Sunday, 11 July 2010

wasting time

So... i am in Cape Town at the moment - and last night, having nothing to do, i decided to go to the casino for a bit and try my luck. Walking around the casino floor I became aware of something interesting. The R2 machines are the least busy - no one is queueing up for them. Too expensive. The R1 machines are slightly more busy. The 50c machines are rather busy... but the real crowds are found at the 2c and 5c machines.

And that’s when I realised something tragic: people know they are going to lose money. And they would prefer to lose as slowly as possible. Paying a few cents each time to watch the numbers turn.

I started to consider that bigger than the problem of greed, is the problem of boredom.

People are killing time not realising that time is killing them.
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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Nice blog!

I think its more likely that people are savouring the experience. Winning and losing is only one aspect, its the excitement of playing. if you have a R100 budget you can have 2000 attempts on a 5c machine as opposed to 50 with a R2 machine. Its like a savouring a good burger, unhealthy but oh-so-good.

there are obviously many other dynamics that play a role too but just thought i would share one.
This reminds me of Freakonomics, pretty good read if you haven't already

11 July 2010 at 13:14

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