For my critical play, I decided to play online poker, a game I’m familiar with and play relatively often. I generally prefer playing poker in person–something about the rhythm of the chips, being able to read players through their eyes and body language, and other elements of live poker make it fun, but online is good for practice and is also good because it almost always defaults to poker mathematics rather than any other factor. From an MDA perspective, the aesthetics of live poker, particularly the palpable tension in the air, certainly add a lot to my personal experience. Additionally, online poker is fun because you can play with individuals from around the world, which I enjoy. Regarding addiction, I think poker is certainly not as bad as other games like slot machines, which humans often believe have agency and can be tricked when in reality the humans themselves are being played for fools (as stated in the reading). However, poker is still a game of chance–no matter how skilled one is, no matter how many poker hands one memorized, the game is still a very human one, and can therefore cause addiction due to its randomness and the variance in reward it provides. So random is poker that 50% of winnings come from only three hands, ace pair, king pair, and queen pair–at least according to a statistic I saw on Instagram.
Online poker is certainly more addictive than in person. While in-person requires others to participate, online poker can be played at any hour, making it more likely that an individual will play due to the lack of barrier to entry. Additionally, this makes it more likely that addicted individuals will rack up gambling debts. Additionally, one big mechanic of online poker that can lead to addiction is the sense of control one has. In live poker, being able to see your opponent lets you know internally that you have players opposing you. However, online poker likes this. Additionally, the mathematical element of poker often makes me and others anecdotally feel as if they have control over the game through strategic thinking, despite the fact that for many players (likely myself included) this is false–just remember the statistic I cited earlier on the randomness of winning hands. Poker can cause addiction through an element of the game called “tilt”, where a large win or loss of a hand makes you too confident or fearful for an extended period of time, sometimes multiple games. This confidence or lack thereof is a large part of the addictive element of poker. To test out the mechanisms/elements of online poker I played an online game against friends and an online game against strangers. I played much more aggressively against my friends because I knew their strategies quite well, whereas I played more conservatively against strangers, an observation that I found interesting but consistent with my style of play.
When evaluating the “Designing Chance” article, I certainly understood many of the differences between slot machines and poker, particularly online poker. Slot machines–I’ve only seen them played, never participated myself–often have variable reward systems according to the article. This variable keeps the user hooked–if we received a reward every time we would get bored, and if we never received rewards, we would walk away. The variation keeps the excitement going, causing addiction. Online poker is similar, as hands are often variable, and the play of opponents is also variable–these elements, combined of course with the fact that money is at stake, gives online poker a similar addictive mechanic. I’ve had many games where the true variation in hands and opponent play has kept me engaged and forced me to make bad decisions, like calling to attempt to bluff when I should have folded a bad hand. Slot machines are certainly aesthetically designed to be more captivating as the article discusses, due to the constant ability to play–unlike poker, you don’t have to wait your turn–and the bright lights and colors involved to continue to create dopamine hits within the user. Overall, this article helped me understand why games like poker and slot machines are addictive and helped me explore why I enjoy certain variations of poker more than others from an MDA perspective.
PokerNow is good for playing games with friends and be able to control buy-ins etc.
