How casinos distract

Zynga Texas Hold'Em seems to be a fairly definitive disproof by counterexample here. (For that matter, a lot of MMORPGs/social games/etc use gambling mechanics and psychology without any monetary reward for winning the game.)

I don't think most of these more exotic strategies (i.e. other than gaming itself and alcohol) were consciously employed when organized crime ran the industry. They made so much money skimming profits that they weren't too worried about squeezing dimes out nor were they sophisticated in that way (they were very sophisticated in other ways). In that time, the culture was marked by personal relationships (who you know), "comping" or giving free things, cheap rooms and food, more live entertainment, more well dressed adults going out at night rather than people walking the strip in the day pushing strollers, etc. Also there was a notable lack of violent crime in and around the casino areas. Organized crime wouldn't allow purse snatchers, card cheats, etc. (Of course I mean other than the crime committed by the mafia in enforcing this peace or crime among themselves).

This all changed as corporations began to run things and the mafia became more marginalized beginning in the '90's. The corporation's spreadsheet toting MBA's began calculating profitability on a per-square-foot basis. This resulted in less comping, more expensive food and hotel rooms, live entertainment replaced with more video poker, and many of the more esoteric strategies to induce gaming profits such as those mentioned in the article. It also resulted in some notable failures - for example the idea of appealing to families by adding huge kids rides and carnival style game areas. (This idea was taken from the Circus Circus Hotel which was the first to have that.) The idea kind of flopped and the hotels realized that people with kids don't spend 16 hours at a blackjack table (shocker). A spectacular example of this was the theme park behind the MGM that they eventually tore down. They shifted back to gaming and adult entertainment launching the "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" campaign and we saw the rise of casinos like the Palms that appealed to young men trying to relive the cool sophistication of Hugh Hefner's days in the '60s.

Occasionally you would get people would spend too much and need help, the same for alcohol some people just can't regulate their vices. But anyway, my uncle offered to take a slot machine to their house set it up so they could play all they wanted without cost, or gain! Nobody he offered that to wanted to play without winning.

As for the "non-gaming" i.e. not casino type games, such as the MMOROGs/social games I would say players are aware before they play no money is won (unless there are side bets) but levels are status are probably just as valuable to them. Even with slots I have seen people trying to win the jackpot which may be $500 yet spend weeks trying to get it spending 100x that amount, or a bonus pot/progressive which may be almost nothing; it's not so much the money as it is the feeling but with slots it doesn't pay out in feelings only money.

For all of those examples I always think of an article I read about the US military where soldiers in WWI and WWII were not shooting at the enemy, soldiers were frozen with fear. So a system was created where the soldiers were trained to shoot at a target that popped up and when hit it would fall down. The response was to shoot and when hit the falling target was the reward and it got to the point the soldier would shoot it without thought more instinct. This training is called "Stimulus Response Reward" and I think gambling as well as any repetitive system seems to condition people to act, add to that genetic predisposition of gamblers to gamble on top of SRS.