The dark UX patterns used by online gambling websites
By: Chris Kernaghan
Tags: Ethics, Design, UX, User Experience Design, User Experience

The dark UX patterns used by online gambling websites

Gambling is one of the few industries that has capitalised during the pandemic. When restrictions were at their peak, more people than ever took to their mobile devices in the UK, hoping to potentially capitalise on lockdown and alleviate boredom by winning big. For many, this was the first time they ventured online to try their hand at Blackjack, Poker or many of the thousands of available slots. The pandemic then, presented bookmakers with an influx of users that don’t normally gamble, but also gave them an opportunity to target bored problem gamblers too.

This has resulted in betting companies seeing record growth and soaring profits. But does this increase in engagement come at a risk of turning novice gamblers into compulsive gamblers? Remember, these bookmakers want to make as much revenue as possible, so are they even capable of ensuring this doesn’t happen? In the UK, gambling companies are required by law to safeguard users, such as notifying them of playing time and money deposited. But is it enough? These prevalent dark UX patterns would suggest otherwise.

Addiction by design

“Players hang, it could be said, in a state of suspended animation,” writes one machine gambling researcher. A zone in which time, space, and social identity are suspended in the mechanical rhythm of a repeating process…” — Addiction by Design, Natasha Dow Schüll

Gambling is addictive by design. The manner in which certain dark patterns are incorporated are done so in a bid to maximise engagement. They’re patterns that are used solely to deceive and trick users, and to exploit human weaknesses. Known in the industry as “hooks”, players often have absolutely no idea they’re being targeted in such a way. Coupling these hooks with visions of winning money, potentially life-changing amounts, elicits a mentality of “one more spin”, “one more chance, this could be it.”

People are vulnerable to these hooks, and whether their use is morally acceptable is up for debate, but they are perfectly legal.

Lights and Sounds

Lights and sounds are incredibly effective at getting our attention. Humans are primed to look towards the direction of where a sound came from, or to pay special attention to light used as a means of signifying information. From the humble knock, knock, knock as you receive a message in Slack, to the unavoidably loud alarm and strobe lights to alert you to a fire. What lights and sounds can do in the context of online gambling however, is create a feeling of immersion, focus and facilitate a flow state.

You may have experienced a flow state at some point — that sense of fluidity between your body and mind, where you are totally absorbed by and deeply focused on something, beyond the point of distraction. — Headspace

Mindfulness, deep work, exercise — these all require varying degrees of flow state. To enter a state of flow in these contexts is beneficial, and certainly encouraged. In fact, you may have only read about flow states in the context of trying to get into one, rather than being subjected to one. But as a player continues to deposit money into their online gambling account, each time they press a button for “one more spin” they’re met with lights and sounds which are gameified to the extreme.

For a player that’s totally immersed in the experience, It can be difficult to look away, with the promise of more lights and more sounds with ever finger tap or click. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that these lights and sounds encourage the user to continue to gamble, and can even trigger the want to gamble in general, not to mention aiding in the release of dopamine — the feel good hormone.

Progressive Unlocks

First of all, what is a progressive unlock? In a nutshell — the more time a player spends on one particular game, the more likely they are to advance to higher levels which potentially offer more rewards, such as random wilds, or removing lower paying symbols altogether. The assumption on the players part is if they keep levelling up (spending money), they will eventually reach a level where the payout is more than what they’ve put in (money spent).

This is rarely the case.

Whenever I think of progressive unlocks, I often think of the metaphorical Carrot and Stick. Carrot and stick is often depicted as a person atop a donkey or horse, leading (and incentivising) the donkey forwards by dangling a carrot just inches away from them. I’m not entirely sure if the donkey or horse eventually gets the carrot, just as I’m not entirely sure if users are justly rewarded from reaching higher levels through progressive unlocks.

Ultimately, the likelihood of these unlocked rewards leading to anything of value is pretty slim, as the odds offered by the game remain constant throughout, regardless of what “level” the player reaches. Rather cynically, but more realistically, the reward is the fabled carrot dangled mere inches away. The stick is, unsurprisingly, the casino.

Multiple Lines

A popular tactic with slots is to bet over multiple lines, meaning that you don’t have to just match the symbols horizontally across the central line. This opens many more ways in which the player can win. While this likely does increase your chances of winning, it doesn’t increase your chances of winning anything significant. In actuality, you’re likely to win quite often, but less than the initial bet you placed.

Having multiple lines enables players to place a bunch of bets per spin, often up to 20 or more. Although each individual bet can be small, many players place the maximum number of bets on each spin. This strategy means a player can win on some lines while losing on others, netting less than the original wager. — theconversation.com

With these slots being the preference of players, even though they’re winning lower amounts, the frequency of these wins still triggers a state of arousal and lights up parts of the brain that is normally susceptible to pleasure. There’s also plenty of research to suggest that multi-line slots, whether online or in a physical casino, induce a state of flow in the player. In a research piece published within the Journal of Gambling Studies, these flow states are rather ominously referred to as dark flow.

The research piece would go on to suggest that those that are most vulnerable are most likely to fall into the dark flow trap. “Additionally, depression symptomatology and dark flow were strongly correlated in the multiline game, with significant relationships between depression and gambling expectancy, and gambling expectancy and dark flow ratings also emerging.”

The Near Miss Effect

If you’ve played slots at a Casino, or online, you’ll notice a pattern emerge the more you play. You’ll notice just how close you were to that big win, and if you were that close, that means you’re getting closer, right? Wrong. This is the Near Miss effect, and it’s yet another dark pattern used to encourage the players to keep gambling.

Near misses are widely believed to encourage future play, even in games of chance where the probability of winning remains constant from trial to trial. Some commercial gambling systems, particularly instant lotteries and slot machines, are contrived to ensure a higher frequency of near misses than would be expected by chance alone. — The psychology of the near miss

Unfortunately for the player, near misses can trigger the same part of the brain that lights up whenever a win is triggered, and while they’re cited as being less pleasurable than complete misses, they somehow incentivise the player to continue onwards.

This problem is exacerbated when players start to chase their losses. $100 down, becomes $200. $200 becomes $300, and so on. So long as the player thinks there’s a chance, they’ll continue to gamble. The game of chance can be a huge motivator to continue, even if a player has lost significant amounts of money beforehand. That game of chance, no matter how expensive, always appears to subside to the life changing fantasy jackpot.

Can you survive as a UX Designer in this industry?

There’s no question that many of these patterns are indeed dark patterns. Designed and promoted within the gambling industry as a way to create fun for participants, but potentially at the expense of their finances and mental health. More so, if you’re a vulnerable individual that’s susceptible to gambling.

What I found fascinating while researching for this piece was that UX Designers within the gambling industry do exist.

For me, this raises some questions. Can you be a UX Designer in an industry that actively tries to hook individuals? Is that not the antithesis of the UX Design ethos? What’s day-to-day life like for a UXer in the gambling industry? Do they have an opportunity to discuss any of the previous points made in this article, or are they confined to more “business as normal” issues such as fixing sign up forms?

If you’re a UX designer within the gambling industry, feel free to reach out.

If you’ve been affected by gambling, and want to talk to someone about it, you should be able to find your country specific help contact here.