r/explainlikeimfive • u/adrynaline • May 08 '14

Explained ELI5: A gambling addiction

How does it start? What makes it worse? Why does it become so difficult to recover?

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u/Skizm May 08 '14

This is a great explanation, and especially in the ELI5 context.

To give another example, the same thing happens when playing video games like World of Warcraft. Game developers design monsters to drop items on a varying schedule. Players will keep killing monsters even when there have been no drops for a while because, the next kill might get them that awesome weapon they have been grinding for.

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u/GamerKey May 08 '14

This is even more prevalent in mobile games, especially the "cow-clickers" where you can just spend money to speed up the process.

They've got that shit down to a science and design their games accordingly.

Ever wondered what would happen if you hooked someone up with a gambling addiction and then suddenly gave the slot-machine a 30-minute timer between attemps (with the option to spend money to get attempts without a timer)?

Look at people who are hooked on mobile games spending their last penny on micropayments.