The first few times that I heard something to the tune of "Vegas, baby!" I honestly thought the person was being funny by ridiculing themselves slightly.
I've only done it a handful of times, but it's a gigantic exciting roller coaster ride of emotions as you win and lose real amounts of money, whether they're in tens or hundreds of dollars or whatever scale you're at.
It's way more exciting than the thrills from a superhero movie in the cinema because it's real life, real money. It's more exciting than sports because it's your win, your money. When you're winning, you can't believe how much fun it is. All your life you were told an honest day's pay for an honest day's work, and now you feel like you've found a magic shortcut!
And if you lose, well... next time. You're sure you'll make up for it and then some.
It can honestly be hard to imagine until you've tried it. I was similarly confused until I experienced it. But it really taps into something deep in the primate brain, about hopes and dreams fulfilled, about getting lucky and rich, about being special.
There's a good reason I've only ever gone a handful of times, and limited myself to a small amount of money. Because it's also scarily easy to see how you could get addicted to that feeling.
But at a casino, there's no similar limit to how much you can win. It feels like your dreams could literally come true in Las Vegas, that you could come back home and buy a new house. Poker with buddies doesn't include that possibility.
It's funny, for whatever reason I don't mentally put "poker with friends" in the category of "gambling". I mean obviously it technically is -- no argument there -- but when I think of "gambling" I think of "potentially dangerous/addictive", and (hopefully) poker with friends isn't.
I'm also curious what GP thinks about whether poker with buddies is "lower class", or if it's only a casino thing. (Or gambling dens? Backroom tables?)
That sounds like you're implying that only mathematically less-literate people gamble.
I think that's wrong, though. I've got as strong of a background in stats and probability as they come, and that hasn't changed my enjoyment of it at all. Maybe it's even added to it, since there's the added challenge of finding the least-bad bet.
You're paying for the excitement of the ups and downs.
You sound like someone who says they don't like the movies because all they see are uninteresting plot predicaments, pointless obstacles, and an endless parade of non-optimal choices by characters all trying to pretend the ending isn't going to be predictable.
All I can say is, to each their own, but it definitely sounds like you haven't grasped the essential emotional quality of the entire experience -- that perhaps you don't have, but many other people certainly do. And that aspect doesn't have anything to do with mathematical literacy.
Wait until you find out some Blackjack is exploitable to be positive EV and requires interesting levels of multitasking the first few hundred hours. Poker can also be profitable due to marks, even with a negative EV rake.
But yes, many games, especially Roulette, Slots, and Craps, are blatantly negative EV. However, Craps is very fun due to the team table dynamics.
If this was true, clearly you should be playing at the poker tables and raking in the cash.
My question/comment was about the overall cultural perception of gambling. I just found it strange in America - a small instance of a "culture shock".
Go down to the races, there is real excitement, real energy, it is fun. Saying it is "lower class" is poor (I would say that is ultimate "low class" mentality). Lots of people have other stuff going on in their lives, so they watch sport and having a small bet on makes it more exciting.
The gambling culture that exists in the US is completely bizarre because it is designed towards the most extractive, most pointless forms of gambling because of political pressure (the gambling industry are usually the biggest donors to both parties every presidential). Gambling is not something that should ever be fun by itself but something that can enhance an existing interest.
And most people can have a bet on their sports team, and that is it. They put on a accumulator, they bet on the home team, it is fun and ends there. Gambling addiction is something quite distinct from this (and something that only impacts a huge minority of people, usually under 1%...the reason why it is so pervasive in some countries, US and HK being the two most notorious is due to government intervention that maximises harm).
Poker is fun because it is social, blackjack is okay but verging into degen, there is a spectrum here.
But what's interesting to me about these machines is that, since they're just big computers, their expected rate of return is entirely determined by their software. And it's a legal requirement for them to have a little infobox printed on the front that tells you exactly what that rate of return is. I don't remember what that rate typically, but it's definitely less than one pound returned for every pound gambled.
In other words, these machines literally say right there on the front of the machine, next to the part where you insert your coins, that by playing their "game" you are mathematically guaranteed to lose money. And yet people - lots of them, I assume, based on how prevalent these machines are - still gladly pour their spare change into these black holes.
Whoever invented the fruit machine must be laughing all the way to the bank.
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I find gambling on games where the house has a large edge generally uninteresting, but I’ll play craps with friends in Vegas. Games where player skill has an element and games like poker against other players are quite a bit more interesting.