The Casino is a Machine Designed to Bleed Patrons of Your Hard-earned Cash

The Casino is a Machine Designed to Bleed Patrons of Your Hard-earned Cash

When you’re surrounded by twinkling lights, slot machines, and the noise of a crowd at a blackjack table, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and lose track of time. Casinos even tint their windows to dampen the brightness of the day, and have decor that tricks you into believing it’s a daytime sky (think: carpeting and ceilings that look like the bright, daytime sky).

Casinos also use delightful shapes, colors, and designs in their architecture to make the space feel inviting and exciting. Combined with the manufactured scents of food and perfume, these elements create a euphoric environment that encourages people to stay and gamble. They also use mirrors strategically placed to reflect lights and other decorations, allowing players to see themselves in the process of winning. The illusion of success helps keep people gambling longer, and casinos even program their slots to use near-misses to keep people playing.

But beneath all the flashing lights and free cocktails, a casino is actually a highly engineered machine designed to slowly bleed patrons of their hard-earned cash. In fact, casinos rely on mathematicians and computer programmers to know both the house edge for every game they offer, and its variance, or variation in expected return over time. This information allows the casinos to predict how much profit they’ll make on each individual bet, and what their cash reserves should be. This is a high-risk business, and successful casinos are very profitable—but they’re not sustainable, because it’s impossible to beat the house edge in the long run.