Gambling Addiction: How We Lost a Generation / Anatomy of an Addiction

[00:03] recorded Roskomnadzor. Thirty-year-old Anton, a developer, was found dead in his apartment. Nearby lay a smartphone with an open banking app showing a zero balance, and dozens of emails from microloans. The

[00:18] protocol stated: suicide against the background of deep depression and the inability to cope with huge financial debts. The file with the case was then thrown onto a far shelf and essentially put away in the archive. But this was only the official

[00:33] wording. Very convenient. What actually happened to the main character cannot be called simply a tragic coincidence. This is a methodical, cold-blooded murder. The perfect crime for the digital age, one

[00:48] in which there are no physical weapons or fingerprints. And those who essentially pulled the trigger are 1,000 km away, safely hidden in offshore zones. Just 6 years before that fateful day, Anton was quite a successful man. He had a good

[01:04] career, a girlfriend, and plans to buy a house. But one random day, just to kill time, he downloaded Kazik's app and that very day he

[01:16] tied the knot. It was not his weak character that killed Antokh. His brain was professionally, scientifically and systematically hacked. And Antoshka is just one of the millions of victims of the global epidemic. Today, gaming addiction

[01:32] is officially recognized by the World Health Organization as a severe mental disorder. At the neurobiological level, the brain of a gambling addict looks exactly the same as the brain of a person with severe drug addiction. And people who

[01:45] have fallen into this addiction are 15 to 20 times more likely to attempt suicide than the rest of the population. Chapter one. Mathematics. Why can't you win at the casino?

[01:58] I think many have heard this information, but it is still important. Absolutely anyone can get a skid once, of course. But understanding how casino math works and that it's not on your side is a completely different matter. Everyone has heard that a

[02:13] casino will never operate at a loss. And this, unfortunately, is true. There is such a thing as Chaos Ash. This is, in simple terms, the casino margin. In adequate casinos, with licenses, with all these things, it can be on different slots.

[02:28] 12-13%, but most often it is 4-5%. This means, simply put, that with each that with each spin you make, you will lose an average of 4-5% of

[02:41] your bet. But how does it happen? If I won a second ago, well, the casino is still in the red. Unfortunately, no, the casino is not in the red. It's just that someone else literally 5 minutes ago lost their apartment, and at this very moment you are hooked on the

[02:57] apartment, and at this very moment you are hooked on the needle of this possible win. But we'll talk about this a little further. Basically, basic math is no longer on your side. If you really want to play something that I categorically don't

[03:10] recommend, go play at a real offline casino like BlackD. It has the lowest casino winning percentage, from 0.4 to 1%. In general, I repeat, don’t engage in such nonsense. It's better to go to our article

[03:25] under the hashtag Navigator. There we have collected all the safe jobs on the Internet. Everything is guaranteed, everything is as it should be. The first link is in the description. I won't keep you for long. Let's move on. Chapter two. Neurobiology of gambling and the

[03:39] deficit loop. Many still naively believe that Antoshka was killed by a regular game, but modern online casinos have nothing in common with old roulette wheels. For example, this is a network designed by top

[03:54] behavioral psychologists and engineers whose sole purpose is to hack your dopamine system. This mechanism is called the deficit loop. Let's look at it step by step. What is this? The first step is the illusion of possibility,

[04:09] which we talked about a little earlier. You are shown a chance to get something incredibly valuable. A bright banner with a huge sum of money written on it, which essentially solves all your life problems at once. It's all a bait that

[04:23] hits the basic human need to break out of the routine and gain freedom. The second and most important step is an unpredictable reward. This is both the genius and the cruelty of the trap. You

[04:37] know that winning is possible in principle, but you never know exactly when it will happen. Our brain has evolved to maniacally search for patterns. This unpredictability breaks our reward system. Your brain

[04:52] starts releasing massive doses of dopamine not at the moment you win, but at the moment you savor the win. Casinos have long stopped selling the idea of huge money and winnings. It sells you a chemical reaction in your own

[05:06] head. And here the next point comes into play . This is the almost- victory effect. For example, two required symbols match on the screen , and the third stops just a millimeter away from the jackpot. This is just an example now,

[05:20] let's say, three axes. What is happening at this moment? Brain scans show that at the moment of this near- win, the player's brain lights up literally as brightly as if he had actually hit the jackpot. The algorithms

[05:34] are mathematically tuned to give you these illusions of victory give you these illusions of victory constantly and hook you even more. constantly and hook you even more. Step three. Elimination of any friction.

[05:47] Example: you lose, but the system won't give you time to think. There are automatic spins, one- click bets, linked bank cards with deposits via a simple face scan. And most importantly, no pauses.

[06:02] When did you come to online casinos before, and why do I think offline casinos are still better? No, it's better than Kazik, but if you have to choose between two evils, offline is still better. You need to get up from the table, go to the cash register, physically

[06:15] cough up the money, the bills, and understand how much of it there is. And this really gave time, so to speak, to think. It is clear that if a person is a complete gambling addict, even this will not stop him. But now we are talking about ordinary people

[06:29] who still have brakes. Chapter three. Digital consliger and surveillance algorithms. Behavioral psychology is just the tip of the iceberg. The real horror begins where big data comes into play

[06:44] . Every second you spend on the site affects the speed of clicking buttons, the time of day, the frequency of deposits, and the amount of bets. All of this is continuously sent to servers, where algorithms compile a detailed

[06:59] digital dossier on you. The algorithm can instantly calculate the state of, let's say, the pursuit of winning back . If you've lost a large sum and are in the mood to immediately make a new deposit, a red light will light up in your profile, so to speak.

[07:14] Of course, there is nothing specifically like that, but the system understands that you have lost control, you are no longer a guest, you are a potential victim. It is at this moment that the most aggressive marketing tools are deployed against you. The system

[07:28] analyzes your biorhythms. Oddly enough, let's say you log into the app at 3:00 AM on Tuesday, well, the algorithm might conclude that you're tired after work, maybe drunk, I don't know, and you'll immediately be offered a game with the

[07:43] highest volatility and the fastest cycles, because your self-control is statistically at zero right now , and this system is not on the no one talks about it. But people from the comments, I'm sure, will confirm this

[07:59] fact. Maybe if you had such stories , you can write them. Chapter Four. Economy of exploitation. Anatomy of whales. It might seem like Gamble is making a pittance from the millions of

[08:14] players who bet a few dollars on the weekends. The global market is valued at literally hundreds of billions of dollars, and this budget is formed in a completely different way. These are statistics from independent audits. In some developed countries, up to

[08:29] 90% of all online casino profits are generated by just 5% of customers. In the industry, they are cynically called whales, but in reality, they are most likely not millionaires, billionaires, or small developers who have nowhere to

[08:45] put their money. These are deeply dependent and seriously ill people. The entire business model of multi-billion dollar corporations not only allows for the existence of gambling addicts, it is built on them. Without them, this empire will collapse in one day. Forget the word

[09:00] player or client. In internal databases you are marked simply as an asset. Your value is measured by the LTV metric. Lifetime Value is a calculated, mathematical amount that the casino plans to extract from you

[09:15] for the rest of your life. Not from your random wins, but from your guaranteed losses. Just imagine a car company that makes most of its profits from selling cars with broken brakes. And when

[09:28] people die in accidents, the company issues a statement saying the driver should have driven responsibly. It even sounds absurd. But for the caziques this is, unfortunately, a daily and legalized practice. And if you fall into the category of

[09:44] those very whales, completely new doors to VIP programs open up for you. VIP statuses are obviously given out to the most vulnerable. You are assigned a personal manager. This person is creating an artificial friendship with you

[09:58] . He may even call, find out how your family is doing, give you tickets to concerts, even pay for flights, and you, believe me, will feel special and will think that this person is your friend.

[10:12] But to be honest, your VIP manager only has one job to do. make you lose as much money as possible and as quickly as possible. His salaries and bonuses directly depend on the amount of your losses. And believe me,

[10:27] you don't have to be some kind of soap opera to qualify for VIP status. Regular drains and activity in the bull, or in the kazik, as is convenient, are enough. For information on safe operation and commission-based work, watch the video in the

[10:43] end credits section. Chapter Five. The industry of accomplices for such a system to operate with impunity on a global scale, it

[10:57] needs some kind of protection. And the state has only three pillars of support, which essentially normalizes this plague. The first accomplice is Big Sport. Gambling has become an integral part of sports today. Major football leagues,

[11:11] basketball associations, and mixed martial arts tournaments are signing sponsorship contracts worth billions of dollars. Look at the form of the leading teams. It is simply strewn with logos of bookmakers and casinos. They ingrain

[11:26] addiction into the DNA of sport, associating excitement with the joy of a favorite team's victory. Athletes who were supposed to be symbols of health, strength, and something right are becoming walking advertising bills for, well, essentially, a

[11:41] digital drug. The second accomplice is the new media elite. A ton of popular streamers, bloggers, and infls broadcast their slot games 24/7 to a multi-million audience . Molstroys, boosters, Evilons and

[11:58] so on. They all scream about skids, show off a ton of money, show off expensive cars and a luxurious life. And the teenagers on the other side of the screen look at their idols and think that they can do the same, that they make money at the casino. Yes, it's

[12:12] stupid, but that's the reality we live in. These idols will never tell the main thing. In the vast majority of cases, they do not play with their own money. These are candy wrappers and a virtual balance that the platform itself draws for them. They don't

[12:27] risk anything. Yes, they can then withdraw this money if, let's say, they play carefully, as they say. But the difference between depositing your salary from a balance that was drawn up for you are completely different things.

[12:42] completely different things. They sell the illusion of success for advertising contracts, and when they're held accountable with videos like this one, for example, they hide behind stock phrases like, "Play carefully and responsibly, it's

[12:55] just a show. This isn't about caring for the viewers; it's a legal hurdle to avoid account blocking." And an interesting paradox arises. The same bloggers can raise money for charity or, I don't know, for those

[13:08] in need in one video, and then, a minute later, advertise a casino that squeezes the last pennies out of the very same people they were supposedly trying to help. There's they were supposedly trying to help. There's some kind of inconsistency.

[13:21] [music] The third and most powerful accomplice is the state. And the mining industry uses the same methods as the tobacco giants of the last century. They hire armies of lobbyists, sponsor

[13:34] political campaigns, and loudly proclaim how much tax revenue they bring into the treasury and how many jobs they create. But there is interesting and real mathematics. For every dollar of tax revenue from gambling, there are colossal

[13:48] social costs. The industry may bring in, say, $15 billion in taxes, but the socioeconomic damage—that is, broken families, bankruptcy, and blah-blah-blah—is estimated at $45 billion. It's just that

[14:02] the state and society are paying for this banquet out of their own pockets, while casino owners hide their excess profits in offshore accounts. Watch the video to see how much the NBT actually pays in taxes. Not 8, not

[14:15] 12%, but total pennies, less percentage there. Quite interesting percentage there. Quite interesting information. Chapter Six. Who is really to blame? At the very beginning of this story I said

[14:28] that Anton was killed. But who killed him? Maybe it was Avilon, who after the PKS stream went green and thus encouraged him to play that day. Or maybe another streamer or blogger. Nobody knows this anymore. They were all in the valley. It

[14:43] knows this anymore. They were all in the valley. It was the Dark Archive. Subscribe. Bye.