[AlexandrB]

I recently saw a good video[1] covering the history and appeal of gambling machines. My takeaway is that the primary reason people play these is not because they think they're going to win money. This especially true of pachinko where "cashing out" is a convoluted process of trading balls for prizes for cash.

> If they never paid out, people would never go and the casinos would not exist

This is self evidently false based on the linked article. Random chance games that have no possibility of ever having a net payout attract tons of players and make a lot of money.

I think the problem is analyzing this with the economic "rational consumer" model of human behavior. Gambling is not rational but extremely popular because people are not rational. The whole industry is a trap that feeds users dopamine rewards in exchange for money. Once you're in, the payouts have little to do with it.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jQIHqkudgNY