This week, The Gaming Persona reflects on the September 2022 policy update for Gambling on Twitch Streams. Dr. Gameology taps into his past as the Clinical Director for statewide gambling treatment in Florida to shed light on the ways this impacts people requiring treatment in order to search for a pathway back to being their best self.
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Limbo, Inside, Catherine, The Conqueror, Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius, WWE 2K22, FFXIV Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic
What are we talking about from the world of video games today?
We are going to be talking about gambling and video games and Twitch.
Okay, there was a lot that happened just now today with that. Yeah, there will be a delay before the episode goes live like always, but I’m excited to talk about the origins story of our friendship journey and how it’s finally become the obvious topic for The Gaming Persona Podcast for episode one of season three (if we go by the podcast logic that we started last year).
The Ordinary World
So, let’s do The Ordinary World where we share everyday life through our games. Okay, Gene, Jenny, how have your weeks been in your gaming life?
Mediocre. So, I might catch some flak for this because people out there claim the games Limbo and Inside as a possibly some of the best games of all time, and I really don’t see it.
I’ve never heard of either of those, and my name is Dr. Gameology.
Yeah, what is this?
What is Limbo and whatever else did you just say?
Okay, so there are both side scrolling platform you puzzle games. So, in Limbo, your character is seemingly stuck in a purgatory type of situation. There’s, I don’t know deadly pitfalls. We are bugs and by solids and things like that, that try to kill you, as you move through this stage. Seemingly in search for your sister. The plot, there is basically no plot, there’s no dialogue. So, it’s all kind of had to figure it out on your own through visual cues. But yeah, they say, you know, the people say like, oh, atmosphere, the puzzles are all great, but it’s like very, some of the puzzles I find are immensely stupid. So, to me, then it’s like, I can’t count this as one of the greatest games of all time, given how stupid this puzzle is.
Okay, so it sounds like the game is trying to tell its story strictly from a ludology perspective, instead of narratology, calling back to about eight episodes ago. So, gameplay alone, no dialogue, no story, no characterization, right. And if you want a challenging puzzle game, and the puzzles are not challenging, then maybe the game isn’t for you, Gene? Or maybe your IQ is too high for what the game developers are trying to appeal to?
That might be it. I guess my flavor of puzzles is not. So, the way that you approach some of these puzzles is basically just die until you find a solution. So, these just are repetitive, it’s like, die, you respawn, you know, 50 feet back, spend a couple minutes running back to where you were. And it’s like, I prefer puzzles that you actually just apply brain power as opposed to trial and error. Like Catherine is mostly planning.
Oh, Oh, I got to write a little bit about Catherine today. It was such a nice moment. I love that game.
Yeah, that’s active problem solving. Active planning. Not there was some trial and error because the first time you go through a stage, you’re like, “Oh, whoops, I went the wrong way. I’m screwed.”
Gene if you turn the difficulty all the way up and do remix mode. Yeah, the game is complete trial and error. Unless you’re watching a YouTube video with the pause button the entire way.
I did have some complaints about remix mode.
It’s very hard. Um, Jenny, do you know about Catherine? No, I don’t. All right, so Vincent is a guy who is in a dream, and he has to run from all kinds of awesome, psychoanalytic Freudian monsters like talking butts and crawling dead babies. Because he is in a relationship with Katherine spelled with a K. But he starts banging a girl he finds a bar named Catherine with a C. And then there’s Qatherine with a Q, who wears a colored wig and plays the piano. And every time you go to sleep, if you do not make it up the block tower, you die in your dream. And if you die in your dream, you know what that means. Jenny?
You die in real life alive?
Yes. And the entire game. It’s by the people who made persona, Atlus. And the entire game is a moral story about how to handle infidelity and loyalty in relationships.
Okay, throughout the game, there are actually choices that you go to these little confession booths, and they ask you a question is like, you know, as ever. Let’s see, what’s a good example?
Is it ever okay to pursue your passion? Yes, no. And then it shows you the stats for the day out of everyone who answered the question.
Yeah, and the way you answer those questions partially determine which of the three Catherine’s you are going to possibly end up with.
Okay,
Which affects the end game. So, choices matter. Yeah. And it’s all about anime lust.
Yeah.
So, one interesting extra fact about this game is if you play it in Japanese you cannot tell the difference between all three Katherine’s. So, when the character is yells out “Catherine,” you have no idea which one he’s talking about. So, is there some suspense involved? If you’re playing without a guide, you’re making a choice or you’re like, “which one are you looking for?”
Yeah, I love it. So, I do have some games. And one second, they’re not all on a screen, per se. I am holding the fifth medal in The Conqueror, Lord of the Rings path. I have destroyed the One Ring. Cool. Yes. So, my wife and I started our fellowship to walk from the Shire, about March or April, I don’t remember which. And so, every week, we’ve taken one day, and gone to a theme park without missing too many weeks. And we just go there and walk the entire three, four hours of time. And then it also will record through your phone. It’ll record your walking distance all the other days too. So, it was hundreds and hundreds of miles of walking. And you get to watch the story of Lord of the Rings play out as you get along the path and you see your little marker move on the map of Middle Earth. That’s so cool. Yes. So, it gamifies you’re walking goals. And this company is called the conqueror. They don’t have any other fandom properties, which is really bumming me out. But you can sign up for other tracks as well. Like you can do the length of the Great Wall of China. Or you can do different mountains or different marathons across the world that actually exist, but none of them are, you know, six-hundred-mile journeys to save Middle Earth.
So, they should go all in and make a rendition of the search for Sméagol.
Oh, you know, that’s hundreds of years of futility.
Yeah, it’s a rough estimate is like it’s over 10,000 miles because Gandalf was looking for his main goal for like, 30 years.
Yeah. They also have two different distances, you can pick when you choose each portion of the map, there’s the walking distance. And then there’s the biking distance, or the large party distance. So, if you have, you know, my wife and I were a two-person group, so both of our walking distances every day, were put on this map, which is not actually how it would have worked, because the nine people in the fellowship did not get one-mile times nine, every day they got one mile. Yeah, so I’ve actually, you know, if I had disposable income, I’m actually thinking about someday doing it again. But signing up for the bike path laying since I don’t really need the metals again, I just want to walk 700 miles instead of, you know, 250 for the for the fourth stage, and, you know, the mines of Moria. We actually finished in about three days, because it’s only 40 miles.
So, yeah, anyway, that is if you don’t plummet into the abyss.
That’s right. We did pass, minus one wizard. So, you know, that’s a little bit of gamification. I’ve been playing different games I’ve been playing. Again, still WWE 2k 22. I’ve been playing Final Fantasy 14, I finished leveling up my first crafting class, though Weaver. So now I can make cloth-based clothes at any level. And so, I started cooking, I started leveling up Culinarian, because you have to eat food at the beginning of every dungeon. And I’m tired of relying on Paramore to give me piles of food. So, but thank you Parimer for carrying me for years in the game. And Jessica gave me so much food over the months too. Yeah, so I can cook up to level 30 now. And that’s fun. And I’m still leveling up dancer. And actually, I’m going to put you on the spot live during the episode Gene, are you going to come back to Final Fantasy 14 so that we can make this show what it was meant to be? Which is a Final Fantasy 14 official podcast?
I will consider it really depends on what my job situation is going to be. Once I get up to Massachusetts, because I don’t know what I know the Boston commute is considered a nightmare by some people. And that may suck away my gaming time.
Okay, well, I hope that that works out for you. That’s a big transition. And the reason I ask is I’ve just been looking at which of our episodes are the most popular for our listeners, and the Black Mage episode is up there out of everything we’ve done the last six months. It’s like, cool, clearly the thing that people wanted to hear us talking about. And there’s so many other classes. Can you imagine how long it would take us to cover just the classes in Final Fantasy 14?
Yeah, especially when you go past that. Only play. First classes. Are they still out there?
What do you mean?
I don’t know. I feel like you just called millions of people “Psychopath.”
No, there are some that for some reason, as they go through the game. They’re like, instead of going from Archer Bard, they like revert back and it’s like, oh, I only want to play Archer. And it’s like, what?
Oh, those people do exist. Yeah, I’ve played Dungeons with people where, for example, the tank might say, “Hey, you forgot your crystal.” Oh, yeah. And the person will type back. No, my roleplay I’m not a bard. I’m an archer. And I disagree with their point of view on their own character. You don’t have to use the magic moves or the music moves, I should say. Yeah, I mean, your arrows. Your arrows get so many awesome powers just by being a bard like, “keep the harp in your pocket. You don’t have to whip out your harp.” Gross. Okay, so, Jenny, did you play any games this week?
I did not. What did I do? I’m trying to think because I, oh, yeah, so I finished. I did really well with editing this past week, like, I’m pretty caught up and going away for the weekend to do more photo stuff. So, I won’t be playing for a few days. But yeah, I’m feeling really good about my edit key right now. It’s it feels great.
The Call to Adventure
Excellent. Well, let’s answer The Call to Adventure and get into our topic for the week. All right, this episode has been waiting to happen for two years in a couple of weeks. Because if anyone didn’t know, Jenny and I met, because at one point in time, I became the clinical director of a state association for problem gambling. And now we have people who are streaming, and getting lots of recognition and clicks for their streaming of website content. But these websites are gambling websites. So, the first thing I want to ask both of you is, “what do you think, you know, as a Twitch outsider, at least, about gambling issues?” Gene, what do you think about gambling and video games up to this point in your life?
I generally avoid the gambling. You know, a lot of talk is about, you know, these loot boxes full of cosmetics and useless junk. I’m not a fan of gambling for useless junk. So, my gambling would be like gambling for magic cards. It’s “slightly useful” compared to “not useful.”
But Gene, if I was playing Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius and I loaded up my account with $3,000 dollars’ worth of lapis crystals, so that I can try to get Cloud Strife on my team, which would be an amazing addition to the DPS characters on my main squad, isn’t that useful?
It so there’s, there’s all kinds of approaches to do those kinds of games mainly is that you? If you are patient, and not a lunatic, you can do everything in the game without spending a dime. It’s all about the patience. Because the games slowly just give you characters, you know, and it’s not like yeah, it’s only your you know, you’re a victim if you need Cloud now. But if you wait for like Christmas, where they hand out free units, you can get Cloud then.
Jenny, I love that. We have Jean here who has no mental health code of ethics. Called people. Losers, lunatics, psychopaths. I’m sitting here like nodding and saying that is so cool. Jenny, what do you think for yourself about the different ways gambling kind of creeps into our video game vibe and makes and becomes a possibility in our entertainment choices?
Well, my only experience with gambling with money was when we used to play Star Wars: The Old Republic. They had hyper crates which you can pay.
Like 4000 cartel coins?
Yeah, so you can pay for cartel coins and get, what were they called again?
Hyper crates.
Yes, hyper crates. That word just flew away. It just completely flew away from my brain. Anyway, so now I never paid for cartel coins. I never spent my in-game currency in that game. Like I’m not. That’s a pretty consistent characteristic for me.
So, what you’re saying is you stole your dad’s debit card. And bought hundreds of dollars of cartel coins?
No, never. No, I just accumulate it because every month you get a certain number of free cartel coins. Well not free. You pay for a subscription and it comes She has a certain number of cartel coins. So, if I were to log in right now, I’d probably have like 40 or 50,000 of those things.
Because you stayed subscribed, like four years after last time you logged in!
No, not four years, it was like a year. But yeah, I bought a couple of those. But I’d rather spend more cartel coins and get what I actually want or need, then hope that I get something amazing in a random box. But other than that, the only other experience I have with gambling is more so like gambling of my time. So trying to grind for like special mounts and stuff like that. And just hoping that the RNG gods are in your favor. Yeah, that’s more of my type of gambling end game.
Yeah, the RNG gods are dead. And I’m going to explain why.
I’m standing right here. So, I don’t know.
I don’t believe in you then. Okay, so I am an Internationally Certified Gambling Counselor. That is one of the main things that I’ve been doing since 2013. And that’s the treatment provider side that I don’t often have to tap so deliberately into when we’re doing the show, right. But if I had to guess how many hours of gambling issues I have provided treatment for at this point in my career, it’s over 5000 hours. And so, you know, we’re talking just with that one issue, and equal amount of experience as what you need for a masters and a doctorate degree. And here is tip number one for parents who have game players that they have spawned.
Every console has a password that you can set up for every transaction, you must authenticate with the password, meaning if your child has a Switch, an Xbox or PlayStation, Steam, whatever, it’s your choice to put your credit card on their account so that they can buy things. And for simplicity, you may choose to do that. But if you choose to do that, there’s another choice, which is: You know your password to use that card. If your seven-year-old knows that password, that was a choice. And I’m just going to say right now too many parents have brought their children to do treatment, saying hundreds and a few times 1000s of dollars got spent on these games with microtransactions and loot boxes. Because they wanted skins, they wanted a special weapon, they wanted a different color overcoat, they wanted an emote. And they weren’t getting it the first time or the 21st time or the 51st time. And you start out buying small amounts because you think “mom and dad are going to notice that charge. It’s $4.99 But then you realize it’s a better deal to do the $49.99 still not getting the emote, still not getting your fancy weapon. Still not getting Cloud in your epic, Final Fantasy – best team of all time. And, you know, even the game that I’m playing right now, WWE 2k22 has a My Faction mode where you pick four male wrestlers, and four female wrestlers and you assemble a squad just like what I’m talking about in Final Fantasy. And Gene, you mentioned, the main way that I get my new cards for that lineup is you very slowly earn points to buy one pack at a time. And speaking of The Game, I really wanted Triple H on my team. For months they released a D-Generation X pack which ironically had X-Pac in it during the summer and I really wanted Triple H. I really wanted Shawn Michaels and I wanted them to be two of my four on my main squad. And it took me about 20 packs to get Triple H and I still don’t have Shawn Michaels. Even with everything I know about gambling, I think about, “Do I have $40 to buy a 10 count of packs? And I don’t? Well, I have the $40. I don’t buy the 10-box of packs, right? You know, it’s like, I’m going to just keep spending my points until I have Shawn Michaels on my team. And I think that the reason I can make that choice is because I really strongly believe delayed gratification is awesome. I strongly believe direct transactions instead of chance-based transactions are the right thing to do. And I don’t like gambling, it’s, it doesn’t cause a dopamine release. For me, it makes me really cranky. But I know 1000s of people where it is the best feeling they can remember having.
Yeah.
So, on Twitch, we have some really big name, streamers that are just going on to gambling websites and streaming what happens and you’re collecting these people that eventually might come to someone like me for help. And you’re giving them their fun time on your Twitch channel. And you’re benefiting implicitly from spreading, you know, intrusive thoughts about gambling activity for the gain of your channel.
And it’s not just, you know, it’s not loot boxes, its straight up gambling.
Yes. Slot machines, dice games, and roulette wheels. And so, these are actual, you know, there’s different classes of gambling games. And so, you know, Blackjack is reserved for a certain class of casino license, dice games. And the way that a lot of places in our country get around that is they put boats out on bodies of water. And so, you cross that line in the water where the jurisdiction of land authority ends. And you can play these games until you cross back into that line where you’re approaching land. But if you’re using a website from overseas, legislation has not caught up to shut them down, because now we’re dealing with an international incident. And that’s a lot of resources to put into shutting down a website.
So, have any of you ever had to? Well, Jenny? If it’s okay, you’ve done as many crisis line talks with gamblers, as I’ve done therapy sessions at least.
Yeah, I worked for that agency for 10 years.
I mean, what do you think about the gambling websites that are based overseas?
I don’t know that I really have an opinion on the websites themselves. I just know that it’s a problem for a lot of people. And it’s I’ve heard and seen firsthand what it can do to your life. If you’re struggling with that. And it’s pretty devastating. And it’s one of those addictions that there aren’t really many physical indicators that someone your life might be going through that. So it’s kind of a silent type of addiction where a lot of times until it gets really bad. People don’t know that you have the problem.
Yeah, just like the two of you don’t know what my bank account is that you see me smiling. You assume that what I said about Shawn Michaels is true. And that I’m not burning all my money on D-Generation X in WWE 2K22. But if I was, you wouldn’t know.
It’s not like your eyes are bloodshot or, you know, I can’t tell.
Yeah, I mean, you can probably assume that I haven’t gotten him yet because I’m not like walking around with my wrists crossed telling you “I have two words for you!” But I think that we’ve really covered some of the starting points. I have one more anecdotal story at least that I want to share before the episode ends. But the Twitch stance on this I’m not going to read the names of these websites because they don’t deserve to be a part of the gaming personas history. But on October 18, Twitch is prohibiting streaming certain gambling sites that have been identified as oh, what’s, what’s the word when you’re, like? Predatory? Yeah, predatory online gambling. So hopefully, Twitch gets a little bit less fun in the dumb way, and a little bit more fun in the best way, in the middle of October.
The Road of Trials
So, let’s go on the road of trials where we face our challenges and discover our strengths. All right, there is so much mental health content that I’ve packed into this section. And I just have a feeling it’s not going to happen, because we have a hard stop tonight. And basically, there are two sets of concepts I’ve put in the notes for today for us to at least acknowledge, there’s the criteria for gambling disorder. And if you are a mental health professional with listening to our show, hopefully you have your own copy of the DSM-5-TR and can look up gambling disorder, it is a non-substance based addictive disorder, as classified in the manual, meaning a lot of people that want to start understanding if addictions can be something not related to a drug or a drink, they start learning about gambling. That’s how I got into learning about this and specializing in it. And like Jenny said, you don’t see all the criteria, because all the physical symptoms and heart stopping problems. Those are triggered by the chemical side of a drug. So with gambling, you get all the behavioral mistakes of a drug addiction, but you don’t get the heart exploding or heart restricting errors in the biology of your system. And as a result, you don’t die. At the same point in the problem as drug users do you keep living and money is everything in our country, it is the primary motivation that people agree to respond to in society. And that is the fuel for this problem. So there are four phases in the form of colorful boxes on our show notes. I just want to talk about those because this is where it gets really relatable for people who are not treatment providers. You don’t need a DSM-5 to understand this. And it explains why we get so excited to put our money down on the line, like a title match for big chances of payout. So Gene, I’m going to nominate you to start us off on this quest chain of gambling progression. What is the green box?
It is the winning phase, and then the winning phase, the person gambles infrequently and socially. They occasionally win. This leads to more playing and developing a tolerance for gambling and risk and they begin to fantasize about the opportunity of more gambling.
Gene, you mentioned Magic: The Gathering to me either before we hit record or at the beginning of the episode, right? Yes. Have you ever had a box opening or a pack opening and magic that felt like a huge win to you?
Yeah, there’s definitely been so I’ve mentioned.
Did you hear his voice Jenny?
That was pretty high pitched.
Yeah, so I’ve mentioned before where I enjoy the draft format, or this more or sealed draft is some places to call. So the one of the exciting components of the seal draft is that you don’t know what you’re going to get and the cars that you get is there you pay an entrance fee use get whatevs and if you’re not invested in just play it collecting the cards and playing competitively one of these cards you can you get could be very well valuable enough to profit you from so you’re, you pay 20 bucks to play in this sale drifts situation, you sell a car back to the to the store for 30 bucks. You made money and you had a great time.
Yeah, so you’ve already logic-ed to your way out of the problematic side of this. If you go into it with the idea that I’m willing to sell the things that I get out of it, just so that I can participate in it, then that un-gambler-fies a lot of the “gambly” kinds of things.
Yeah, I’ve acknowledged that I will never be the kind of person that pays, you know, over $1,000 to get a meta deck. Like that’s, that’s not in my lifestyle.
Yeah, when you educated me about how this works, three or four episodes ago, you told me that their turnaround on new metas and new decks coming out is like three months.
Yeah, I mean, there are certain formats of games, like there’s a format called like legacy, where it’s like, whatever code was ever coded or in the history of magic, but then those cards, those decks become like 10s of 1000s of dollars, because it’s like, oh, yeah, this car has been printed since 1990. You know?
Yeah. It’s like when you play any kind of multiplayer online match, and you have nothing leveled up. And everyone’s one shotting you because they’ve been playing since the game launched seven years ago. Yeah, you can’t enter the community unless you just enjoy being there to lose. Oh, that’s so sad. Jenny, while I deal with my sadness? Can you read the yellow box?
Sure. Next phase is losing phase.
You’re killing me.
You’re welcome. So during this phase, the gambler typically gambles alone. Their personality might change. They might become irritable, restless, a little withdrawn, they start losing care for their family and for work. And losses might cause some financial problems.
Yeah, so winning is great. It’s enjoyable, dopamine is associated with it. And in my opinion, when I’m talking to someone who has just won and maybe hasn’t done it a lot, for example, you know, any kind of card opening kind of game, whether it’s baseball cards or Magic, I’ve talked to both in therapy, and when they’ve had an amazing, surprisingly good week, they feel like they have figured it out. Like this is now a skill that they can call upon when they decide to buy a certain pack at a certain store every third Wednesday, because they believe the orangey got like they have Jenny’s phone number basically. And they text her all the time. Yeah. And you’re telling them where to go Jenny? No, not actual Jenny like the RNG gods that people believe in? Yes. And that’s not how it works. You’re just as random to be, you know, you’re randomly going to be unlucky, so much higher of a percentage than you’re randomly going to be lucky. So the losing phase sets in, you know, even if it’s 99% to 1%, that’s so much losing. Yeah. And, you know, the things like the lottery, things like slot machines where you have to post your odds, they’re not a 1% chance of winning. They’re a millionth of a percentage to win, and wins are not jackpots. There are so many other things that count as win that are not the big flashy one on the billboards. So you are guaranteed to lose if you continue playing. This has been your message of optimism from Dr. Gameology, Continue the Journey!
So after the losing phase if you continue because you’re now experiencing financial problems. Now you start considering well what if I don’t pay my electricity, my car payment, my mortgage on time? I’ll just wind it back out. You know, you’ll Magic the Gathering yourself into having the comic store pay you out to leave your box opening. And that’s not going to work either you enter the desperation phase, people start to notice that you’re a bit odd about your money and you’re scheming and where the heck are you. So your reputations affected people are concerned about you your answers, they ask how you’re doing. They’re asking if you need any help, and your answers suck to all those questions because you can’t tell the truth. Because you’re afraid people think you’re ridiculous. And so then you get into blame and panic, and you need to win now. You know, you need to win $1,000 today, because you’re $900 in the hole and you haven’t paid your light bill in full for seven months. You know, you keep lying to them to get it turned back on for 48 hours, and it’s not going to work this time. So that’s the desperation phase. And it gets worse than that. It gets bleak. It gets to a territory I don’t like talking about in The Gaming Persona Podcast, it’s the hopelessness phase. This is where thinking about ending your life occurs, getting arrested occurs, getting a drug problem, to numb how devastating the gambling problem has become. And it’s just torture.
So I’m not saying that the streamers have this problem, who were playing roulette wheels and dice games on their channels. I’m saying that the casual perspective that this is just fun, is reckless, towards people that maybe will choose to watch your channel. But now they’re mentally having a completely different experience on your channel than you are being the one dealing out the entertainment. Yeah, you know, it’s, it’s just not a good look. It’s people that don’t understand this problem and what it does to people showing this to people who don’t fully understand this problem and what it does to them. Yeah, it’s turning Twitch into something that wasn’t meant to be, in my completely professional and informed opinion, (World). So, see, I’m arguing with the entire world now.
Yeah, and another aspect of this that’s like, really, probably super bizarre is that, you know, with the way Twitch streaming works, people just randomly drive by and just throw money at you, you know, or at least the big streamers, those get donations, get bits, whatever. And so they could just learn like and some of these big-time donators, you know, they’re donating like, oh, yeah, here’s 50 gifts up every stream. It’s like, I don’t know how you have this much money. But this is what you do. And so you get the, you’re throwing gas onto the fire of one of these gambling streamers. Here is just $50, play dice.
Yeah. Yep, that’s absolutely true. Any money that was not expected and diligently planned for in the mind of a person who gambles becomes gambling money. It’s not bill money; it’s not “pay back my friends and family money.” It’s, you know, “I deserve this.”
The Ascent
So let’s go on The Ascent and elevate the topic. So I found one article that takes this idea in video games and goes beyond loot boxes. And so we have a list of different behaviors that have been identified in different treatment studies to be associated with either problem gambling, or a level of gaming that is now affecting the quality of your life. So I just want to have us read back and forth through the list. Talk a little bit about each one, and then finish this. So you’d like to read off the first one or two.
I’ll start. So the first one they list is eSports Betting and loot box spending.
One of the things I didn’t know when I was getting ready for this episode is how prevalent Esports Betting is on games like DotA 2 or tournaments that have that MOBA style, competitive gaming and how the money that goes back and forth over who’s going to win or who’s going to score the next point or you know, different things having to do with efficiency and domination during the match. and I barely understand how MOBAs work. So that is something else. To me. It’s like what happens in an NFL game. But people are watching teams of highly trained, dedicated video game players has a very strong correlation with a gambling disorder kind of issue. So we’ve talked about loot box spending a lot this episode.
Sure. Social casino play. And then real money video gaming.
I guess real money video gaming would be “Gene, I’m going to play a game of Street Fighter 5 with you and whoever wins gets 50 bucks.”
I think that’s right. I mean, it sounds right. But I don’t know there’s actual some games out there where you play for real money. They’re, they’re kind of rare in the US. But it’s like, like those stupid. Those things you see at some arcades where you drop tokens in and you help the pile of tokens fall and you get a million tickets.
Oh, Dave and Busters games?
Yeah. I don’t know if those are real money games, but it certainly could be because some of them actually do have dollars in there.
I mean, as far as how my bank account feels, I think Dave and Busters is a real money video game. They don’t give your real money back to you at the end of the evening.
Yeah. Or maybe that’s token wagering. That’s next up on the list. I don’t know the difference actually. Now.
Oh, yeah. Token wagering, and then we have all the watching one. So I’ll just cover this in one go watching loot boxes. This is huge on YouTube. In fact, I did afford a Mental Health Counselor Association presentation one year, where we spent 10 minutes watching a solo tour player opened a hyper crate. And I did commentary during the video of his emotional flow. As he reacted to the Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum items, he actually opened two packs in a row that had platinum weapons, and those weapons monetarily are worth 30 or $40 of coins just by themselves if you do a direct sale, so he was exhibiting the winning phase, live on YouTube. And, you know, little me taking gambling issues super seriously is explaining this to people who don’t play video games, but do offer treatment sessions and wouldn’t know what they’re looking at. Yeah. So watching loot boxes live and prerecorded and watching gambling activity, live and prerecorded. So you know, there are ways to do some of this in a in a healthy way. And some of it, you say it’s healthy, and you’re just making excuses. And some of it actually is it really just depends on the person and the reality objectively of what they’re trying to say. But if you’re trying to convince someone of something, you know how it looks on the outside. And if you have to justify something, you know that there’s a weakness in how you would defend your position. You still might be right, I’m just pointing out some hard truths to help people look in the mirror and if you are one of those mental health professionals, maybe help people look themselves in the mirror more effectively because gamblers are they have such a high charisma stat. No, for real, it’s easy to believe them. Until you learn that you can’t trust anyone you know, DTA like stone cold, Steve Austin said. Yeah, like they’re trying to trick you. So that your guidance on what is healthy and unhealthy with the way you rely on random number generation, those RNG gods if they get you to believe in them, they don’t have to be accountable. And, you know, I don’t think the people that were streaming this stuff on Twitch, know what the heck we’re talking about. Yeah. And that’s the problem. Most people don’t, most people don’t. That’s right. I also just want to talk about foreign websites and gambling. This is my final story tonight. I had a player who was doing therapy with me once relapse, and he won $15,000 playing an online poker game in one of these online websites that are not based in our country, if they’re not based in our country, you can’t sue them. And so he has $15,000 worth of credit, and he wants to cash out. So they start sending him because it has to go through customs and get deposited into a United States bank, the money starts going all over the place in shady ways, and getting deposited into his account in $200 increments. But not exactly 200. Because if it’s 200, every time the government will notice, so it’s like $170.93, then $182.45, then $199.97. And they’re spaced out every five weeks, six weeks. So what they’re wanting you to do is become bored. Forget about delayed gratification, and just play more poker and lose it. And he did. He couldn’t hold out and get I mean $15,000 $200 at a time every five weeks like he’d probably still be getting those checks.
That would take this is a long time to get there.
Yeah, this. This is a long time ago in my career for me to tell a story like this. And there’s no there’s no identifying detail or anything like that it could happen to everyone. But the websites game was shady, the money was not real. And if they would have actually had to pay him out that money, they probably would have been having a problem. And so you just give a person who Gamble’s the option to, why don’t you just gamble more? You know, that’s why free play exists. That’s why Sign up today and get 200 Free tokens. And, you know, even with fantasy sports that whole if you have a commercial where you put in tiny words at the bottom, this is not a gambling site. You’re a gambling site. So yeah, that’s my ascent here is, you know, video games have a coupling now with gambling activity. And we just got to be careful because the goal is to have fun, but fun should not ruin your life.
The Return
So, let’s go on The Return him get back to our daily lives to take the next step forward. So Jenny, and Gene thanks for being a part of this coming with me on this journey and talking gambling and video games just a little bit for the first time ever in our show’s history. What are you taking with you into the coming week?
Um, whenever we have these kinds of conversations, I always like to just make sure people know that there’s help out there. We mentioned the beginning of our conversation that Dale and I met working at an agency that helps people with these kinds of issues. So there is a national hotline, you can call there are meetings, that you can go to 12 Step programs or therapy, depending on your state, each state has different types of resources. So help is out there. If you are feeling like this is something that might be an issue for you. There are people out there that dedicate their lives to this kind of cause.
Absolutely, there is also a newly launched crisis number for mental health issues that is 988. And if your problem specifically is a gambling related issue, you can call 1-800-GAMBLER, and that will route you to resources in your state. Or at least whatever state you lived in when you were a teenager and got a cell phone.
The minds to say random question, is there such a concept as a I don’t know, a controlled gambling addict? Like say a person really has a problem, but I don’t know their handler their parent only like gives them 100 bucks to gamble with every week and that is download away.
Yes, responsible gaming is actually at tactic, there are companies built around resources for that, where the goal is not abstinence, it’s just don’t become homeless, and show up to work and pay attention to people you supposedly love once in a while. And I mean, I guess pay attention once in a while or you love them once in a while, we can debate that on a different episode. So yeah, I mean, the abstinence versus harm reduction model, it’s like nature versus nurture. But for people who like to argue about addictions, instead of, of the nature of humanity. So that could be a topic somewhere in season three of our show if we need to do it. You know, I think that was a great question, Jean, I’m glad it’s, it’s there for people to think about, I have had a lot of people in treatment that actually are not aiming for abstinence, it’s never going to happen for them. They’re pessimism, not mine. And, you know, if I sit there and try to force them to do a treatment goal they are looking for, that’s actually countertransference. That’s not ethically what I’ve been asked to do, by my code, of how I do my job. And that’s an important thing for treatment providers to understand as well. But I think at the end of it, too, I do represent the perspective of people who play video games stream on Twitch, and I’m a licensed counselor, and I think that’s what this whole episode was about is just having a credible voice from every direction, entering the conversation, and giving people something to listen to. I’ve created the state trainings for counselors in Florida and Arizona for gambling issues. At this point, every state that I’m licensed in, I built the state training for this. So you know, I’ve seen a lot of opinions on Twitter and other social media this week that have the right intention, but they’re not sticking the landing. So including possibly Twitch oh am a Twitch affiliate until they hear this episode. I have one last quest for everyone to collect for the day. Be the version of yourself you can be proud of and
Continue The Journey!
Important Links
- @DrGameology – Twitch
- Apple Podcasts – The Gaming Persona
- Spotify – The Gaming Persona
- Google – The Gaming Persona
