You stride into the Luxor or Mohegan Sun brimming with confidence and a wallet filled with cash, planning to enjoy a few hours of enjoyable, sensible gambling and maybe two rounds of drinks. But when you walk out, you’ve spent the same amount or more than you did going in—and you have no idea what time it is or how many hours have passed. It’s called the sunk cost fallacy and casinos are masters at it. They use sounds, lights and physical design to make it hard to step away. Business Insider has uncovered nine sneaky tricks casinos use to keep you gambling.
Casino knows a lot about mafia-run casinos, and it tells the story with the sweeping drama, unerring accuracy and attention to detail that has made Martin Scorsese famous. Robert De Niro is unforgettable as Ace Rothstein, the brilliant bookie who runs Tangiers and then becomes a mob boss himself, and Joe Pesci is his formidable foil as loose-cannon mobster Nicky Santoro.
Another trick casinos use is to make it difficult for players to separate themselves from their money by using digital credits or chips instead of real cash. That psychological disconnect erodes the sting of losing and increases the likelihood that players will continue to gamble. Slot machines are also programmed to create “near wins,” causing the brain to trigger a reward response similar to a real win. This keeps players in a state of euphoria, making it harder for them to make rational judgments.