Scan barcode
lifepluspreston's review
4.0
Addiction By Design by Natasha Dow Schüll--This book is a fascinating look from an anthropological perspective on solo gambling using electronic machines. Schüll systematically outlines the systems, both internal to the machine and external in casinos themselves, which keep folks coming back for more, and, Schüll argues, prey on particularly vulnerable populations. She speaks with industry insiders and Gamblers Anonymous meetings which all express extreme reservations at the harms being done, but the underlying profit motive appears inescapable. It's a firm outline of the problem. Thumbs up.
laudateluna's review
challenging
dark
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Natasha Dow Schüll's incredible research into gambling maschines is one of the base text any sociologist and designer should read. It is a long damning account on the extreme exploitation of people for profit. It's dooming but necessarily so. Schüll decades of field research is timely even now, as we see more of the same tactics being used by tech and gig working companies.
renicula's review
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Everyone should read this book. It’s not perfect, but it is vital. While it’s focused on machine gambling, the insights it provides on the gambling industry, the inbuilt exploitation, and the inexcusable wreckage it leaves in its wake are universal. Over a decade on from publication it’s more relevant than ever with the expansions the gambling industry has made in America. I’m now radicalized against it; you might not come to the same conclusions, but you should be informed of the facts. Recommend pairing this with “Vicious Games: Capitalism and Gaming” for a more global perspective. Also, the excellent podcast “Game Study Study Buddies” has episodes on both books that provide academic discussion and critique, which I would also recommend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction
Moderate: Classism, Gaslighting, Mental illness, and Grief
rebeccazh's review
I finally finished this book. I read this in bits with a lot of breaks in between because the writing was kind of dry, but it had a lot of interesting information. This book looks at how the casino/gambling industry's profit motive and the gambling machines play a part in causing addiction, instead of the common view that it is something within the individuals that causes them to become addicted.
lukewhitestone's review
4.0
On one level, gambling is a perfectly voluntary exchange. Even if an individual knows they'll lose money in the medium-to-long run, it still may be a rational choice to gamble, as the fun benefit may counterbalance the house edge. It certainly helps to know the games with the slimmest house edges as well, and go into it with a working knowledge of probability.
This book is about everything casinos and patrons do to reject that account of gambling. Casinos (and in particular, slot machines) use every psychological trick available to them to make the exchange as bad faith as possible: they purposefully give people false expectations of the odds (near misses, virtual reels), they disguise losses as wins, the design their casino floors with gradual curving paths that lead to comfortable nooks in which a particularly addled gambler would never think to leave. They do absolutely everything in their power to extract every dollar from you that they can. And they openly admit this.
And here's the thing: as the book clearly explains, this is only half the story. The reason this industry is this way is because that's what degenrate gamblers WANT. They want to be left along in the zone and see their funds dissolve into nothing, they want to forget about their problems and kill time.
The accounts of the tactics that casinos/slot machine manufacturers employ were interesting and sometimes shocking in their brazenness. The accounts of the gamblers' stories were heartbreaking and sometimes unfathomable. What you have here is a sort of cross between a symbiotic and parasitic relationship, like a male praying mantis going to reproduce knowing it will get its head bitten off.
This is where the book shines, in clearly laying out the shared relationship nature of gambling addiction. It is not just a product of the casino industry preying on unsuspecting victims (though it is in part) and it is not just a bunch of weak-willed people who don't know when to say "when" (though it is a particular pathology that makes one more likely to fall victim to such a misdirected desire - often a desire for control where that need is not being met elsewhere).
However, the tack the book takes around that strong core thesis is very frustrating and very unsatisfying. The author takes every opportunity to draw parallels to Marx, Freud, Derrida, Max Weber, etc... which I suppose would be fine except it does NOT really help us understand the topic at hand, but merely serves to further a separate point regarding the supposed flaws of modern consumer capitalism. In addition to being not all that convincing of this separate point, it leads the author to some truly bewildering comparisons like how gambling is like early industrial capitalism because the both involve a "quick movement of the hand" and how stocks and bonds, hedge funds etc are just money to be "played with" which parallels how casinos treat in house credits.
Some of the references to sociological theorist are more enlightening. In particular the discussion of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of "Flow" really is an excellent framework to explore the compulsions of many gamblers. Unlike the flimsy parallels above, from the quotes and accounts of the addicted gamblers, it really does seem that many of then were seeking or describing a state of Flow.
What to do about the status quo is left a bit open ended, unsatisfyingly so. All the author says on this point is that modern regulations are not as comprehensive as they could be (in part due to regulatory capture of the sector, a point to which I am sympathetic) and laments the trajectory of inevitable expansion of the industry.
If you can move past these sub par elements (which can get a bit much in places but is ultimately not fatal to the book's main thesis) this is an excellent run down on the many concerns in the modern gambling industry.
3.5 stars
This book is about everything casinos and patrons do to reject that account of gambling. Casinos (and in particular, slot machines) use every psychological trick available to them to make the exchange as bad faith as possible: they purposefully give people false expectations of the odds (near misses, virtual reels), they disguise losses as wins, the design their casino floors with gradual curving paths that lead to comfortable nooks in which a particularly addled gambler would never think to leave. They do absolutely everything in their power to extract every dollar from you that they can. And they openly admit this.
And here's the thing: as the book clearly explains, this is only half the story. The reason this industry is this way is because that's what degenrate gamblers WANT. They want to be left along in the zone and see their funds dissolve into nothing, they want to forget about their problems and kill time.
The accounts of the tactics that casinos/slot machine manufacturers employ were interesting and sometimes shocking in their brazenness. The accounts of the gamblers' stories were heartbreaking and sometimes unfathomable. What you have here is a sort of cross between a symbiotic and parasitic relationship, like a male praying mantis going to reproduce knowing it will get its head bitten off.
This is where the book shines, in clearly laying out the shared relationship nature of gambling addiction. It is not just a product of the casino industry preying on unsuspecting victims (though it is in part) and it is not just a bunch of weak-willed people who don't know when to say "when" (though it is a particular pathology that makes one more likely to fall victim to such a misdirected desire - often a desire for control where that need is not being met elsewhere).
However, the tack the book takes around that strong core thesis is very frustrating and very unsatisfying. The author takes every opportunity to draw parallels to Marx, Freud, Derrida, Max Weber, etc... which I suppose would be fine except it does NOT really help us understand the topic at hand, but merely serves to further a separate point regarding the supposed flaws of modern consumer capitalism. In addition to being not all that convincing of this separate point, it leads the author to some truly bewildering comparisons like how gambling is like early industrial capitalism because the both involve a "quick movement of the hand" and how stocks and bonds, hedge funds etc are just money to be "played with" which parallels how casinos treat in house credits.
Some of the references to sociological theorist are more enlightening. In particular the discussion of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of "Flow" really is an excellent framework to explore the compulsions of many gamblers. Unlike the flimsy parallels above, from the quotes and accounts of the addicted gamblers, it really does seem that many of then were seeking or describing a state of Flow.
What to do about the status quo is left a bit open ended, unsatisfyingly so. All the author says on this point is that modern regulations are not as comprehensive as they could be (in part due to regulatory capture of the sector, a point to which I am sympathetic) and laments the trajectory of inevitable expansion of the industry.
If you can move past these sub par elements (which can get a bit much in places but is ultimately not fatal to the book's main thesis) this is an excellent run down on the many concerns in the modern gambling industry.
3.5 stars
kermittfrog's review
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
This books scope is very wide despite its focus on slot machines in Las Vegas. Schull covers the design of casinos, both the physical and internal game designs, data collection of players, how and why addiction forms, the toll it takes, methods to combat it, why these methods might not work, and many other things.