To explore games of chance, I took it back to a classic and well-popularized card game: Poker. More specifically, I played the Texas Hold ’em variant of Poker. While the origins of the game are muddy, they date back well over a century. Over time, the audience for the game has shifted and widened drastically. It remains an incredibly popular gambling experience as well as a simply way to have fun depending on groups and settings. The primary age groups that enjoy Poker, though are likely teens and adults.
To note, I played my games on the Discord platform where all players begin with the same amount of supplied virtual money and can rejoin when they run out. This does mean that we would inherently take riskier bets for fun as there is no true harm to be done by losing this currency.
How does this game engage with aspects of probability, and how is randomness feeding into addiction?
Poker, like many other social card games, has built-in randomness all throughout its play. Players engage with randomness from their individually drawn cards which dictates the strength of their hand as well as in the form of the pooled shared cards everyone gets to interact with on the table. These interactions with randomness are also engagements with probability as players have to craft methodologies to win based on these mechanics. This allows for skill (notably, mathematical skills regarding probability, game theory, and risk management) to take place.
However, the opportunity for skill expression here also opens up doors for skill disparity. Unlike games with much less prevalent aspects of randomness, randomness allows for bad decision making to still result in wins or “near wins” which can prompt players to continue playing (Addiction by Design, pg. 19). Over time, this loop can reel people in to addictive tendencies simply because luck can replace some amount of skill (which can also lead to riskier bets if decision making is clouded).
In my games, this showed up often when players had Straight odds or Flush odds despite them not being the most probabilistic events to occur; we would even place obscene bets/raises to play into the psychology aspect which can further addiction by possibly giving positive reinforcement for bad decision making.
How does it compare to other games that use chance or probability?
I would argue that Poker is actually less mechanically harmful (note the mechanically) than many other games of chance in the respective setting you would find it in. There is much more skill expression allowed compared to something like Roulette or even Blackjack. The mechanics of the game allow you to opt out (fold) at any point if you feel your odds of winning aren’t particularly high. Additionally, the amount you lose is nearly directly correlated to your own decision-making. There are very few other card games that I play at least have one of these mechanics in place, let alone both.
These factors may also explain why Poker has a very prominent professional scene since the entirety of the game isn’t revolved around chance alone–but rather, the ability to read other players, calculate probabilities given your hand and what is on the table, and to make decisions based on the various interactions you can have with players or the mechanics employed by each player.
How might this game put people at risk for addiction?
While I just stated the mechanical positives in relation to other games of chance, I also noted the prevalence Poker has. Outside of randomness allowing for positive reinforcement of bad decisions which can lead to players chasing for their next win, Poker also happens to be mainstream. Mainstream to the point that a social app built with teenagers in mind has it embedded into the list of activities they can play and do things like share their hand.
This prominence can hook players into a game where they are in over their heads, especially if at a casino with skilled players. It also makes it so they can easily access media as well as other platforms at their own free will, which can be dangerous for addictive vectors. Overall, all of these risk factors to reel players in and keep them there pose a potent threat to set up non-trivial grounds for an addiction.
