Here’s a fantastic read for a quiet session from Tim Harford:

Casinos’ worrying knack for consumer manipulation
The spread of machine gambling offers a portent of other economic developments

Harford talks about the science behind getting people to play slot machines and similar developments in the wider economy:

Three slot-machine innovations stand out: first, confusion by design; second, addictiveness by design; third, the use of play money.

Harford relates each one of these innovations to developments in other goods and services:

  1. Confusion by design – mobile phone plans, for example
  2. Addiction by design – Facebook, Twitter
  3. The use of play money – a much higher willingness to pay for a good of uncertain value if the payment was made by credit card

Interesting stuff.