In Luigi’s Picture Poker, players willing wager money, fake money thankfully, against Luigi’s poker hand in this colorful Mario-themed variation of poker, which appears like harmless fun. But beneath its endearing exterior and theming of Mario lies a mechanism that mimics elements of actual gambling machines and leverages randomness in a way that discreetly encourages compulsive gaming. Luigi’s Picture Poker is created by Nintendo and is hosted on a browser-based Flash game that is now emulated online. The game’s target audience are game designers, ethics scholars, and curious gamers because Luigi’s Picture Poker offers a deceptively simple, casino-style sandbox that invites players to engage with risk, probability, and reward in a low-stakes environment. This makes it an ideal case study for designers examining addictive mechanics, scholars exploring ethical design, and gamers curious about how randomness shapes their play experience.
At the game’s core, Luigi’s Picture Poker relies heavily on output randomness where players decide on what to do:
- bet
- hold
- discard
and the result is decided by a random event of the fresh drawing of cards. This randomness is obfuscated by Mario-themed icons, cheerful music, cute Toads in suits serving drinks as they would in a real casino to give the impression that player decisions have a significant impact on the game’s outcome. In reality, players can’t increase their odds of winning with just their skill because the house, or Luigi, has the same statistical advantage as any virtual poker engine would.
Natasha Dow Schüll explains this Addiction by Design on how this illusion of player’s ability “to win” works. Players are drawn into this feedback loop where wins and near-wins produce dopamine spikes that encourages them to keep playing. Here, randomness isn’t just a mechanic, it also serves as the hook. According to Schüll, “contrived contingency” produces an enchanted space that conceals disillusionment with manufactured outcomes.
At this point in the game, I had drawn 2 pairs, two Marios and two stars. Anyone would think that given this hand, I would have a good probability of even getting a 3 of a kind.
But unfortunately, both times I drew a 2 pair and I played my hand, I lost to Luigi who always had a 3 of a kind.
In Luigi’s Picture Poker, this loop of disillusionment is reinforced through two essential elements:
- An escalating reward structure: These reward rules show up twice within this game. Coins are multiplied by three in a two-pair hand, a full house by six, and a five-of-a-kind by sixteen. These odds are low and these high-reward outcomes are uncommon yet they feel like jackpots when they do happen. Similar to a slot machines’ virtual reel mapping, the perceived odds are skewed to give players the impression that they nearly won to make them admit themselves to another round.
This multiplication of coins makes it seem like the risk of playing the hand more worth it that it actually is. - Game-over condition based on coin depletion: In this case very similar to real life, the player keeps playing until they run out of coins because they can’t “cash out.” This mechanic encourages the hallmark of gambling addiction which is chasing losses.
While, Luigi’s Picture Poker is very low-stakes because it involves fake money, its mechanics teach the same behavioral conditioning and reward anticipation as seen in real-money gambling. Although players didn’t lose money outright, this game is important for players to get a sense of how gambling works and pick up on learning the patterns of risk, loss, and hope that mirror dangerous gambling habits.
Ethical Concerns
If we compare Luigi’s Picture Poker game to modern live service games like Clash Royale, which monetizes randomness through loot boxes, Luigi’s Picture Poker game might seem charming and harmless. However, there are several common psychological triggers, like the random rewards/wins for hands, intermittent reinforcement, near-misses when opening loot boxes or playing hands, and the sunk-cost fallacy are all shared.
In both of these games, the is in the stakes and the way randomness is presented. In Schüll’s work, when randomness is used to manipulate and sway perception, promote illogical choices, or feed into addiction, it crosses an ethical line.
Therefore, when is randomness permissible and when is it morally dubious? When randomness contributes significant uncertainty that strengthens player choice and produces a strategic variety without punishing players unpredictably, it should be acceptable. However, on the opposite end of the spectrum, if this randomness if hidden, tied to monetization, or leverages cognitive biases like near-miss effects that promotes compulsive behavior, this randomness should be heavily barred against. If Nintendo were to re-release Luigi’s Picture Poker, they should be barred from being able to obscure the deck composition so that players are able to reason about their odds in order to improve and reduce these biases. In a sense, we should allow the players to know how many cards have been played already how many are left in the deck or when is the deck refreshed. After several losses, the game’s developers should also offer players a chance to soft exit (a chance to reset or leave) after a number of consecutive losses. Finally, the game should also include disclaimers and disclosures about the chance and purpose of the game.
Ultimately, games like Luigi’s Picture Poker might appear to be harmless and enjoyable but through carefully concealed randomness, they quietly teach players about the dangerous behaviors of gambling, risk, and rewards. As designers, we have a duty to ask ourselves and to ethically reason whether we are using randomness to enhance player experience or if we are using it to exploit players’ psychological vulnerabilities because the line between enchantment and manipulation is very thin.
