squeeze" is not exaggerated, the gambling industry in order to exhaust the gambler's money can be described as painstaking, one is the environmental design of the casino, many casinos have curved smooth corridors, low-key hidden corners, softly lit slot machine mazes, are to guide customers along a specific route, firmly grasp their attention, guide them to carefully arranged road signs, guide them to the final destination, and finally lock in the gambling machine; the other is the gambling game design, The mathematical programming behind the gambling machine is the key to "hooking" the gambler's attention, "the gambler is like lying on your mathematical model resting, and all you have to do is make them comfortable; they're putting a lot of money into an invisible structure, so you need to make them feel like they can trust it." Gambling machines pass on this trust by handing out rewards. ”
When a gambler meets a gambling machine, an interaction begins. For machine gambling addicts, without exception, it is emphasized that they want "clear" simple interactions, and machines can satisfy them. One gambler told the author about her video poker playing during a painful lovelorn: "Dealing with machines isn't as cumbersome as interpersonal communication. The machine took my money and I was given time alone to play a few hands. The interaction is clear, the parameters are clearly defined – I decide which cards to keep and which cards to discard, it's that simple. I don't have to do anything but choose 'yes' or 'no'. I know that when I press these buttons, the machine will give me the response I want and need... I feel safe on the machine, not with people. On the machine I could win, I could lose, and if I did, the relationship was over. It's really understandable, it's an agreement between us. And then I'll start all over again, crisp. ”
It seems that the gambler and the gambling machine are the relationship of each taking what they need, and it is also an equal relationship, but is this really the case? The author gives a negative answer. One casino practitioner put it this way: "A casino is like a big washing machine: dumping customers around and throwing out their budgets." "Dumping" is the truth. Casinos "know" gamblers, are able to perform a variety of detailed analyses, and adjust the game environment in real time, relying on this understanding, they may get more profits, while gamblers still do not know anything. Gamblers think that it is an equal interaction with the gambling machine, but as the scholar Andreyevich said: "The interaction is not necessarily two-way, more often, it is just a convenience in exchange for user information, allowing users to hand over the information voluntarily or even unknowingly, and the form of information collection is becoming more and more detailed." ”
In addition, the gambling industry has also conducted extremely in-depth research on gamblers, especially game designers. "What the player wants" has become a key element in the feedback loop of gambling design, which is moving closer to the closed loop. From watching and listening, to player tracking, to behavioral intelligence software, to downloadable gambling systems — the trends are all about making players increasingly part of the game. Allowing players to build their own games is at the forefront of the "player-centric" mentality. This ability allows the gambling industry to meet the unique preferences of each player outside the statistical norm, making gambling machines a personalized reward machine. As the practitioner Linal puts it: "You'll be able to listen more deeply to the user because if they choose to let their machine do something interesting, you'll learn something — you learn from what the player wants." ”
At the same time, more and more gamblers are also beginning to realize the harm of gambling machines to themselves: "The hypnotic effect of video gambling machines." I don't believe there's anything that has such a strong addictive effect, but my intuition tells me that this whole thing is designed to hook us and hook us. To get us into that trance, these machines and the corresponding casino environment must have been manipulated. "But although they realized it, they indulged in it and had no way to break free." The gambling industry studied gamblers so finely that gamblers were trapped deeper and deeper, and countless human tragedies followed. An independent federal commission in Australia concluded in 2010 that "many gamblers are just ordinary consumers, and the problems they experience are both the result of the characteristics of these consumers and, to the same extent, the technology used in gambling games, the accessibility of these games, the nature and behavior of casinos." ”
A gambling industry magazine once declared: "Knowledge is power, and the most powerful expression of this sentence is probably the gambling industry." This is true, through this book, we learn how much expertise the gambling industry uses in order to pursue profits, just to drain the gambler's wallet. But what an ironic sentence it is. Man-machine encounter, man can enter the "lost world", and then the machine "devours" the person, which is not a healthy relationship.
Although the author did not explicitly say it, I could still feel her worries, otherwise there would not have been such a deep study of gambling addiction. After reading this book, looking back at Yan Geling's "Riddle of Las Vegas", you will better understand why Old Xue "fell" to this point. In addition to a sigh, be vigilant. Stay away from gambling, don't be curious, don't try, is the right way in life! Finally, I would like to say that this is not just a monograph on gambling, many addictive things and things have in common, after all, human nature is like this, people's situation is also very different, gambling is only a "small modern individual living situation of the large metaphor".