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Casinos Trap Gamblers Without Their Knowledge

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game-casino-227586_960_720Casinos have a sneaky way of trapping their gamblers and keeping them within their doors. The techniques they use are psychological and subliminal.  They successfully lure people in and manipulate them without their knowledge. They are even able to maneuver people to certain locations, tables or slots, within the casino.

So, what is their secret? It’s simple. It’s nothing more than the specific way that a casino is designed. Everything from the lighting to the carpeting to the arranging of the tables and machines is by clear and clever design.

Casino design is critical to its success. It’s every feature is designed to lure you, manipulate you, keep you, and get you to gamble. These design features are often subtle, but extremely effective. Most people are never aware of how and why they are being steered.

The truth is that we are subtly and psychologically manipulated when we enter the door of a gambling establishment. Do we ever stop to think why we walked to a certain area of the floor or to a specific slot machine? A lot of it has to do with the casino’s design. And, you thought you have free will.

Sometimes we forget that a casino’s sole purpose is to drain our pocketbooks, and casino design is a critical part of that effort. Have you ever noticed that the carpet in a casino is usually very bright and busy. I especially remember the carpet at Bally’s. You almost need sunglasses to keep off the glare. The purpose is to keep you looking around and ahead and not down. This is just one example of casino design techniques.

Then consider the lighting, the subtle,  soft glow that makes one feel comfortable and happy to play the games. The logistic placement of the hundreds of slots and tables is also crucial to the overall success of the casino.

There is a classic text book on the topic written by Bill Friedman. It is called Designing Casinos To Dominate the Competition. Even a used copy will usually cost over $100. You can read more about this book on Amazon here.

One customer review of Friedman’s book said this:

You will never realize how you are being manipulated on many, many levels from your entry to the casino, to the ambient music, temperature, etc, etc.
It’s all figured out. Some busboy doesn’t set the temperature or choose the music you can just barely hear (if you try).
The casino owners all base their strategies off this book.

The Luxor opened in 1993. It is one hotel that always draws attention with its pyramid shape and light beam on its top. It’s the strongest beam in the world, by the way. But, when it opened someone made a bad mistake in the design. I guess they didn’t read Friedman’s book.

I was there in the early days. When you walked in the front door, your attention was drawn to the left side where there was a Nile River Ride around the casino. This diverted people away from the casino floor where the money is made. So, they tore the ride out and redesigned the place. Good move!

The lesson to be learned for casino owners is to be sure that the internal design of their casino lures people in and keeps them there. One way they do keep people inside spending their money is to make it hard to  get out.  I remember how hard it was, and is, to get outside of Caesars and Circus Circus to name two. Casinos are masterpieces of deliberate design. Casinos know how to trap their gamblers.

A good suggestion is to leave a trail of bread crumbs when you come in. Then, you may find your way back out. LOL.

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