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Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas
Recent decades have seen a dramatic shift away from social forms of gambling played around roulette wheels and card tables to solitary gambling at electronic terminals. Addiction by Design takes readers into the intriguing world of machine gambling, an increasingly popular and absorbing form of play that blurs the line between human and machine, compulsion and control, risk and reward.
Drawing on fifteen years of field research in Las Vegas, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schull shows how the mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling pulls players into a trancelike state they call the "machine zone," in which daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness fade away. Once in the zone, gambling addicts play not to win but simply to keep playing, for as long as possible--even at the cost of physical and economic exhaustion. In continuous machine play, gamblers seek to lose themselves while the gambling industry seeks profit. Schull describes the strategic calculations behind game algorithms and machine ergonomics, casino architecture and "ambience management," player tracking and cash access systems--all designed to meet the market's desire for maximum "time on device." Her account moves from casino floors into gamblers' everyday lives, from gambling industry conventions and Gamblers Anonymous meetings to regulatory debates over whether addiction to gambling machines stems from the consumer, the product, or the interplay between the two.
Addiction by Design is a compelling inquiry into the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance, offering clues to some of the broader anxieties and predicaments of contemporary life.
Drawing on fifteen years of field research in Las Vegas, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schull shows how the mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling pulls players into a trancelike state they call the "machine zone," in which daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness fade away. Once in the zone, gambling addicts play not to win but simply to keep playing, for as long as possible--even at the cost of physical and economic exhaustion. In continuous machine play, gamblers seek to lose themselves while the gambling industry seeks profit. Schull describes the strategic calculations behind game algorithms and machine ergonomics, casino architecture and "ambience management," player tracking and cash access systems--all designed to meet the market's desire for maximum "time on device." Her account moves from casino floors into gamblers' everyday lives, from gambling industry conventions and Gamblers Anonymous meetings to regulatory debates over whether addiction to gambling machines stems from the consumer, the product, or the interplay between the two.
Addiction by Design is a compelling inquiry into the intensifying traffic between people and machines of chance, offering clues to some of the broader anxieties and predicaments of contemporary life.
456 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 2012
431 people are currently reading
8795 people want to read
About the author
Natasha Dow Schüll
3 books52 followersNatasha Dow Schüll's graduated Summa Cum Laude from UC Berkeley’s Department of Anthropology in 1993 and returned to receive her Ph.D. in 2003. She held postdoctoral positions as a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at Columbia University’s Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy and as a fellow at NYU’s International Center for Advanced Studies. She joined MIT's Program in Science, Technology, and Society in 2007 and was awarded tenure in early 2015, before moving to NYU.
Schüll’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among other sources. Schüll’s research and op-eds have been featured in such national media venues as 60 minutes, The New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Capital Gazette, Financial Times, Forbes, Boston Globe, Salon, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily Herald, Las Vegas Sun, 99% Invisible, NPR, WGBH, and WNYC.
Schüll’s research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among other sources. Schüll’s research and op-eds have been featured in such national media venues as 60 minutes, The New York Times, The Economist, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Capital Gazette, Financial Times, Forbes, Boston Globe, Salon, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Daily Herald, Las Vegas Sun, 99% Invisible, NPR, WGBH, and WNYC.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 187 reviews
December 13, 2012
This is one of the best, most engaging academic books I have read in a long time. I am an academic, and my field of study is addiction. Needless to say, this kind of writing is totally my bag. However, I didn't just enjoy this book because I am a total nerd for the subject matter. Schull is also just a really good writer. I found her text approachable and engaging. She has a really excellent sense of narrative and flow, and her organization is linear, thematically sound, and well organized. I also LOVE that her chapters are all about 20-30 pages. All of this means that I read through it faster, processed the complex arguments more easily, and retained more of the content and message as I read along. It's an interesting book, but it's also just really well designed and put together.
I also appreciated that Schull doesn't pick the low hanging fruit of screamy social advocacy and calls of violence and victimization. Instead, she very successfully shows how the terrain of problem gambling and the gambling industry have grown in symbiosis with one another for decades. She shows how individual people are affected by that interaction not only on the casino floor, but also in schools, in casino headquarters, in research labs, testing facilities, in marketing agencies, and even in courts of law. There a a lot of people affected--some of them badly, but blame is very difficult to pin to a single entity, person, technology, or device.
The message of this book, as I read it, is that the physical and psychological realm of machine-based gambling is a leviathan--a leviathan that we all had a hand in building in one way or another--and the shape that it takes today, both on the macro level of corporations and financial statistics and on the micro level of individual players and checking accounts, reveals a great deal about who we are, who we think that we are, and the moral structure of the modern world that we have constructed for ourselves.
I also appreciated that Schull doesn't pick the low hanging fruit of screamy social advocacy and calls of violence and victimization. Instead, she very successfully shows how the terrain of problem gambling and the gambling industry have grown in symbiosis with one another for decades. She shows how individual people are affected by that interaction not only on the casino floor, but also in schools, in casino headquarters, in research labs, testing facilities, in marketing agencies, and even in courts of law. There a a lot of people affected--some of them badly, but blame is very difficult to pin to a single entity, person, technology, or device.
The message of this book, as I read it, is that the physical and psychological realm of machine-based gambling is a leviathan--a leviathan that we all had a hand in building in one way or another--and the shape that it takes today, both on the macro level of corporations and financial statistics and on the micro level of individual players and checking accounts, reveals a great deal about who we are, who we think that we are, and the moral structure of the modern world that we have constructed for ourselves.
April 8, 2022
When I ask Mollie if she is hoping for a big win, she gives a short laugh and a dismissive wave of her hand. “In the beginning there was excitement about winning,” she says, “but the more I gambled, the wiser I got about my chances. Wiser, but also weaker, less able to stop. Today when I win—and I do win, from time to time—I just put it back in the machines. The thing people never understand is that I’m not playing to win.”
Why, then, does she play? “To keep playing—to stay in that machine zone where nothing else matters.”
Schüll's book is based on two concepts - the first is the 'machine zone', a state of calm where the outside environment and even one's own body seems to disappear. Gambling is not entirely done to maintain social status, but as an attempt to stay 'in the zone' as long as possible, betting so often that every single bet is evened out over hundreds or thousands of plays, and surrounded by the visual and auditory stimuli - and the response seems almost to feel in control - given the nature of gambling in electronic machines, the player had a high probability of losing all of the funds, but they felt better while doing so. Anything that keeps the player out of that zone is a distraction.
Consequently, the industry began to realize this in the 1990s, and so engineered video poker or electronic slot machines to cater to this demographic of players who went in for 'the zone'. This was a shift away from players who went for big jackpots and the old card tables. Instead, the shift was to give more players more 'time on device' and as a response to customer needs. This included changing casino or machinery layouts, adding more comfortable chairs, and changing the payout scheduling of machines to allow for more smaller ones, to keep the player engaged for a longer duration.
This is a relationship, but that is the second concept Schüll defines: "asymmetric collusion" between gambler and industry. The gambler wants to be in the zone as long as possible, and the industry wants as much money out of the transaction as possible. When the book shifts from a discussion of the design and engineering of the gambling industry to the gamblers themselves, "giving the customer what they want" becomes addictive.
Schüll draws from multiple theories on the state of 'flow' and 'asymmetric collusion'. For the former, she draws from the psychology of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - studying the state of 'flow' or complete focus on a single task, although some of her own interview subjects suggest the behaviorist proposals of B. F. Skinner - push button for reaction, stimulus and response. But additionally, Schüll makes a broader point about "asymmetric collusion" and suggests that this is more than just about electronic gambling, where it may be present in consumer-based industries, especially those with more modern technology. Examples that come to mind today include gambling in video games or 'pay-to-win' setups. And 'flow' itself was described by Csikszentmihalyi in a positive sense in a sense of escaping towards a goal in contrast to escaping something else. She asks the incisive questions here. This is an intriguing and well-written book but also a frightening one.
Why, then, does she play? “To keep playing—to stay in that machine zone where nothing else matters.”
Schüll's book is based on two concepts - the first is the 'machine zone', a state of calm where the outside environment and even one's own body seems to disappear. Gambling is not entirely done to maintain social status, but as an attempt to stay 'in the zone' as long as possible, betting so often that every single bet is evened out over hundreds or thousands of plays, and surrounded by the visual and auditory stimuli - and the response seems almost to feel in control - given the nature of gambling in electronic machines, the player had a high probability of losing all of the funds, but they felt better while doing so. Anything that keeps the player out of that zone is a distraction.
Consequently, the industry began to realize this in the 1990s, and so engineered video poker or electronic slot machines to cater to this demographic of players who went in for 'the zone'. This was a shift away from players who went for big jackpots and the old card tables. Instead, the shift was to give more players more 'time on device' and as a response to customer needs. This included changing casino or machinery layouts, adding more comfortable chairs, and changing the payout scheduling of machines to allow for more smaller ones, to keep the player engaged for a longer duration.
This is a relationship, but that is the second concept Schüll defines: "asymmetric collusion" between gambler and industry. The gambler wants to be in the zone as long as possible, and the industry wants as much money out of the transaction as possible. When the book shifts from a discussion of the design and engineering of the gambling industry to the gamblers themselves, "giving the customer what they want" becomes addictive.
Schüll draws from multiple theories on the state of 'flow' and 'asymmetric collusion'. For the former, she draws from the psychology of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - studying the state of 'flow' or complete focus on a single task, although some of her own interview subjects suggest the behaviorist proposals of B. F. Skinner - push button for reaction, stimulus and response. But additionally, Schüll makes a broader point about "asymmetric collusion" and suggests that this is more than just about electronic gambling, where it may be present in consumer-based industries, especially those with more modern technology. Examples that come to mind today include gambling in video games or 'pay-to-win' setups. And 'flow' itself was described by Csikszentmihalyi in a positive sense in a sense of escaping towards a goal in contrast to escaping something else. She asks the incisive questions here. This is an intriguing and well-written book but also a frightening one.
September 8, 2021
I’ve never been to Las Vegas or played a slot machine in my life - my gambling has been limited to the scratch and wins my grandma would tuck inside birthday cards and the occasional lottery ticket bought after a rough day at my work. But I was utterly wrapped up in this study of machine gambling and addiction. The author is a cultural anthropologist who focuses on technology. From the late 90s to 2007, she immersed herself in the topic, spending time in casinos, Gamblers Anonymous meetings, online forums, and industry expos, and interviewing casino managers, gamblers, game designers, and others. It’s very much an academic study, with lots of grounding in theory. But it was a fascinating read, and feels important. I read a library copy, but might order one of my own - I think I might well want to return to it in future when thinking about technology, addiction, markets.
There was so much in here that was new to me. I would have assumed, for example, that compulsive gamblers are chasing the elusive high of a win. But for the people addicted to machine gambling, the draw is ‘time on device’ and their relationship with the machine, the way that it enables them to shut out everything else. Wins can be just another distraction that slows down their interaction with the machine, unless they can feed the win right back in seamlessly as a credit. “A zone in which time, space, and social identity are suspended in the mechanical rhythm of a repeating process…”.
In terms of structure, the first part of the book explores the design of the machines and the spaces they inhabit. Next, Schull turns to the ways that game design has adapted to and has adapted gamblers, the ways the industry tracks player data, how gamblers relate to the machines, the nature of machine gambling addiction (described as a ‘co-production’ between the player and the product), and competing responses to addiction. I can only imagine how the technology of the games and the data mining has ‘improved’ since the time of her research, a sobering thought. Thorough, and excellent.
There was so much in here that was new to me. I would have assumed, for example, that compulsive gamblers are chasing the elusive high of a win. But for the people addicted to machine gambling, the draw is ‘time on device’ and their relationship with the machine, the way that it enables them to shut out everything else. Wins can be just another distraction that slows down their interaction with the machine, unless they can feed the win right back in seamlessly as a credit. “A zone in which time, space, and social identity are suspended in the mechanical rhythm of a repeating process…”.
In terms of structure, the first part of the book explores the design of the machines and the spaces they inhabit. Next, Schull turns to the ways that game design has adapted to and has adapted gamblers, the ways the industry tracks player data, how gamblers relate to the machines, the nature of machine gambling addiction (described as a ‘co-production’ between the player and the product), and competing responses to addiction. I can only imagine how the technology of the games and the data mining has ‘improved’ since the time of her research, a sobering thought. Thorough, and excellent.
December 31, 2016
One of the most fascinating books I've ever read. It had everything I love - architecture, design, psychology, business, public policy! I have no interest in gambling, so I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book.
The book is thorough yet covers a lot of topics, including the environmental design of casinos, the design and ergonomics of machines, how electronic slot machines are mapped so it looks like the odds are better, why people gamble, the way games adapt to players, the massive amount of data collected by player reward cards, the actions of gaming industry lobby groups and impact on government policies, and theories and issues related to recovery from gambling addiction.
It is well-researched, written in an accessible way, and interspersed by real quotes and stories from game designers, casino managers, academic researchers, and gambling addicts. The stories are integrated into the flow of the book, and not just tossed in as side-bar quotes.
I suspect my husband will be pleased I've finished reading this so I'll stop talking about it... "Did you know that 90% of Harrah's income comes from 10% of its gamblers?", "Casino architects make the ceilings low and cram the machines close together so people feel safe and cocooned and can get lost in the game", etc. It's that sort of book!
The book is thorough yet covers a lot of topics, including the environmental design of casinos, the design and ergonomics of machines, how electronic slot machines are mapped so it looks like the odds are better, why people gamble, the way games adapt to players, the massive amount of data collected by player reward cards, the actions of gaming industry lobby groups and impact on government policies, and theories and issues related to recovery from gambling addiction.
It is well-researched, written in an accessible way, and interspersed by real quotes and stories from game designers, casino managers, academic researchers, and gambling addicts. The stories are integrated into the flow of the book, and not just tossed in as side-bar quotes.
I suspect my husband will be pleased I've finished reading this so I'll stop talking about it... "Did you know that 90% of Harrah's income comes from 10% of its gamblers?", "Casino architects make the ceilings low and cram the machines close together so people feel safe and cocooned and can get lost in the game", etc. It's that sort of book!
April 26, 2022
My main takeaway is anyone representing the gambling industry, fighting for it, or managing or running it deserves *****.
I'm not sure why, but I heard this book mentioned twice over the past few months and decided to read through it. The USA Gambling industry posted record profits in 2021, partially due to the increased presence of online gambling, sports betting, etc...
Countless tales of ruined lives, people at their bottom falling even lower, just to lose all their money to some chump named "Mark" or "Stan" who wants to maximize player revenue.. that's the gambling industry.
As a game developer, it wasn't that surprising to see insight into how the design of the games are manipulated - but what WAS new was that the focus of the design shifted since the '90s. It went from 'making it seem easier to win, but not' (with penny slots, more rows on slots) - to shifting to maximizing user engagement, or screen time. In another, nearby medium of entertainment, we might call this metric 'total playtime'. The public-facing rhetoric of the gambling industry is to maximize user comfort and make the experience difficult to stop or break away from.
More disturbing is how the rise of the digitizing gambling industry in the '90s and '00s seems to lead nicely into the rise of microtransaction-based games, gacha games, app-based gambling games. And ALL of these games follow modified design principles in gambling. The use of in-game credits instead of money (in order obfuscate the relation of money to credits), the user-retention strategy, the skinner box design, the sociopath 20-something game developer fuck who's just tweaking the design because they want to make a 'fun experience'.
In fact, the overall transformation of the videogaming industry in the past 15 years seems to be trying to toe the line between shitty gambling games and 'videogames'. It's not even just the worst examples of gacha games like Genshin or AAA stuff like Assassin's Creed - it's become 'common knowledge' even amongst indie game developers that infinite playtime is a goal to strive for - maximizing screen time, maximizing the number of content creators streaming a game, attracting more and more people and their money.
While videogames have always had the ability to cause self-annihilation, they've gotten even better than before at doing so. It's weird how much contemporary game designers have absorbed gambling-based beliefs and now view it as 'good practice' - retention, engagement, trying to 'maximize the player experience' which is veiled, self-deluded way of trying to keep people playing your dumb skinner box game.
I hear the same arguments from 'leftist' indie developers about gacha games - how they're not problematic because people can simply 'choose to play less' - echoing the same talk that gambling industry shills will say when they refuse to regulate how the machines work (choosing to put responsibility onto the individual).
Well, anyways, I guess this book makes me wonder what exactly transpired in the past 10 years of the gambling industry (as it kind of ends around 2010). Also if the USA financial crisis has any relation to the rise of app-based gaming or streaming or something.
I'm not sure why, but I heard this book mentioned twice over the past few months and decided to read through it. The USA Gambling industry posted record profits in 2021, partially due to the increased presence of online gambling, sports betting, etc...
Countless tales of ruined lives, people at their bottom falling even lower, just to lose all their money to some chump named "Mark" or "Stan" who wants to maximize player revenue.. that's the gambling industry.
As a game developer, it wasn't that surprising to see insight into how the design of the games are manipulated - but what WAS new was that the focus of the design shifted since the '90s. It went from 'making it seem easier to win, but not' (with penny slots, more rows on slots) - to shifting to maximizing user engagement, or screen time. In another, nearby medium of entertainment, we might call this metric 'total playtime'. The public-facing rhetoric of the gambling industry is to maximize user comfort and make the experience difficult to stop or break away from.
More disturbing is how the rise of the digitizing gambling industry in the '90s and '00s seems to lead nicely into the rise of microtransaction-based games, gacha games, app-based gambling games. And ALL of these games follow modified design principles in gambling. The use of in-game credits instead of money (in order obfuscate the relation of money to credits), the user-retention strategy, the skinner box design, the sociopath 20-something game developer fuck who's just tweaking the design because they want to make a 'fun experience'.
In fact, the overall transformation of the videogaming industry in the past 15 years seems to be trying to toe the line between shitty gambling games and 'videogames'. It's not even just the worst examples of gacha games like Genshin or AAA stuff like Assassin's Creed - it's become 'common knowledge' even amongst indie game developers that infinite playtime is a goal to strive for - maximizing screen time, maximizing the number of content creators streaming a game, attracting more and more people and their money.
While videogames have always had the ability to cause self-annihilation, they've gotten even better than before at doing so. It's weird how much contemporary game designers have absorbed gambling-based beliefs and now view it as 'good practice' - retention, engagement, trying to 'maximize the player experience' which is veiled, self-deluded way of trying to keep people playing your dumb skinner box game.
I hear the same arguments from 'leftist' indie developers about gacha games - how they're not problematic because people can simply 'choose to play less' - echoing the same talk that gambling industry shills will say when they refuse to regulate how the machines work (choosing to put responsibility onto the individual).
Well, anyways, I guess this book makes me wonder what exactly transpired in the past 10 years of the gambling industry (as it kind of ends around 2010). Also if the USA financial crisis has any relation to the rise of app-based gaming or streaming or something.
October 12, 2022
An impressive book, a very detailed deep dive into a dark design problem: how do you maximize gambling addicts' desire to play and spend money?
December 27, 2025
not exactly sure what possessed me to read an academic work about machine gambling but i’m glad i did.
December 30, 2023
One of the best books out there on how casinos work. I always thought that casinos were simply a place where you put together a bunch of gambling equipment randomly and you were good to go, and boy, wrong would still be a benign word for that notion. This book cleared that VERY flawed notion and provided a much needed insight into what goes into the meticulous planning of a casino so that the most amount of value can be extracted from the patrons. The author has done a wonderful job with the research and the in-depth interviews.
August 20, 2023
This book took over my brain this summer! I can’t count the amount of times I brought it up in conversation.
Dow-Shüll provides a precise examination of the human/machine relationship under late stage capitalism. It’s about gambling, but it’s really about everythingggg. Highly recommend.
Dow-Shüll provides a precise examination of the human/machine relationship under late stage capitalism. It’s about gambling, but it’s really about everythingggg. Highly recommend.
Read
July 11, 2024Harrowing stuff. Many parallels to the legalization of online sports betting that have recently taken place across North America wherein sportsbooks will run ad campaigns detailing their "responsible gambling tools" and the importance of "knowing your limits." These sort of slogans are also prevalent in the machine gambling world, where "responsible gaming" is encouraged and repeated. Schüll ripostes this with the fact that only 4 per cent of machine gambling revenue comes from what would be considered responsible gaming. The overwhelming amount of profits come from problem and addicted gamblers and the ostensible concerns from the gambling industry are PR stunts plain and simple. I feel this will also be the case with sports betting.
April 29, 2019
The most striking aspect of this book for me is brought up early and often in this volume: gambling addicts know they're going to lose. The incentives for the problem gambler have been assembled at the intersection of psychological disorder, product design, capitalist economics, and local regulation. The objective: increase the time on device for an addicted customer.
This interaction is the product of many defensible decisions, but has a devastating effect on the lives and finances of real people: so called "player extinction". This book's 300+ pages paint a harrowing picture of an industry which knowingly makes a drastically disproportionate percentage of revenues on the backs of people it encourages into a psychological malady. Simply fascinating. ****/*****.
This interaction is the product of many defensible decisions, but has a devastating effect on the lives and finances of real people: so called "player extinction". This book's 300+ pages paint a harrowing picture of an industry which knowingly makes a drastically disproportionate percentage of revenues on the backs of people it encourages into a psychological malady. Simply fascinating. ****/*****.
December 2, 2025
A sickening look into one of the most soul destroying industries in the United States.
I have made it no secret in my personal life how much I hate gambling as an activity. I find it personally abhorrent. Whether you view it from a Christian sense (Christ’s persecutors literally cast lots for his garments), or from some view of social justice, gaming is pernicious. Exploitation and wealth extraction is the goal of gambling.
It has touched every aspect of Americans and their daily lives. Everyone knows someone in their life who is a little too into sports betting, slots, poker, or gacha games (I know I do). And while this book focuses mainly on video poker and slots, the nascent push of sports betting in recent years make the lessons of this book more than applicable.
The author’s point is that these formats of gambling are quite literally designed to not only lure people in but keep them there as long as possible. The whole industry is built off of Time on Device. Many gaming reps throughout this book (who are VERY on the nose about their motivations) state in no uncertain terms how much they want their customers at the machines for hours and hours on end. All of the slot machine innovations in this book honed in on the aspect of keeping customers “in the zone”, keeping customers immersed in a sort of fugue state where nothing else matters except staying at the machine.
In effect, the industry is laser focused on draining as much wealth from their customers as possible, while also (like most parasites) attempting to be subtle about their financial bloodletting. They provide incentives to continue (food, hotel stays, and other benefits) as an example. They even were one of the first spaces outside of hospitals to provide AED machines and training to their staff. If you were to ever suffer cardiac arrest in a casino, not only would you probably be resuscitated, but they’d probably nudge you to the slot machines while they were at it.
While this entire work makes you feel a cavalcade of disturbing emotions, one of the aspects of this book that really got under my skin, was the push by gambling organizations to operate the veneer of caring for their customers by pushing for “responsible gaming”. How is this pushed, you may ask? In short, the onus is put on the customer.
These gambling organizations shill out study after study (with academia seemingly in kahoots) that say it is the personal responsibility of the customer to know when to quit. They’ll put up ads and pass out brochures with customer testimonies of “making sure to have fun while gambling” and “not losing more than I have”. But, as the author points out, how can you put the blame on the customer when the industry design these machines in mind to keep them seated, on the verge of pissing their pants, draining their bank accounts and keeping customers further in poverty and dependence.
This has not changed in the near decade and a half that the book has been out. Newer platforms like Draft Kings, Fanduel, and Kalshi now spend millions on advertising campaigns saying customers should “know when to hold them and when to fold them”, and to not “regret the bet”. But when you allow for 8-leg parlays and betting on who the next Pope will be, how the hell can you tell me it’s purely the consumer’s responsibility? You have designed the rat maze. You cannot blame the rats.
In a more sinister, spiritual sense, the author touches on an almost demonic aspect of this industry (which is shamefully not focused on). RNG is a critical part of the design of machines. It is a mystery to the users of gambling machines, a sort of gaming Kabbalah, a mystical shrouding of chance. While those of us who are not shackled to gambling as an addictive force find this aspect of gambling odd, to the addict, gambling becomes an idol to worship. RNG becomes, as the author writes, the “Really New God”, which compels the user to explore this mystery by repeat slot pulling. The use of RNG keeps the mystery of gambling alive, and propels the illusion of winning to new heights. This is what I mean when I say that gambling is demonic. It enslaves people and keeps them weak, under the spell of the Zone.
This is a great book, but not for the faint of heart. If you have family who are gambling addicts, this will be hard to read and reflect. But when we acknowledge the parameters, the designs of the industry, gambling loses its mystique, and we can comfort ourselves in the fact that gambling is not harmless, that it damages the soul, that it damages lives, and that it should be destroyed. The sacred cow of slots must be cast down and broken.
I have made it no secret in my personal life how much I hate gambling as an activity. I find it personally abhorrent. Whether you view it from a Christian sense (Christ’s persecutors literally cast lots for his garments), or from some view of social justice, gaming is pernicious. Exploitation and wealth extraction is the goal of gambling.
It has touched every aspect of Americans and their daily lives. Everyone knows someone in their life who is a little too into sports betting, slots, poker, or gacha games (I know I do). And while this book focuses mainly on video poker and slots, the nascent push of sports betting in recent years make the lessons of this book more than applicable.
The author’s point is that these formats of gambling are quite literally designed to not only lure people in but keep them there as long as possible. The whole industry is built off of Time on Device. Many gaming reps throughout this book (who are VERY on the nose about their motivations) state in no uncertain terms how much they want their customers at the machines for hours and hours on end. All of the slot machine innovations in this book honed in on the aspect of keeping customers “in the zone”, keeping customers immersed in a sort of fugue state where nothing else matters except staying at the machine.
In effect, the industry is laser focused on draining as much wealth from their customers as possible, while also (like most parasites) attempting to be subtle about their financial bloodletting. They provide incentives to continue (food, hotel stays, and other benefits) as an example. They even were one of the first spaces outside of hospitals to provide AED machines and training to their staff. If you were to ever suffer cardiac arrest in a casino, not only would you probably be resuscitated, but they’d probably nudge you to the slot machines while they were at it.
While this entire work makes you feel a cavalcade of disturbing emotions, one of the aspects of this book that really got under my skin, was the push by gambling organizations to operate the veneer of caring for their customers by pushing for “responsible gaming”. How is this pushed, you may ask? In short, the onus is put on the customer.
These gambling organizations shill out study after study (with academia seemingly in kahoots) that say it is the personal responsibility of the customer to know when to quit. They’ll put up ads and pass out brochures with customer testimonies of “making sure to have fun while gambling” and “not losing more than I have”. But, as the author points out, how can you put the blame on the customer when the industry design these machines in mind to keep them seated, on the verge of pissing their pants, draining their bank accounts and keeping customers further in poverty and dependence.
This has not changed in the near decade and a half that the book has been out. Newer platforms like Draft Kings, Fanduel, and Kalshi now spend millions on advertising campaigns saying customers should “know when to hold them and when to fold them”, and to not “regret the bet”. But when you allow for 8-leg parlays and betting on who the next Pope will be, how the hell can you tell me it’s purely the consumer’s responsibility? You have designed the rat maze. You cannot blame the rats.
In a more sinister, spiritual sense, the author touches on an almost demonic aspect of this industry (which is shamefully not focused on). RNG is a critical part of the design of machines. It is a mystery to the users of gambling machines, a sort of gaming Kabbalah, a mystical shrouding of chance. While those of us who are not shackled to gambling as an addictive force find this aspect of gambling odd, to the addict, gambling becomes an idol to worship. RNG becomes, as the author writes, the “Really New God”, which compels the user to explore this mystery by repeat slot pulling. The use of RNG keeps the mystery of gambling alive, and propels the illusion of winning to new heights. This is what I mean when I say that gambling is demonic. It enslaves people and keeps them weak, under the spell of the Zone.
This is a great book, but not for the faint of heart. If you have family who are gambling addicts, this will be hard to read and reflect. But when we acknowledge the parameters, the designs of the industry, gambling loses its mystique, and we can comfort ourselves in the fact that gambling is not harmless, that it damages the soul, that it damages lives, and that it should be destroyed. The sacred cow of slots must be cast down and broken.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 7, 2026
Really really fascinating look at how slot machines function, both mechanically and within people’s lives. By the end, you have the same queasy feeling you’ll get from a Philip K Dick story, where people are chasing their compulsions to deal with how confusing and alienating the world can be.
Schüll’s new preface notes how her work became a touchstone for understanding other addictive technologies like social media or mobile gaming—and any attentive reader will be able to draw far wider connections than even that.
Schüll’s new preface notes how her work became a touchstone for understanding other addictive technologies like social media or mobile gaming—and any attentive reader will be able to draw far wider connections than even that.
March 23, 2025
Machine gambling provides a strangely deep, layered lens through which to understand the affective management of the self. Strange fixations, compulsive behavior, finding the death drive in losing all your money. The displacement activity for displaced minds. The affects native to the last days of an empire, loss of control, the heterotopic quality of an activity composed of risks, but whose ultimate results is deterministic: not having any more money.
Probably a better book about the nature of the smartphone than anything ever written about the smartphone.
Probably a better book about the nature of the smartphone than anything ever written about the smartphone.
November 11, 2024
Didn't really know what I was getting into here, but this is an anthropological study about addiction, vice, gambling, and the casino industry. However evil you think casinos already are, this book makes it pretty clear that they're ten times worse. A book that made me rethink my relationship with technology in general, and the people who create it.
Read
September 19, 20245 stars
January 28, 2026
It’s the damn phone. Insanely good I gotta go to the casino
Read
January 5, 2014In this book about how people who play video poker and slot machines play not for the reward of winning money, but for the reward of being able to play longer, there's list of preconditions for an activity that lets you get into the state of "flow" (which you sometimes achieve, for instance, when programming) where your sense of time fades along with your concern for the troubles of everyday life:
1. each moment of the activity must have a little goal
2. the rules for attaining that goal must be clear
3. the activity must give immediate feedback so that one has certainty, moment to moment, where one stands
4. the tasks of the activity must be matched with operational skills, bestowing a sense of simultaneous control and challenge
And I thought, HOLY CRAP THIS IS WHY KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM IS SO ADDICTIVE.
1. each moment of the activity must have a little goal
2. the rules for attaining that goal must be clear
3. the activity must give immediate feedback so that one has certainty, moment to moment, where one stands
4. the tasks of the activity must be matched with operational skills, bestowing a sense of simultaneous control and challenge
And I thought, HOLY CRAP THIS IS WHY KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM IS SO ADDICTIVE.
October 7, 2018
Interesting but gets a bit tedious towards the last quarter. Could have been paced better. Could have been edited down to about 70% or expanded to add a lot more about the actual machinations that they refer to but never really get into the mechanics or maths of.
September 19, 2022
As gambling as shifted unrecognisably away from being a place of ‘fatefulness’ and of social, competitive thrills as in the 1960s, it’s developed into a highly designed, solitary activity where players can access the numbing, affectless ‘machine zone’ and corporations can reap its complement of ‘continuous gaming productivity’. With precise and elegant writing Schüll examines all aspects of the current machine gambling paradigm, the people, ideas and machines that make up the industry in a tour de force of social science that employs anthropology, sociology, psychology and economics with a philosophical backbone of Foucault and Delueze to craft a comprehensive analysis. Throughout, the book elucidates the dynamic linkages between the many different agents and their outputs in the industry, such as how a feedback loop operates between the continually evolving mathematical payoff schedule of the machine that optimises for the ‘machine zone’ and players who become ever more accustomed to greater flow and ‘time on device’. The culminating example of these dynamic linkages is the question of gambling addiction: it’s an emergent property with a vast number of interlinked causes, from physical and digital architecture, data driven nudges in advertising, the exacerbating nature of most addiction treatments and the susceptibility of the players themselves.
Interestingly, while Schüll does write about the common features of volatility and unexpected tragedies in problem gambler’s lives (linking this with the Freudian death drive) and hypothesises that this might cause them to find safety in the ‘machine zone’, she does not discuss in detail the possible heritability of gambling addiction. Naturally, this is made much more difficult by the co-opting of this research by industry backed institutes and academics, but I would have liked to have seen more of a discussion on this beyond the necessary but obvious refutation that individuals (which I understand as the sum of a player’s life events, genetic predisposition and their partly overlapping sense of personal responsibility) are not wholly responsible for their addiction.
I was inspired to read this partly by seeing the machine zone applied to social media in a direct analogy between machine gambling and Twitter. However, when the psychologist Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘flow’ concept was raised, I found myself reflecting on my own habits and activities beyond social media, and how under the right conditions chess, for example, can become self-destroying and an ‘escape backward’ just like machine gambling. In addition, I read this in Australia, home to the country with the highest person per machine ratio in the world (eighty people for every machine!). I even accidentally visited the largest casino in the Southern Hemisphere in Melbourne where ‘pokies’ and baccarat tables played by Asian junkets compete for space in a labyrinthine, sweepingly surveilled complex.
Finally, the book was published in 2012, so how has it held it up ten years later? Schüll did not make any specific predictions beyond that her methodological framework would become increasingly applicable, and in that she was certainly right. The ideas of the book, especially the ‘machine zone’ and the mechanisms by which it is reached, have proliferated into all areas of life that to talk about the dangerous, addictive excesses of social media and frictionless stock investing in 2022 seem like the height of early 2010s naïveté. In a strange way, I think there is something nostalgic about this analysis of a straightforwardly exploitative, evasive industry that acts in collusion with the government to collect a regressive tax on the weakest part of society. Gambling is one of the original vices together with tobacco and alcohol that dominated the 20th century and in that sense, while Schüll is of course depicting its metastasis into an asymmetric, solitary activity, the books concern with gambling feels like the product of a much simpler time. I think this is connected to the rise of what the sociologist Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou calls speculative communities as the world becomes further uncertain and financialised as platforms such as Uber, crypto markets and Airbnb proliferate. This ever-present requirement in society to be the self-managing, actuarial being that Schüll writes as being both subverted and conformed to by problem machine gamblers has increased for everyone to create a disturbing, constant background buzz for everyday life.
Overall, this book is fascinating and indirectly complements other canonical depictions of growing American atomisation and nihilism.
Interestingly, while Schüll does write about the common features of volatility and unexpected tragedies in problem gambler’s lives (linking this with the Freudian death drive) and hypothesises that this might cause them to find safety in the ‘machine zone’, she does not discuss in detail the possible heritability of gambling addiction. Naturally, this is made much more difficult by the co-opting of this research by industry backed institutes and academics, but I would have liked to have seen more of a discussion on this beyond the necessary but obvious refutation that individuals (which I understand as the sum of a player’s life events, genetic predisposition and their partly overlapping sense of personal responsibility) are not wholly responsible for their addiction.
I was inspired to read this partly by seeing the machine zone applied to social media in a direct analogy between machine gambling and Twitter. However, when the psychologist Csikszentmihalyi’s ‘flow’ concept was raised, I found myself reflecting on my own habits and activities beyond social media, and how under the right conditions chess, for example, can become self-destroying and an ‘escape backward’ just like machine gambling. In addition, I read this in Australia, home to the country with the highest person per machine ratio in the world (eighty people for every machine!). I even accidentally visited the largest casino in the Southern Hemisphere in Melbourne where ‘pokies’ and baccarat tables played by Asian junkets compete for space in a labyrinthine, sweepingly surveilled complex.
Finally, the book was published in 2012, so how has it held it up ten years later? Schüll did not make any specific predictions beyond that her methodological framework would become increasingly applicable, and in that she was certainly right. The ideas of the book, especially the ‘machine zone’ and the mechanisms by which it is reached, have proliferated into all areas of life that to talk about the dangerous, addictive excesses of social media and frictionless stock investing in 2022 seem like the height of early 2010s naïveté. In a strange way, I think there is something nostalgic about this analysis of a straightforwardly exploitative, evasive industry that acts in collusion with the government to collect a regressive tax on the weakest part of society. Gambling is one of the original vices together with tobacco and alcohol that dominated the 20th century and in that sense, while Schüll is of course depicting its metastasis into an asymmetric, solitary activity, the books concern with gambling feels like the product of a much simpler time. I think this is connected to the rise of what the sociologist Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou calls speculative communities as the world becomes further uncertain and financialised as platforms such as Uber, crypto markets and Airbnb proliferate. This ever-present requirement in society to be the self-managing, actuarial being that Schüll writes as being both subverted and conformed to by problem machine gamblers has increased for everyone to create a disturbing, constant background buzz for everyday life.
Overall, this book is fascinating and indirectly complements other canonical depictions of growing American atomisation and nihilism.
May 2, 2021
A really good book on a very narrow topic - the addiction of people to machine gambling in Las Vegas. Dow Schull is a true academic which is a good thing. She has done thorough research - reviewing other research, attending conferences, talking to the people who are the subjects of her research. Her conclusions are pretty startling, at least to me. Machine gamblers are fully aware that they will lose as the odds are with the house. And as a first year course in statistics will teach us, with every successive game that the odds are against the player, the money eventually runs out. Their goal is not to beat the odds, but to last as long as possible totally in the zone they enter when machine gambling. These problem gamblers are in a special zone when they are interacting with the machines. We hear stories of people spending many many hours in front of the video poker games with strategies on how to keep themselves fed and attending to the other needs of nature so that their time away from the machine is minimal.
Dow Schull explores machine gambling from all perspective - how casinos lay out the floorspace for their games, the best acoustics and colours, the hardware that is ergonomically right for the gamblers, the best screen interface, and the software that runs the machine. Finally, we meet the gamblers themselves. So sad.
It's hard not to conclude from the book that these games should be condemned and banned. Obviously that's never going to happen. But the problem has gotten worse as state and provincial governments have rushed in to to the video game gambling business. And the usual conundrums are there. Is it machines or gamblers that are the problem? If you slow down the games or put other controls on them, will gamblers not find work arounds?
Dow Schull explores machine gambling from all perspective - how casinos lay out the floorspace for their games, the best acoustics and colours, the hardware that is ergonomically right for the gamblers, the best screen interface, and the software that runs the machine. Finally, we meet the gamblers themselves. So sad.
It's hard not to conclude from the book that these games should be condemned and banned. Obviously that's never going to happen. But the problem has gotten worse as state and provincial governments have rushed in to to the video game gambling business. And the usual conundrums are there. Is it machines or gamblers that are the problem? If you slow down the games or put other controls on them, will gamblers not find work arounds?
May 31, 2025
This book is incredible. Somewhat dense and academic, but it's a relatively readable top-to-bottom exploration of casinos and slot machines, and how they're designed to capture and trap people in to what the author calls "The Machine Zone." This book is all the more important now that the lessons corporations learned in Las Vegas have been applied to social media products marketed to the broader populace.
As Nicholas Koenig, a game designer interviewed for the book says: "I've come to see the addictive proposition in gambling products in a whole lot if industries, and sometimes they're marketed much more deviously than in gaming... This thing we see going on in the gambling industry is happening on a much broader spectrum."
As Nicholas Koenig, a game designer interviewed for the book says: "I've come to see the addictive proposition in gambling products in a whole lot if industries, and sometimes they're marketed much more deviously than in gaming... This thing we see going on in the gambling industry is happening on a much broader spectrum."
December 31, 2024
A fascinating examination of machine gambling and how every bit of its hardware and software is designed to weave into a player's psyche and carefully extract as much money and time as possible.
It's easy to empathize with the players introduced throughout the book. They're not looking for a big high-stakes payday, they're playing primarily to enter the "machine zone," where the worries and stress of their daily lives disappear and they exist in a solitary flow state. Gotta say that does sound appealing some days...
I shudder to imagine a version of this book that delves into the proliferation of sports betting apps over the last few years, which are no doubt designed with the same malicious meticulousness.
Grim, but compelling.
It's easy to empathize with the players introduced throughout the book. They're not looking for a big high-stakes payday, they're playing primarily to enter the "machine zone," where the worries and stress of their daily lives disappear and they exist in a solitary flow state. Gotta say that does sound appealing some days...
I shudder to imagine a version of this book that delves into the proliferation of sports betting apps over the last few years, which are no doubt designed with the same malicious meticulousness.
Grim, but compelling.
May 9, 2023
A masterful book, at times slow and a bit clunky only because Schull is trying to do so much. Among the best academic monographs I’ve ever read and certain to remain an exemplar for mapping the intimate entanglements between people and technology (for the next decade or so, at least).
I discussed this book in a recent article on sports betting apps: https://unherd.com/2023/05/sports-bet...
(Ignore the title; I don’t write those!)
I discussed this book in a recent article on sports betting apps: https://unherd.com/2023/05/sports-bet...
(Ignore the title; I don’t write those!)
November 6, 2022
I'd love to see more like this, is there anything like empirical data-driven "dark pattern" books for lootbox gacha games
May 16, 2023
Woo woo, best book on pokie design you’ll ever read
Read
October 27, 2024Gambling is Evil.
January 24, 2025
I have a weird fixation on our current online gambling environment. This was a good place to start exploring that in a more in-depth way than youtube video essays
January 22, 2026
Harrowing.
October 13, 2024
I really shouldn't have read this right after Nuclear War. Together they stand out as two profoundly sad books, casting a dark light on humanity's vulnerabilities.
The book's analysis of the deliberate design of addiction is both eye-opening and unsettling. I didn't realize before that gambling addicts aren't driven by monetary reward, but by the compulsion of the process itself. This bolsters my theory that algorithmic feed apps like TikTok and Instagram operate on exactly the same principles (and should be treated the same as gambling, at least, if not cocaine).
The book's analysis of the deliberate design of addiction is both eye-opening and unsettling. I didn't realize before that gambling addicts aren't driven by monetary reward, but by the compulsion of the process itself. This bolsters my theory that algorithmic feed apps like TikTok and Instagram operate on exactly the same principles (and should be treated the same as gambling, at least, if not cocaine).
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