About this episode

The episode discusses the cultural embrace of gambling and its connections to technology, featuring guest Natasha Dow Schüll.

The logic behind Polymarket, Kalshi and sports betting apps can be traced back to the inner workings of the slot machine. How did we get to a point where it’s legal for anyone to bet on anything? Be it the results of a baseball game or a land war in Europe, if you have access to a credit card and a computer you can try to predict the outcome of anything that’s happening in the world and win a little bit of money if you’re right. If we know that gambling can lead to high rates gambling addiction and financial ruin, why does it seem like our culture has suddenly embraced it? For years, anyone who has reported on our increasing addiction to technology has found their way to Natasha Natasha Dow Schüll’s book Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas. The book is an ethnography of slot machines. It is based on many interviews with the people who make them and play them, a deep investigation of how they work, and how they fit into the larger context of casinos, Las Vegas, and gambling more broadly. Since it was published more than a decade ago, the logic of slot machines has extended far beyond Las Vegas. Every notification on our phone, trading platforms like Robinhood, the…

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