It always looked like a long shot, but some people just can’t resist playing, even when they will probably lose.
That’s the story of video lottery terminals, in more ways than one.
Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada stopped a class-action lawsuit from Newfoundland and Labrador that sought to have the Atlantic Lottery Corporation pay back money it took in from video lottery terminals.
Part of the argument before the court was that the machines are inherently deceptive.
And they are exactly that.
A lot of work has gone into finding the best ways to razor away a VLT player’s money without ever letting them feel the blade.
Anyone who plays the machines consistently will lose. They are specifically designed that way, engineered to take advantage of any human weakness to separate you from your money.
The more you play, the more likely it is that you will lose. The odds are what the odds are.
And if, through some magic of luck, you end up on the winning side of the ledger, that’s only because someone else has lost more than they usually would.
For its part, the lottery corporation simply wins.
The problem is that, by playing, you’re agreeing to the brutal terms.
So, no class action — at least, not this time.
I would have liked to see the class action go ahead, if for no other reason than to have lottery officials on the witness stand to explain the ethics of this particular form of provincially sponsored gambling, and what sort of human frailties are key to their business plan.
Because a lot of work has gone into finding the best ways to razor away a VLT player’s money without ever letting them feel the blade.
When you play on modern video gambling machines, it’s not you against the machine —it’s you against every bit of psychology and engineering that can be stacked up against you.
As long ago as 2006, the provincial government tacitly admitted that the technology was playing customers as much as the customers were playing the machines. That’s when the province told the ALC to remove the “stop” button from VLTs in Newfoundland and Labrador. The button, of course, is sheer brilliance: it doesn’t actually do anything, because the result of any “spin” has been set by an algorithm before the spin actually occurs. Stopping the spinning not only gives you the illusion of some form of control, it also entices you to play faster.
And that’s only one example. Every sound and shape and colour, from the screen to the machine, is designed to “enhance the playing experience” — in other words, to keep you in your chair, whether you are playing with money you can afford to lose or not.
And I know that even if the court case had gone ahead, it wasn’t likely to solve anything.
I’d just love to hear someone be forced to actually explain how the ALC and its owner-governments decided this was the best way — the most ethical way — to collect money to pay for government services. How the pain and loss caused by VLTs is an acceptable cost for some concept of greater good.
Isolated in an office filled with people with the same revenue goals, and insulated from the results of your actions, it’s easy to take the position that you’re just raising money for governments in the Atlantic provinces, along with making plenty of “feel-good” donations to public causes.
But that won’t happen now. The house won. Again.
Russell Wangersky’s column appears in SaltWire newspapers and websites across Atlantic Canada. He can be reached at [email protected] — Twitter: @wangersky.
