[ZeroGravitas]

This is a good question.

Golf seems very similar to me. There's the random element. A friend described it as a feeling of continual frustration followed by a high when he hits a good shot.

You similarly can buy your way to 'success' with gadgets and training or investing more time.

There's the community of similar addicts that gather together and provide a social element and re-inforce each others addiction. People's marriages suffer to the degree that there is a term "golf widow" for someone who's lost their partner to the game.

But I can still see clear differences between golf clubs and casinos, and there's also similar differences between different mobile games. I feel it's worth delineating them, particularly as golf isn't constantly being replaced with a slightly modified version of golf that takes it 2% closer to being a Casino and casino's are heavily regulated for good reasons.

[elif]

Wait, what's the random element in golf? I play weekly and the only random element I can think of are maybe cars and animals distracting me?

Golf is a game of 3D localization and mapping, wind analysis, projectile estimation, and fine-tune physique control...

If you are treating those elements as "random" you are missing large aspects of the game.

[ZeroGravitas]

I'm obviously not a golfer, but here's a write up from someone who is, that explores the topic in depth:

http://www.limitlessperformance.ca/blog/the-mental-patters-o...

> But the most accurate and refreshing response received to this day has been… addictive! And if you think about it clearly, what better one-word description encompasses all that we know of this exhilarating sport known as Golf. There is no description more encompassing of a sport such as golf!

> And this is best described by a psychological principle referred to as “intermittent reinforcement”. Intermittent reinforcement is the formula foundation for all forms of addition. Take gambling with a slot machine as an example. You lose, lose, lose, lose and suddenly you win! And yet, despite the guaranteed repetitive loss and the incidental win, people love to play slot machines for hours. Why is intermittent reinforcement so powerful? In its simplest translation, the reinforcement pattern that blooms into addiction must entail of high levels of reward and amusement without the predictability factors which can trigger boredom. It‟s the unpredictability of when the reward arrives that draws and engages people into the activity. The rewards that are distributed intermittently trigger and release significantly higher doses of a pleasure inducing hormone known as dopamine, than the same rewards distributed on a more consistent (predictable) basis.

> Can you think of another activity that features in more intermittent reinforcement than golf? No matter what level of golf you are playing, it is guaranteed that you are going to hit more shots that feel miss-struck than well-struck. Some may argue that the pros hit the ball well on almost every shot, but on the contrary the better you are the higher the standard to what constitutes a shot that delivers maximum satisfaction and reward. To a highly skilled golfer, maximum satisfaction is gained through a perfectly struck and executed shot. While by the same token, for the double-bogey player, a drive that is struck decently and stays in the fairway is also a cause for celebration.

[sandworm101]

It is about hitting a very small/light ball very far. It is about interaction with natural elements in real time (wind/grass etc). It may be physics but it is physics in the real non-vacuum world. Even a perfect robot could not place a golfball in the same spot repeatedly. That is the unescapable random element.

[elif]

i havent seen a robot capable of reading wind patterns from tree movement as well as humans.. again you are minimizing the deterministic factors where humans have a compelling advantage by over-essentializing perception beyond your personal capability as "random"

[sandworm101]

Look to artillery, where billions are spent on robots throwing an object through the air as accurately as possible. Randomness is still there.

[elif]

you're just making the same argument with a different subject... the same "random" argument can be applied to home runs in baseball if you wanted. hopefully you can see the ridiculousness of that example... I've researched your artillery example enough to know that artillery fire is done with a human wind calculation based upon one direction of wind... not at all comparable to human eye perceiving strength of gusts, wind alleys, etc. based upon personal experience with a certain course... but i'm not really interested in 1000 red herring discussions. please stick to golf if you really care about this.