I played Black Jack via an digital version available on an app called Black Jack 21. The platform offers a free, easy to use, multiplayer BlackJack playing experience with a digital interface that simulates a real life casino Black Jack playing experience.
Black Jack is a game of chance commonly played at casinos. Its a game played between yourself and the dealer, where the person who has the highest hand below 21 wins at the end of a round and wins the coin bet you established before cards are dealt. Throughout each round, you as the player have various moves you could play to try to increase your chances of winning and/or how much you win in each round, such as Double (doubling your coin bet), Hit (ask for another card), or Stand (keep your card set).
Black Jack is unique to other games of chance (such as slots) in that, although your outcomes are mainly due to luck, there’s just enough power and agency that a player may have in swaying their outcome, that it gives a good illusion of expertise via strategy and game play. The randomness of wins and losses comes in mainly from two factors; the fact that a player bets on how much they wants to gamble from their money before knowing how the round will go, and the fact that the player is then dealt at least two cards at random, and subsequent random cards if asked. Strategy and agency comes in at the point where the players gets to decide what to do next with the two cards they’ve been dealt. They can see one of the two cards that the dealer has and can make an informed guess around the probability of them winning the round against the dealer’s hand if they Hit or Stand, and whether their winning probabilities means they should Double their bet.
I could see how this mechanism could be particularly enabling to addiction through my own progression with the game. I started off more cautious with my bets as I was not yet applying “strategy” and just trying to warm up to the game mechanics. I did poorly at first but started to get comfortable enough to apply some basic strategy (hit if I have a low card sum at the moment, standing if I have a number pretty close to 21) and I started to win more rounds. I then felt like I needed to up the stakes, and started betting higher coin numbers and doubling my bets when I felt close to 21. This very quickly resulted in me loosing more money than my first few rounds. I actually ran out of tokens to keep playing the game (on the free version) pretty quickly. The stakes felt pretty low because I was working with coins with no real monetary value, but I could see how my rise and then fall could lead to me playing further to try to redeem myself and win back the money I lost (further enabling risky and high stakes betting). The strategy component just provides me the illusion of thinking that the game outcomes are more in my control than they actually are. My winning streak led me to believe that I can win big by my own wit.
Lastly, what I also found interesting about playing Black Jack was the publicized nature of the game. Although its a two player game between you and the dealer, you are playing it at a round table with other players and you’re able to see their game play. This creates an interesting dynamic. On my platform, players are able to chat to each other and I was actually quite surprised at the level of smack talk that was being thrown around. Pretty early in the game, someone called me a dummy after I placed my bet, which I took a little personally and felt compelled to prove them wrong. This created an even greater falsehood around ones agency in the game, as if a player’s losses indicate that they are dumb and a player’s wins indicate wit and smarts. It was interesting to see how this added spectator component of this game helped perpetuate this.
