Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Sid Meier, Slot Machines, and the Flow of Vice
Sid Meier, Slot Machines, and the Flow of Vice
Jul 8, 2025 3:12 AM

My wife despises Sid Meier. She’s never met him, nor would she even recognize his name. But she knows someone is responsible for creating the source of my addiction.

For over twenty years I’ve spent (or wasted, as my wife would say) countless hours playing Civilization, Meier’s award-winning strategy game. Every time I play the game I enter an almost trance-like state plete immersion. According to positive psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, what I’m experiencing in that moment is known as “flow.” Csíkszentmihályi describes the mental state of flow as,

pletely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.

According to Csíkszentmihályi, there are ten factors that pany the experience of flow:

1. Clear goals that, while challenging, are still attainable.

2. Strong concentration and focused attention.

3. The activity is intrinsically rewarding.

4. Feelings of serenity; a loss of feelings of self-consciousness.

5. Timelessness; a distorted sense of time; feeling so focused on the present that you lose track of time passing.

6. Immediate feedback.

7. Knowing that the task is doable; a balance between skill level and the challenge presented.

8. Feelings of personal control over the situation and the e.

9. Lack of awareness of physical needs.

10. Complete focus on the activity itself.

While it’s not necessary to experience all ten factors for flow to occur, I experienced all ten when I play strategy games like Civilization, Age of Kings, or Axis and Allies. I’ve been in a state of flow other times, of course. Sometimes it occurs when I’m writing, building electronic devices, or working on a carpentry project. But the state of flow is never plete as when I’m playing a game.

I have to take ultimate responsibility for my own actions, including the time I spend playing games. But could the game designers be somewhat accountable for pulsion? Should they bear any responsibility for creating the experience?

Unlike my wife, I don’t blame Sid Meier. He’s created a wonderful game that, if experienced in moderation, can increase human flourishing by satisfying our need for play. But there is one group that I believe bears a large share of the blame for creating an experience of flow that can destroy lives and immiserate our fellow citizens: designers of slot machines.

As economist Robert H. Frank writes in the New York Times:

“Addiction by Design” (Princeton University Press, 2012), Natasha Dow Schüll’s gripping account of slot machine gambling in Las Vegas, looks into the technical wizardry underlying modern slots and their effects on players. According to slot designers and casino managers surveyed in the book, the mission of these machines is simple: to separate patrons from their money in the most ruthlessly efficient — yet psychologically agreeable — ways possible.

The machines create an experience pelling that some people stop playing only when they’ve exhausted every available resource. Ms. Schüll, a cultural anthropologist on the M.I.T. faculty, interviews a slots player who sees the machines as so immersive that winning es a distraction, something that matters only because it lets her play a little longer. “It’s like being in the eye of a storm,” the woman says, later adding, “You aren’t really there — you’re with the machine and that’s all you’re with.”

Psychologists describe this state as flow, a feeling of being so absorbed in what you’re doing that you pletely unaware of the passage of time. Artists, writers and others who achieve flow in their work call it one of the most pleasurable psychological states, one that greatly enhances productivity. But in hindsight, at least, flow as experienced by some slots players is a state that leads to ruin.

Slot machines, in other words, are designed for a nefarious purpose. They don’t exist for the casual player, the type of person who can resist ing enslaved to the machines. They are created specifically to prey upon the psychological weakness of fallen humans.

Slot machines exist primarily to take the money of what the gaming industry calls “problem gamblers.” Problem gamblers account for 40 to 60 percent of slot machine revenues, according to studies conducted over the past decade or so. A large-scale study in 2004 found that people who live within 10 miles of a casino have twice the rate of pathological and problem gambling as those who do not.

In an ideal world, such predatory gaming would be prohibited by society. But our culture opposes almost any restrictions on vice, no matter how soul-destroying, if the harm to others is not direct and immediate. The best we can hope for is to gain broader acceptance for a more indirect solution. We could limit the harms of gambling by simply convincing Americans that the government at all levels – local, state, and federal – should not give legal, administrative, regulatory, and promotional advantages to businesses that host slot machines.

That’s really all it would take. Prevent the cronyism and casinos would wither away. Casinos can’t survive without the life-support provided by politicians. They thrive because monopolistic regulations and taxpayer dollars keep them from bankruptcy. Take that away and slot machines would die the ignoble death they so truly deserve.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Rev. Sirico on the Catholic Charities Controversy in Illinois
A dispute has arisen in Illinois between Catholic Charities and the state government. As the National Catholic Register explains it, “Catholic Charities branches of three Illinois dioceses have filed a lawsuit against the state of Illinois in order to continue operating according to Catholic principles — by providing foster care and adoption services only to married couples or non-cohabitating singles.” In an interview, with the newspaper, Rev. Robert A. Sirico defends Catholic Charities in light of the principle of subsidiarity...
My Visit to The Barnabas Group
I recently had a unique opportunity to speak about unity in Christ’s mission. I was asked to present an address to The Barnabas Group (TBG) in San Diego (May 9) and Costa Mesa (May 10). The Costa Mesa site is in Orange County for those who do not know Southern California. My title for both meetings was: “The Unity Factor: One Lord, One Church, One Mission.” The Barnabas Group is one of the more unique missions and ministries I’ve encountered....
Orsini on “Principled Conservatism”
Long-time Acton Institute friend and Markets and Morality contributor Jean-Francois Orsini has a new book out. In Fight the Left (yes, it has a polemical edge!), Orsini argues that there are essentially two approaches to the world: liberalism and conservatism. His use of liberalism is decidedly contemporary (i.e., modern, not classical liberalism). His conservatism is sympathetic to the free market but, more importantly, it is “first principled,” meaning that he lays out the foundation on which conservatism must be based....
Jim Wallis: From Sandalista to Champion of Big Government
Essential reading on Jim Wallis by long-time observer Mark Tooley of the Institute on Religion & Democracy: How does Wallis—the old Students for a Democratic Society agitator who touted the Vietcong in the 1970s and the Sandinistas in the 1980s, who denounced welfare reform in the 1990s as a betrayal of the poor, and whose funding by George Soros was exposed last year—enlist Catholic bishops and mainstream evangelicals in his endless political campaigns? “We’re frankly challenging leadership on both sides...
The Paper Pope
I have said it many times in the past, but now I have confirmation: According to the editors of the New York Times, the Pope is not permitted to make moral judgments because only the Editorial Board of the New York Times (all genuflect here) is permitted to pontificate: “Ms. Abramson, 57, said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like “ascending to Valhalla.” “In my house growing up, The Times...
Samuel Gregg: Truth, Lies, and Euros
It is very easy to forget what is happening in other parts of the world especially when we are in the midst of our own financial crisis in the United States. Considering the economic challenges we are faced with, this may be a mistake as we can learn from other’s problems. Europe is experiencing economic woes that continue to worsen. In the American Spectator, Samuel Gregg explains: As Europe’s financial crisis worsens, it’s increasingly apparent that the economic woes of...
Rev. Sirico: Kevorkian’s ‘Terminal TV’
Writing in the Detroit Free Press, reporters Joe Swickard and Pat Anstett describe the life and June 3 passing of Jack Kevorkian. Long before he made a name for himself as a “assisted suicide advocate,” Kevorkian was known to the nurses at Pontiac General Hospital in Michigan as “Dr. Death” for his bizarre experiments. Death came naturally to the man who’d vowed he’d starve himself rather than submit to the state’s authority behind bars. “It’s not a matter of starving...
Jordan Ballor: Let Detroit’s farms flourish
Detroit has has been plagued by the economic downturn more than most cities, and has struggled to recover. However, sometimes gloomy economic conditions breed innovation. That is the focus of Jordan Ballor’s “Let Detroit’s farms flourish” which appeared in the Detroit News. Ballor explains that residents are putting vacant lots to use by urban farming: These areas of growth, in the form of munity programs and individual plots, represent a significant avenue for the revitalization of the city. The benefits...
Rev. Sirico: Not Whether to Help the Poor, But How
The budget proposed by House Republicans has lead to a heated debate; one key facet being whether funding should be cut for programs that benefit the poor and vulnerable. Critics claim the House Republicans’ proposed budget violates Catholic social teaching (click here to read the critics’ open letter to Speaker Boehner). Rev. Robert A. Sirico’s first response to Boehner’s critics appeared in NRO. In this mentary Rev. Sirico expands upon his first response and articulates how Catholics can disagree on...
What’s the new “+1” button on Acton PowerBlog posts all about?
You may have noticed a new addition to the PowerBlog; the new +1 button joins the existing Facebook and Twitter buttons at the top of posts. +1 is a new initiative from Google that brings forth more relevant search results influenced by user feedback. Here is a snippet from the official Google launch: +1 is as simple on the rest of the web as it is on Google search. With a single click you can mend that raincoat, news article...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved