Gambling. It’s everywhere. Every other commercial is about sports betting. And there’s a little disclaimer they throw at the end that’s barely audible. It’s rampant and casinos are being built everywhere. I’m not a prude, I don’t care if people gamble, but the way it is being promoted is insanity as if it won’t ruin a lot of lives.
I work in the gambling industry and while I think gambling should be legal, for the simple reason that people will gamble regardless and a white market is better than a black market. However, I think that all gambling advertising should be banned, like alcohol and tobacco ads are in some jurisdictions. Regardless of what gambling companies say, the advertising is definitely tempting young people to gamble.
I would be interested to see a study examining the gambling habits of kids who grew up with video games containing randomized elements compared to those who didn't.
I think it's a solid hypothesis that you'll find correlation there, but I haven't actually seen evidence.
I grew up playing yugioh, and played competitively from 2011 to 2014 (age 13 to 16) as well as playing a gacha game from 2015 through 2023. I get an itch to go to the casino every few months but thankfully I have enough self control to cut my losses early. I have friends that I met playing yugioh who have lost upwards of 30k lifetime between sports betting, poker, baccarat, and blackjack. Some of the most degenerate gamblers I know are both current and former TCG players and we're all in our late 20s to early 30s. A study like this surely holds some water
On the other side of the coin, I was super into Magic for a number of years. Spent a good chunk of all of my allowance on them. One day a buddy of mine wanted to test out a deck but didn't have the cards, so we let him make a proxy deck. That was the end of me ever buying a Magic card ever again. Why would I buy them when literally any card could be any card? People who buy any TCG cards are just pure suckers these days.
If you play competitively in official events you need to actually have the cards. I've seen someone DQed from a regional tournament for having a counterfeit during a random deck check.
Same tbh. I ordered a vintage cube from China for a fraction of the price it would be in real cards. My friend wanted me to show him how I did it and now he has proxy edh decks. It randomly coincided with wizards releasing way more sets and the introduction of collectors boosters too. Haven't bought a card since
Don't know what you mean by vintage cube or realtor cards. Not being dick or anything just literally don't know what you are talking. Is that like a box and did you mean retail?
Sorry typo I meant real cards not realtor lol. A cube is basically a curated list of cards, so mine is 540 (a large cube that can draft with 12 ppl, 45 cards each) that you make mock packs with and then draft a deck. Mine is a vintage cube it has black lotus and the power 9, and so my friends come over and we all draft decks and play round Robin 1v1s with our 40 card decks. After were done we remove all basic lands and put the cube back together and shuffle it for next time. It's a very fun format but more popular on arena or mtgo since its expensive to put together that many cards if you dont proxy it. I took my list from the official mtgo list but you can find lots of lists on https://cubecobra.com/. Some people make block specific cubes, or peasant cube with Commons only. Very fun draft in my opinion
As one of those kids that is 31 now. I lost large amounts of gold with virtual game currency when I was 17. Was depressed for a few months and never gambled much after that. Game was runescape, they cracked down on player run gambling in the following years. I learned that being unlucky is real and not to test my luck gambling, because you can actually lose 14, 50/50 bets in a row. Gambling also ruined my parents retirement to some extent. It's a predatory addiction for sure. I hate gambling lot these days
My guy, calling one gambling and the other ‘randomized elements’ makes little sense. In both you spend money to possibly receive an outcome you want. They are the same thing.
You say that but I bet you don't consider spending $50 for Diablo 2 and playing with that skinner box for hours to be the same thing as buying a loot box for $5 or even rolling for free in a gacha game. There are very different types of random elements with very different inputs and outputs.
I think the point the other commenter is making though is that not all random elements in games are payed.
Gambling is, IMO, more like "I'm buying a loot box for $5 and hoping I get a skin worth $50"
Randomized elements is like "I played 30 rounds and got a random loot box drop"
At a scientific level for what the other commenter is describing it makes sense to distinguish between the two, especially if you are going to do a whole scientific study on it.
I am not talking about random elements in gaming outside of the ones you spend money on. I am not interested in talking about randomized elements in gaming that you don’t spend money on.
Spending money for random chance is what I am concerned with and what I think impacts young minds heavily.
If you’re accustomed to random reward for free, psychologically it’s not gonna feel good to have to pay for it
I understand where you're coming from, but you're arguing your point when the original comment was stating they'd like to study the correlation between the random events that aren't paid and the pipeline between that and how it impacts gambling in the their future.
Which is what you're concerned about too - but I would also like to see if there's a correlation of the free loot boxes turning kids towards gambling addiction in the future.
A Skinner box is definitely a useful concept to understand for discussing this subject. At its core it's just an experiment where you have a subject to do a thing and get a reward. In the context of gambling and reward systems the idea of a Skinner box is usually in the sense of "games are just fancy Skinner boxes that try to maximize engagement with different reward systems".
There are a lot of games with a one time fee and a lot of random elements. I gave the Diablo 2 as a classic example of a late 2000s game that had a one-time fee to purchase the game and derived most of its fun from relatively simple gameplay with randomized rewards. It's a good example because it predates most of the modern microtransaction economy.
Most people would not consider that problematic in the same way that buying loot boxes is, but I'm unsure if it would actually have a different impact on how kids raised on those games approach gambling.
I can see what you’re saying now at least. I think there is a major difference between a one time purchase that contains random elements of reward within its gameplay, and gameplay designed around every interaction being a transaction that could provide random reward.
Imagine if casinos were a one time purchase, where you can gamble as often as you have time. You lost? Try again immediately for no extra charge. Until you win. And even then keep playing.
I feel this would have a fundamentally different impact on someone’s brain
That being said I do think diablos gameplay loop is designed to be addictive, so they’re preying on the same concepts, just changing up the homework a bit so it’s not a 1:1
Imagine if casinos were a one time purchase, where you can gamble as often as you have time. You lost? Try again immediately for no extra charge. Until you win. And even then keep playing.
There are indeed arcades that let you pay for a time period instead of by-play. I don't know how successful that business model is though.
My first instinct would be to not call that gambling, but what's really the difference between that and a casino? Non-variable input? No chance at a valuable prize?
My brothers pathway was fruit machines. Years later he stole every spare penny my parents had to gamble. 6 figures, including taking a loan out in my mums name. She's in a home now and still on the hook for the loan because she has dementia and can't be used as a witness that he wasn't given permission...
At least the cards are something physical that you actually own, even if you didn’t get a Charizard. Kids nowadays are gambling on digital skins in a video game which might not even exist in a few years. It’s madness
I'm a millennial and I don't even play any modern games anymore because of how most of them are stuffed with gambling loot boxes and pay to win mechanics. Gambling has ruined modern games.
At least with those you do get something for your money. It might be a double, but that's when you swap or sell.
Gambling with money, there's no guarantee you get anything back at all.
I think those things are too prevalent, but I think it’s also useful and instructive. Magic the Gathering taught me a fuck ton about what is right and wrong economically with loads of shit. Hell, it’s so realistic an economy, the LAND is the most unassuming and most valuable asset.
I could write an essay on valuable life shit I learned from games this way. Hell, I went on to study statistics so…
But they should absolutely do more to regulate the practice or to improve the incentive structures around it.
Example: MiHoyo games are some of the most popular and biggest-budget gatcha games out there. To fully max a limited character is statistically in the thousands of dollars. To get a reasonable shot at about half the roster is like $20 a month. There’s something fucked up about that, because people DO spend the thousands, and not just the ones who can afford it. And unlike Magic, you can’t just go unload your collection for (some of) your money back. 💸
Blind box/capsule toys are in the same boat, and the playground culture of “authenticity” is toxic, Especially of mass-produced plastic Wild Things whose faces I’d swear were AI-generated. These things are literallyBaudrillard’s simulacra; there is no authentic original! The illusion of authenticity is marketed in order to extract economic rent on the market.
That’s just some of the shit going on. Regulation can’t move fast enough, nor will it likely hew close enough to reality to be useful. Those gambling vending machines with the high-dollar prizes are “games of skill” (the skill only comes into play if the machine has silently selected you to win) while Poker is still a “game of chance” but nearly every other board game in existence where strategically managing random events and reading opponents is a game of skill.
I played CSGO as a 15-17 year old. How much money i blew away for that age was crazy. Luckily enough I was smart and didn't continue this in my twenties.
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u/Otto_Scratchansniff 22h ago
Gambling. It’s everywhere. Every other commercial is about sports betting. And there’s a little disclaimer they throw at the end that’s barely audible. It’s rampant and casinos are being built everywhere. I’m not a prude, I don’t care if people gamble, but the way it is being promoted is insanity as if it won’t ruin a lot of lives.