When you look down at the Las Vegas strip, your attention gets caught by the dozens of casinos. It is notorious for its crazy lavish experiences and gambling. Millions of people every year go there to spend lots of money, have a good time, and make some overall bad decisions. When most people leave Las Vegas and look at their bank statements, they are shocked as to how much money they’ve really spent gambling. How is it that Casinos have gotten so good at making you spend your money?
When you first step into a casino, you are bombarded with the sounds of the slot machines. Everything from the ridiculously hideous carpets, filled with a bunch of ugly colors mixed in even worse patterns, to how bright the overhead lights help draw your attention to those beautiful flashing slot machines…Before you can even play a game, you must exchange your money for chips. You play with colorful little disks instead of your paper bills. Some Casinos let you add money onto a digital card to play certain games. Both tactics help remove the physical nature of spending your money from your game playing. If you don’t use real cash, it’s not entirely real (right?). After you get your chips (or card), you might get offered a drink. Casinos tend to give out free drinks. People tend to act more impulsively and are more energetic under the influence. Now you might try and find your way to a game, but there’s one problem. The entire casino floor is designed like a labyrinth. You can’t just go straight from point A to B, you’ll have to wind around all the other games and flashing lights. As you play your game, most of the time you almost win. You get close but if you try again, maybe, just maybe, you’ll win. They want to draw your attention to the possibility of winning instead of all your losses. Good luck trying to find the bathroom easily. The bathrooms are often placed deep within the casino forcing you to walk past endless stimuli. One thing to note. There are no clocks anywhere… There are no windows… You don’t know if it’s day or night… Some casinos go so far as to pump oxygen into some of the rooms to keep gamblers alert and attentive. Others may pump in certain scents to make you more comfortable causing you to play longer or make it more memorable so that that specific scent is associated with the casino. After you have spent a lot of your money, casinos will often give you complimentary meals and hotel rooms all to incentivize you to stay the night. Another clever tactic to try and keep people from leaving is to force them to walk through the casino floor each time they enter/leave the building. This is all to hopefully get you to start playing a game. Once you start a game it’s difficult to stop. Casinos have mastered the art of keeping you focused on one thing: the game in front of you and the possibility of winning.
Thanks, that was really interesting!