alt Hacker News> A 2024 Wall Street Journal report, for example, found that 70% of the profits from one online gambling company came from less than 1% of its users.
Betting platforms assign highly profitable customers "concierges" who reach out and prompt them to gamble, offer incentives, and work to keep them betting. It's insidious and wrong - the platforms actively identify and take advantage of addicts.
For most, a lottery ticket or an online bet is just buying entertainment - not much different from a movie ticket or steam game. Turns out, though, this majority isn't the target customer; we're just the top of the funnel as these platforms algorithmically search for personalities they can abuse, rob, and financially destroy.
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The same thing happens with in-app purchases.
A friend of mine worked at Disney, and it is insane how much data they capture on their players/spenders and how they use it for the sole purpose of triggering a popup at the right time, at the right price, that would maximize spending/gambling on loot boxes.
That’s like saying cigarettes are the same as scented candles because both involve flame.
The difference is that gambling, like cigarettes, delivers a dopamine fix. The playbook is well aligned with cigarettes — you target brands to the population. Draft Kings is like mass market cigarettes, targeting low income males, soldiers, old people.
The “most profitable customer” metric is misleading - you need mass adoption to lure in the whales. My son is 14 - sports gambling is a routine conversation among his cohort and many kids are actively gambling in school with accounts provided by parents.
> these platforms algorithmically search for personalities they can abuse, rob, and financially destroy
With the AI progress, there will be no need in a search for personalities - algorithms will make you one. And this can be applied to any company producing entertainment (e.g. social networks), not just gambling.
> not much different from a movie ticket or steam game.
Movies require an investment of your time so it's somewhat hard to become "addicted" to them.
There are "steam game library" addicts though.
> this majority isn't the target customer
Of course they are. They just aren't prioritized for high cost user enticements. The company only exists if the majority lose. They have big losers and little losers. They aren't here to "entertain" you. Which features of their service are designed to heighten "entertainment" I wonder?
>Betting platforms assign highly profitable customers "concierges" who reach out and prompt them to gamble, offer incentives, and work to keep them betting. It's insidious and wrong - the platforms actively identify and take advantage of addicts.
this isn't new. a relative is an MVP at a casino she dumps cash into. The pit bosses comp all of her meals and call her on days that she doesn't show up. It's all sold to the customer as friendly-people-who-care and the people eat that up, especially lonely elderly folks.
She fell at one such casino and ended up suing them, she wondered why all her friends stopped calling her, so she moved casinos and low-and-behold she was able to make friends there, too!
To be fair, like another poster mentioned, they do this everywhere people spend a lot of money, not just gambling. Car dealerships are lousy with this kind of 'concierge'-ness. They, too, take advantage of elderly folks who have the money for a new car that they don't yet realize they need.