Originally Posted by
redietz
Excellent article. I recommend every visitor to this forum read it. The key points made by Nelson Rose include (1) your level of skill playing the "social games" offered by CET or MGM determines the payback since the program makes adjustments to hook you, (2) the games are identical to casino games, but with higher paybacks that may affect your perception of the return when you sit at the real casino games, and (3) sites make a profit from those not patient enough to wait for free chips, which also trains you to pay for play.
Professor Rose has done every reader a service with this easy-to-read article. I can further recommend the book, Addiction by Design by anthropologist Natasha Schull, for an in depth look at what people face when dealing with video poker and other casino machine games.