Illusion of control, gamification, and economic anxiety in Indonesia’s gambling and gaming boom
In the early 2000s, sales of a famous ice cream bar surged in Indonesia thanks to a prize quiz. Anyone who managed to collect a specified number of ice cream sticks featuring the PlayStation logo would win the latest PlayStation.
Young people of all ages across Indonesia flocked to buy the ice cream to collect the sticks, even if they didn’t necessarily like the ice cream they were purchasing. They all feared missing out on owning the newest PlayStation console at the time.
This prize stick collection campaign is still employed by the ice cream company today due to its effectiveness. The same psychological principles have been adopted by online gambling game developers, an illusion of control and gamification leading to a boom across various segments of society, especially among the youth.
New Form of Gambling
Various studies on gambling addiction among the youth segment have shown a correlation between gambling behavior and factors such as being male, alcohol consumption, depression, and habits inherited from one’s environment or parents.
However, a new form of gambling through digital slot games has managed to reach a broad youth segment—not just males, but also those who don’t consume alcohol, aren’t depressed, and have never been exposed to gambling behavior from adults around them.
Psychologists Mark Griffiths and Richard Wood (2004), who specialize in studying the impact of slot gambling games, warn that slot gambling games are the most cognitively and addictively influential for adolescents.
Slot games are very fast-paced, visually appealing due to their design and colors, require no technical knowledge or special skills to play, allow for frequent wins, and most importantly, can be played independently without others present.
Addiction to digital gambling in the form of slots can be influenced by various factors, from physical endurance and psychological conditions to social-situational variables. However, Griffiths and Wood emphasize that the structural characteristics of these games are specifically designed for long-term enjoyment and interaction.
Based on this, online slot games can be said to occupy a top position in their reach to new users and their retention power in keeping players coming back. Anyone can fall into a digital gambling addiction because it is the simplest, most easily accessible form of gambling, and it presents itself as an entertaining game, just like console or other online games.
Through his scientific study in the article “Gambling Technologies: Prospects for Problem Gaming” (1999), Griffiths found that slot games, in particular, trigger feelings of pleasure when players see the flashing colors and hear the sound effects.
Elsewhere, the simplicity of slot games also creates an image of pseudo-skill or skills that seemingly develop the longer one plays. In a survey on youth gambling behavior conducted by Fisher and Balding in 1998 involving nearly ten thousand participants, startling facts were revealed.
At least two-thirds of teenagers in England had been exposed to slot machine gambling, a third had played within the past month, ten to twenty percent gambled on slots regularly (at least once a week), and nearly six percent fell into the category of pathological gamblers.
Multiple Addiction
Traditional forms of offline gambling have long been proven through various studies to have addictive impacts on players. The advent of technology via mobile phones has now amplified the addiction potential of gambling games dramatically. Gambling has evolved, now connected to the internet and adopting gamification from online games.
Slot gambling games resemble online video games, incorporating the psychology of cuteness, making them appear neither dangerous nor illegal. Furthermore, the games are socially connected through the internet. Even introverted players can engage socially in online gambling.
Independently, both the internet and online games have also been shown to have strong addictive influences. In 2004, Widyanto and McMurren validated a psychological measurement tool called the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), designed to assess the level of an individual’s internet addiction based on psychological diagnostic criteria.
The IAT has been widely used in academia to measure internet addiction, examining aspects such as how individuals spend time online, their inability to control online behavior, tendencies to hide and lie while using the internet, as well as continuous access despite negative consequences.
According to Montag and Reuter in their 2015 book “Internet Addiction,” individuals with internet addiction exhibit specific psychological and social characteristics. Socially, they often struggle with face-to-face communication, have low self-esteem, find it difficult to work in groups, and experience feelings of isolation from the broader social environment.
Additionally, internet addiction is linked to other mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive behavior. Individuals with internet addiction tend to be restless and compulsive about staying connected online through social media, chat applications, and online games.
One of the emerging subsets of internet addiction is the addiction to online gaming. This form of dependency has been officially recognized by the psychiatric community and is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5-TR). It stands alongside addictions to substances like alcohol, marijuana, and opioids.
Symptoms of internet gaming disorder include sadness, anxiety, or irritability when gaming is stopped, an inability to cut back or cease playing, deceit about the amount of time spent gaming, and willingness to risk jobs or relationships for the sake of online games.
Online gambling addiction adds another layer of complexity. It involves three intertwined levels of addiction: first, addiction to the internet; second, addiction to online gaming; and third, addiction to gambling itself. Tackling any one of these dependencies is a formidable and long-term effort.
Imagine the challenge of treating a person who suffers from hybrid addiction involving online gambling. This situation becomes even more dire with the addition of online pornography addiction, which is closely linked to online gambling through pervasive ads on pornographic streaming sites.
Illusion of Control
A major reason individuals persist in online gambling, despite numerous losses, lies within the core of addiction itself—a distinctive cognitive mechanism known as the illusion of control. This is the belief that one’s skills and abilities influence outcomes that are actually governed by chance.
The illusion of control is an irrational thought process. It manifests similarly in superstitious behaviors, like soccer players touching the grass for luck before a match or investors choosing specific dates believed to bring success. Pathological gamblers, who gamble without rational calculation, exhibit a strong illusion of control.
In slot games, the stop button is designed to create an illusion of control for gamblers. When a gambler presses the stop button, the slot reels slowly halt, giving the impression that the player determines the outcome.
In online gaming, this illusion is even more susceptible to manipulation by operators through complex algorithms designed to keep players engaged. Beyond the stop button, the game incorporates reward structures that continuously dangle the promise of immense wealth.
Gambling as a Reflection of the Times
There’s a saying that the explosion of a gambling trend mirrors the nuances of the era. The current surge in online gambling can thus be seen as a reflection of the economic anxiety and uncertainty afflicting Indonesia’s youth.
According to a survey conducted by Youth Laboratory Indonesia among millennials and Generation Z, young people hold a pessimistic view of Indonesia’s economic future.
Moreover, research has found a significant correlation between the youth’s consumptive behavior and their pessimistic economic outlook. The more pessimistic the view of the economy, the more consumptive the behavior of young Indonesians.
Particularly, Generation Z is exploring various methods and products to alleviate their anxiety about the bleak economic future. Compulsive consumption and a thirst for various forms of entertainment are products of this anxiety about the times.
Elsewhere, a new aspiration for a perfect lifestyle has emerged among Gen Z, spurred by social comparisons made by content creators who portray their lives as abundant and flawless on social media.
It is not surprising that a recent open survey by YouthLab found that the young generation’s definition of success is to be wealthy, happy, and fulfilled. Instant wealth, happiness, and success are often showcased by content creators through lavish travel and luxury possessions obtained through their professions.
Thus, the aspiration to achieve instant wealth and alleviate anxiety due to uncertainty is a dream continually sold by online gambling ads with slogans like “Anti rungkat” (anti-bankruptcy) and “Slot gampang menjadi sultan” (easy slots for becoming wealthy).
Long-Term Engagement
Young people’s attachment to online gambling is now a major boom and is set to become a long-term relationship. The long-term connection between young people and online gambling is due to three layers of addiction that accompany it: internet addiction, online gaming addiction, and gambling addiction itself.
From an external perspective, the worsening economic conditions only heighten young people’s anxiety, making them more susceptible to unnecessary transactions driven by the fear of missing out. Indeed, a survey by YouthLab found that “buy now, pay later” has become the most frequently used payment method among the youth today.
Intervening in the issue of online gambling requires the involvement of all stakeholders in youth, including parents, teachers, and public figures. Cognitively, addiction to online gambling stems from a failure to cope with internal anxieties.
Developing coping abilities to manage these anxieties is a necessary intervention to cut down on both the adoption by new users and the addiction of regular users.
Reinvigorating physical activities among the youth to balance the pleasure and dopamine rush they receive from the internet and online games is crucial. Replacing FOMO (fear of missing out) with JOMO (joy of missing out) is essential.
Routines involving self-development and physical activities have the potential to strengthen mindfulness and reduce young people’s dependence on mobile phone addiction. Externally, content creators who balance narratives about instant wealth with content about work ethic and discipline are needed.
These interventions cannot be partial, but require a precise blueprint and execution involving all parties, as the addiction from online gambling will not simply disappear; it presents itself as an illusory answer to the era’s anxieties wrapped in multiple addictions.