I’ve had the displeasure of working with many gaming companies over the years, and it’s always made me uncomfortable. In particular, I’ve had access to back end data on occasion and whilst it never included personal information, you could spot where someone had continuously chased a losing bet and got themselves into one hell of a financial hole. I’ll be honest, the sheer bias of the numbers in favour of the gaming companies really put me off gambling for life.
For most in the industry it’s just ‘business’. Some people win, most people lose. But one absolute shyster I dealt with about 15 years ago who was the brand manager for a number of online casino and poker sites used to pin up letters of despair from failed punters who were about to lose everything on account of their gaming losses - their house, their marriage, their kids, maybe even their life if some letters were to be believed. Some were even framed in the style of a doctor’s medical certificate. Looking back I regret not calling him out on it, but I was young, new in the job, he was a big client and this was 2006, not 2021 - it was a very different world.
Still, I’ve never really understood why people play these quick fire, fixed odds games. They’re called that for a reason, the odds are literally fixed in the gaming company’s favour. Play for long enough and you lose, unless you happen to get that one big win and walk away. But the odds of that are tiny - few people ever do.
Perhaps it’s the same reason that I don’t understand why the bloke in the shop doorway is on his seventh can of barley wine at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. That it was never a conscious decision, it’s just how things turned out. Very sad though, and I can’t help but feel that more needs to be done about it.
For most in the industry it’s just ‘business’. Some people win, most people lose. But one absolute shyster I dealt with about 15 years ago who was the brand manager for a number of online casino and poker sites used to pin up letters of despair from failed punters who were about to lose everything on account of their gaming losses - their house, their marriage, their kids, maybe even their life if some letters were to be believed. Some were even framed in the style of a doctor’s medical certificate. Looking back I regret not calling him out on it, but I was young, new in the job, he was a big client and this was 2006, not 2021 - it was a very different world.
Still, I’ve never really understood why people play these quick fire, fixed odds games. They’re called that for a reason, the odds are literally fixed in the gaming company’s favour. Play for long enough and you lose, unless you happen to get that one big win and walk away. But the odds of that are tiny - few people ever do.
Perhaps it’s the same reason that I don’t understand why the bloke in the shop doorway is on his seventh can of barley wine at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. That it was never a conscious decision, it’s just how things turned out. Very sad though, and I can’t help but feel that more needs to be done about it.