Why do People Gamble Online even when they Lose Often?
Gambling is paid entertainment. You must spend money to play online slots, blackjack, and poker. But considering most people lose their bets, why do they continue to gamble? What makes gambling so attractive that some people even borrow money to play?
The Chance of Winning More Money
When you gamble, you are usually betting to win more money. You can bet $1 and hope to win $35 in a roulette game. You could wager $5 in a jackpot game and expect to win a grand prize of $1000. Most players know there’s no guarantee in winning when they play casino games. But the chance of winning more money than they bet is what drives them to bet anyway.
To make things more enticing, online casinos publish the odds of winning different games. The odds of the European roulette, for instance, are one in 37 attempts. With games like slots, casinos have return to player rates which show players which games give them the best odds of winning.
So, when a player knows there are high odds of winning a specific game, they get tempted to play it continuously. Unfortunately, winning in casinos is all based on luck. That’s why some players win thousands of dollars with their first-ever bet while others continuously count losses.
Casino Bonuses
Giving out bonuses is a strategy practiced throughout the industry. Some of the top online platforms offer free spins to nearly every new customer. They give out these rewards to lure people who might still be in doubt as to whether they should gamble.
Casinos increase their bonus offers when people show a keen interest in registering accounts and playing games with real money. Instead of giving out a dozen free spins on a popular slot machine, they could give you a 100% bonus on your first deposit.
Most casinos promise bonuses not only when you deposit once but also on your second, third, and fourth deposits. That way, you feel more inclined to fund your account all four times to receive the rewards.
But being the money chasing businesses they are, online casinos have strict requirements regarding their bonuses. For starters, you must spend a specific amount of money at the casino before you can cash out wins from bonuses. Depending on the casino, you could spend between ten times and sixty times the bonus amount you received as a requirement.
Aggressive Marketing
Despite the constant opposition from governments and anti-gambling organizations, online casinos expand their markets nearly every year. That doesn’t happen by accident. It takes lots of aggressive marketing to create awareness about casino games and persuade people to play them.
Obviously, not everyone can persuade people to spend money on games of chance. That’s why casinos invest in the best marketers and advertisers. They also have enormous marketing budgets to ensure they are always attracting more customers.
Slots’ free spins and table game bonuses are excellent marketing tools because they allow people to play the games for free for a while. Many blackjack demo modes also allow you to play the card game severally without betting real money. That’s a marketing strategy. As a player, you try out the game for free. But to casinos, it’s a way of luring you into playing for real money.
Easy Access
For a long time, the only way people could play casino games was to drive to Las Vegas or fly to Monte Carlo and Macau. But then came the Internet, and you could play a limited selection of online slots at the comfort of your house.
The availability of mobile phonesalso makes it easy to feel tempted to try out poker, blackjack, and slot machines. In fact, mobile gaming plays a vital role in helping online casinos grow. Over two billion people have Internet-enable smartphones.
More than half of them have played a mobile game at least once, meaning they could play again with the right persuasion. Of course, persuasion refers to non-stop promotion of bonuses to a person until they claim the offers.
Technology Advancement
Technology undoubtedly eased access to casinos, but it has done a lot more to lure people into gambling. Back in the 1990s, online casinos displayed games in poor quality graphics. The games had poor mechanics, and playing often resulted in more glitches than the number of times you would play.
Technology has since advanced all aspects of casino games, making them more attractive than ever before. Some slots, for instance, support 4K capabilities. They use incredibly high-quality sound quality and have excellent mechanics.
With the improvement of gaming hardware and programming languages, developers have also been able to create immersive games. Instead of the simple slots that had limited storylines, casinos now feature games with detailed storylines and gameplay.
The new generation of advanced casino games is particularly influential in attracting young players to casino games. For a long time, casinos have been complaining of a lack of interest from millennials and generation Z players. But with developers now creating slots with similar features to video games—millennials are becoming interested.
Gambling is Cheap on the Surface
Most people have no problems spending $5 or $20 at something that makes them happy. At online casinos, you can spend as little as ten cents to enjoy your favorite slot game. With that in mind, people who’ve always wanted to play casino games feel motivated to join online casinos.
They don’t have to break the bank to play games, and it’s probably the money they can afford to lose. Unfortunately, these little expenses add up quickly, especially for people who bet frequently. People with gambling addiction soon worsen from spending $20 a week to $50 a day, leading to money problems.
Of course, there are lots of people who gamble in a controlled manner. But for all the people who turn out to be addicts, they got lured into playing because gambling looked cheap.
To Conclude
Casinos don’t force people to play slots and table games. They lure them into playing by displaying their impressively-looking games. They offer free betting money to new customers and make it easy to bet through mobile devices.
