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Re: undefined

#211

Post by Bartweiss » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #155

Bartweiss wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely the case, though casinos don't have quite the same incentives. Freemium devs can't fly in wealthy players and customize their games, for instance. But this absolutely explains a lot of these things. For a while, I wondered why freemium games don't offer an "unlock all" option for $2, or $10, or $100? Turns out, it's because even $100 would be a massive loss compared to what the 'top' players sink into Cand…

Do most capitalistic ventures rely on whales? Or is it limited only to ones that feed off addictions?

Addictive ones only, basically.

There's two things restraining other businesses from profiting like this.

First, lots are basically fixed-consumption - if you buy a vacuum cleaner, there's effectively no chance of selling you another one next week. Across all your customers, you have an effectively flat purchase rate. So all you can do there is improve margins and reach unserved customers (and maybe pursue planned obsolescence).

Second, most unbounded-consumption businesses have normal distributions of consumption. People who buy string cheese maybe eat an average of five a week, with a low-SD normal distribution around that. So you market your cheese sticks to your prototypical customer to maximize profit.

Any power-law business sells to whales. That means drugs and gambling, but I should also observe that enterprise sales count. If Proctor and Gamble will pay 10,000X as much for your security consulting as a local pizza shop, you're selling to whales.

Re: undefined

#212

Post by Bartweiss » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #152

Bartweiss wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely the case, though casinos don't have quite the same incentives. Freemium devs can't fly in wealthy players and customize their games, for instance. But this absolutely explains a lot of these things. For a while, I wondered why freemium games don't offer an "unlock all" option for $2, or $10, or $100? Turns out, it's because even $100 would be a massive loss compared to what the 'top' players sink into Cand…

That factoid about the heaviest drinking 10% is probably wrong, by the way. Basically, it comes out of survey data about how much alcohol people consume. But when you take the actual results from the survey and multiply it by the population of the US, you only get about half as much alcohol consumption as there are sales of alcohol. So the guy who ran the survey just multiplied all the numbers by two. People who said…

Wow, thank you. That really changes the initial result.

I remember being shocked by those numbers. 10 per night is high-impact even with high tolerance, and totally out of the question for lots of people. For 5% of Americans to drink more than that would be wild, since you've largely slashed your potential demographic to good-sized men.

And the reverse explanation, where the low end is particularly bad at estimating, would match with everything else people estimate. If you have a beer after work and a second with dinner, you can probably say "two a day" with confidence. If you have a glass of wine sometimes, out with friends, but not often, it's not terribly easy to guess whether that's two a month or one every two months.

I sort of see why he used his estimate, because you have to bring up the low end hugely to account for so much absence, but it seems unjustifiable to assume that the heaviest drinkers could even survive having their numbers doubled.

Re: undefined

#213

Post by vlaak » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 7:16 PM UTC

trcollinson wrote: post #195

micaksica wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The gambling industry is exploring the dimensions of the mind trying to find the optimal Skinner box to take all your money. They are exploiting a bug in our brains design. We evolved to run around the Savannah and throw things with weird accuracy. We just are not built to defend against it. They should be banned. So we should ban viral mechanics, those old Facebook games, dark UI/UX patterns, and pay-to-play mobil…

Most of these questions are deeply philosophical and I have no answer for you. But I will ask you this: if giving up on gambling which you are not addicted to but find pleasurable saves a subset of the population that cannot control their own abuse of gambling, would you do it? In fact, to be a bit more specific, if you giving up gambling saved the next Scott Stevens and that persons family from the financial ruin an…

Very interesting point. I registered after being a long term lurker just to tell you that I think this is a very interesting way to look at it. I often thing of things as the GP presented it. You're post has me re-thinking it. Thanks for this.

Re: undefined

#214

Post by thefalcon » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 8:34 PM UTC

schoen wrote: post #185

phillc73 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know any country that has a limit on how much alcohol you can buy at a time (most have age restrictions, some have time and place restrictions, some won't sell you if you are already drunk), Similar, but different, the UK does restrict the amount of non-prescription pain killers you can buy. I once tried to buy five packets of Nurofen (Ibuprofen) from a supermarket and was restricted to just two packets. I…

The U.K. really restricts ibuprofen this way? In the U.S. I think these restrictions have been applied only to methamphetamine precursors (pseudoephedrine and maybe others), while opiates have been made prescription-only.

And in the US you have to present your ID for pseudoephedrine which is presumably getting linked to some database to prevent you from walking down the street to get two more boxes there.

Re: undefined

#215

Post by alasdair_ » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 9:18 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #150

billmalarky wrote: post #50

"Richardson’s employer, Colombo Candy & Tobacco Wholesale. Richardson, the company’s controller, embezzled $4.1 million over the course of two years to support her gambling addiction. (In 2014, Richardson, then 54, was sentenced to 14 to 20 years in prison for the crime.) The thefts ultimately put the company out of business." So a company based on exploiting human addiction caused another company based on exploiting…

The casino industry is full of contradictions. Steve Wynn's father was a degenerate gambler who died with serious gambling debts. Sheldon Adelson, who has made billions from gambling addiction, has spent millions fighting online gambling. Why? Here's a direct quote [1]: "[My father] was poor, but he loved to gamble. I saw the cost of a family immersion into losing money on gaming. When I look at people like that, I s…

>Sheldon Adelson, who has made billions from gambling addiction, has spent millions fighting online gambling. Why? Here's a direct quote

I would venture that the main reason he fights against online gambling is so that people that wish to gamble legally need to come to his physical casinos instead.

It's the same reason that online poker is specifically outlined in Washington State - the native American casinos in the state (especially Puyallup) donated a LOT of money to candidates to make that happen.

Re: undefined

#216

Post by aetherson » Thu, Nov 17, 2016, 10:04 PM UTC

Bartweiss wrote: post #212

aetherson wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That factoid about the heaviest drinking 10% is probably wrong, by the way. Basically, it comes out of survey data about how much alcohol people consume. But when you take the actual results from the survey and multiply it by the population of the US, you only get about half as much alcohol consumption as there are sales of alcohol. So the guy who ran the survey just multiplied all the numbers by two. People who said…

Wow, thank you. That really changes the initial result. I remember being shocked by those numbers. 10 per night is high-impact even with high tolerance, and totally out of the question for lots of people. For 5% of Americans to drink more than that would be wild, since you've largely slashed your potential demographic to good-sized men. And the reverse explanation, where the low end is particularly bad at estimating,…

Yeah, I think that probably a huge chunk of the difference is just that actually a lot of alcohol purchased is disposed of unconsumed.

Tie that with a modest increase in the lower-end reporters, and perhaps a modest decrease in the highest-end reporters (are there people who said they average 5 drinks a night who really average 4 because in fact their drinking is variable per night and averaging across a week is more mental record keeping + math than they bothered with when answering a survey?), and you get something that strikes me as more congruent with basically all other facts that I've observed about the world.

Now, that probably does still mean that the top decile accounts for an astonishing percentage of overall alcohol consumption, on a relative basis -- just the absolute amount is less incredible.

Re: undefined

#217

Post by NTripleOne » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 11:28 AM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #100

pavel_lishin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely don't understand the draw of slot machines. I watched a woman playing a smartphone version on the subway; for three stops, she just kept hitting the "spin" button and watching the results. I admit to not knowing how they work, but do they typically have any more interaction than "pull lever, sporadically receive reward"?

Some do. A common example are secondary "bonus" games you can trigger by getting certain combinations on the main reel. They give the player a semblance of control over the game, but in the end the math still works out just like a regular slot.

As a Brit, before I was introduced into the world of online gambling and american-style slot machines, the only real way to actually make any money off of a UK slot machine (more commonly known over here as a fruit machine, as 99% of games use the classic array of fruits as pay symbols) was via the feature/bonus system that most of the games employ - actually landing a winning combination on the reels from pressing spin is a rarity.

No real point here, just an interesting difference between the fundamental payout systems two extremely similar yet almost overwhelmingly different types of machines use.

Also of note is that fruit machines use a 'full hopper' system of payouts, in which the machine will only give out small wins until the 'hopper' (which is really just a number set by the establishment's owner) is full, at which point the relatively big payouts start happening - again, compared to the usual system of American slot machines of "this machine will pay out 9X.X% of what's put into it". This system means that you can infact 'outplay' a fruit machine - by not playing it until you think the hopper is full (or close to it).

I've had many a cheap night out by watching punters on fruities and picking the right moment - and that look of pure defeat on the bloke's face who just abandoned the machine is priceless too (although I usually buy 'em a drink if they witness it, so as not to add insult to injury)

Re: undefined

#218

Post by NTripleOne » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 11:37 AM UTC

ikeboy wrote: post #41

tomjen3 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a huge horse in this fight, because I work for an online casino/slot machine manufacture. The following is my opinion, bl.a I know at least one physical casino where the tax authorities are very happy looking the other way, as patrons gamble tons of dirty cash. They do look very intently on the income and track it carefully because there is a percentage fee on gambling. Presumably that is why people are allowe…

> Should we ban or limit alcohol to some nominal amount? If not, why should we treat gambling differently? No, because nobody steals $4 million to buy alcohol. Alcoholics don't tend to be spending anywhere near the numbers in OP. Even if nominal was 0, the proposal would still prevent stealing or borrowed money being gambled. It's not an essential part of the proposal. If tax authorities are overlooking theft being g…

What about the alcoholic who drinks himself half to death and ends up on life support with no insurance? The kind that literally cost hundreds of thousands in medical expenses to keep alive for another day.

Re: undefined

#219

Post by NTripleOne » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 11:38 AM UTC

schoen wrote: post #185

phillc73 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know any country that has a limit on how much alcohol you can buy at a time (most have age restrictions, some have time and place restrictions, some won't sell you if you are already drunk), Similar, but different, the UK does restrict the amount of non-prescription pain killers you can buy. I once tried to buy five packets of Nurofen (Ibuprofen) from a supermarket and was restricted to just two packets. I…

The U.K. really restricts ibuprofen this way? In the U.S. I think these restrictions have been applied only to methamphetamine precursors (pseudoephedrine and maybe others), while opiates have been made prescription-only.

OTC analgesics are a common suicide (attempt) method. It's just suicide prevention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmd9HUkOQHk

Re: undefined

#220

Post by Bartweiss » Fri, Nov 18, 2016, 3:37 PM UTC

aetherson wrote: post #216

Bartweiss wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, thank you. That really changes the initial result. I remember being shocked by those numbers. 10 per night is high-impact even with high tolerance, and totally out of the question for lots of people. For 5% of Americans to drink more than that would be wild, since you've largely slashed your potential demographic to good-sized men. And the reverse explanation, where the low end is particularly bad at estimating,…

Yeah, I think that probably a huge chunk of the difference is just that actually a lot of alcohol purchased is disposed of unconsumed. Tie that with a modest increase in the lower-end reporters, and perhaps a modest decrease in the highest-end reporters (are there people who said they average 5 drinks a night who really average 4 because in fact their drinking is variable per night and averaging across a week is more…

The 'failure to consume' part didn't even occur to me. Between half-emptied drinks that go bad and liquor cabinets which have been stocked but barely used for decades, it can't be a small amount.

And yeah - I don't doubt it's a power law thing, pretty much all addictive substances are. I imagine the 95th percentile of use for a lot of drugs would be lethal for a first-time user. But the raw dose claimed for alcohol here was bizarre, and I'm glad to have it explained.