Free Online Blackjack No Download

Free Online Blackjack No Download

All over the world blackjack is an extremely popular game. Whether you are an expert or an amateur, we all have more or less a vague idea of ​​the ins and outs of this game. However, the most seasoned players know it, playing blackjack is not as simple as it seems. appears.

So how do you play blackjack online? How to finally win at blackjack? Where to find the best free online blackjack games? If you are asking yourself all these questions, you have found the right article. We explain everything from A to Z!

Our experts even reveal the strategy to follow to ensure you win! What more?

How to play free blackjack online?

Before you can start playing blackjack online for free, you need to know how to play, and therefore know the rules of blackjack! The fact that Blackjack is a game of chance does not prevent it from having strict rules. If you are already lost, don’t worry, we explain very simply how to start free blackjack.

Learn Blackjack: Rules

The goal of blackjack is to obtain a combination of cards as close as possible to 21. Without exceeding this number and having a score higher than that of the “bank”.

The cards are dealt by the croupier and all have their own value. Knowing the value of blackjack cards is important for playing at the casino:

Map Card value
ace The value of this card is left to the discretion of the player. Thus, it can be worth 1 or 11 points.
Heads (Kings, Queens, Jacks)  These cards are all worth 10 points.
Numbers (from 2 to 10) Each of them is worth the number displayed on the card. In fact, the 2 diamonds are worth 2 points.

As we have specified, the goal is therefore to get as close as possible to 21 without exceeding it. Because in the case of overrun, the player loses his bet which is recovered by the bank.

In addition, when you play blackjack, once you have your first cards in your hand, you will have the possibility of playing by performing 5 different actions:

Stock Description
Hit – Draw a card You can request as many additional cards as you wish. However, if the total exceeds 21 you lose your bet.
Stand – Stay You “pass” in a way, you keep your game as it is.
Double – Double In this case, your initial bet is multiplied by two and you also receive an additional card which will be kept on the carpet face down.
Split – Share This action is only possible if you have a pair in your hand. In this case, you can separate the cards, and assign the two separate games a similar bet.
Surrender – Abandon You simply discard your cards and get half of your original bet back – this option is only available in the US version.

How to Play a Free Online Blackjack Game

It can be interesting to know how the game of blackjack will go before playing it. Indeed, preparation is always the key whatever the game! Here is what you can expect in a game of blackjack:

Step 1 Start by finding your table, whether you’re in a land-based casino or even a live gaming lobby. Even if it means having a good time, you might as well do it in good company, right?
2nd step You will then need to start by placing a bet on the table
Step 3 It is then up to the dealer to distribute the cards to the players. He deals them their first two cards, face up. 
Step 4 Once all the players have been served, the dealer deals a single card, also uncovered.
Step 5 It is time to set up the basic blackjack strategy in order to know what action you are going to take. As a reminder, you have the choice between 5 options:

  • Shoot
  • Stay
  • Double
  • To share
  • To abandon
Step 6 When each player’s turn has passed. The dealer ends up using a card again. The outcome of the game follows:

  • If the bank is closest to 21, it wins the bets of all players who have not jumped during their turn.
  • If a player is closer to 21 than the bank, then he wins.
  • If the bank goes over 21 this is called a “bank bust” and all players around the table are considered winners.

European / American blackjack: what are the differences?

Like the game of roulette, blackjack has two different versions. The European version was played in Europe. And the American version of blackjack is played in the United States and therefore in particular in Atlantic City or Las Vegas.

If the two blackjack games have the same goal, to beat the dealer, they also have some differences that are worth remembering:

European Blackjack American Blackjack
Distribution of cards The dealer deals 2 cards to each player and 1 to himself. The dealer deals 2 cards to each player and to himself. One of his cards remains face down
game rounds The dealer uses his second card last. This leaves the advantage to players who can make a blackjack before him. The croupier can check if he has a blackjack before giving the floor to the players. If he has a blackjack he wins the game except in case of a tie.
Abandonment Once he has bet, the player has an obligation to end the game and cannot give up. The player can surrender before or after the dealer has checked his second card and recovered half of his original bet.
“Double down” This scenario is only possible if your hand totals a number between 9 and 11. This option is possible regardless of the total of your hand in American blackjack.
The bank stops drawing Some casinos require their dealers to draw an extra if their hand totals 17 points. The dealer must “stand” and stop hitting if his hand totals 17 points.
Dealer Blackjack Payout If he makes a blackjack, the croupier wins all the bets of the players without exception. In the American version, if he makes blackjack the croupier wins only the initial bets of the players.

Free online blackjack basic strategy

What is the basic blackjack strategy?

As we have already said, winning at blackjack games is far from simply due to chance. Thus, some mathematicians and blackjack enthusiasts have developed a basic strategy. The principle is simple, it defines the action to be performed according to your hand and the dealer’s hand.

Reading the table is quite simple. The first line indicates the dealer’s hand. The first column indicates your hand. If we rely on this basic strategy, you will therefore need for example:

  • “Stand” if you have cards in your hand that add up to a total between 18 and 21, regardless of the dealer’s hand.
  • “Hit” if your cards total a number between 5 and 7. Unless the dealer has an Ace in his hand, in which case you will be advised to surrender.
    So you have understood the principle of basic blackjack strategy. So you can start playing free games at the casino of your choice.

    Learn Basic Strategy: Play Free Blackjack Games No Download
    This strategy, unlike counting blackjack cards, is allowed in online or land-based casinos. Note that it works better in “European blackjack” games and less well in “American blackjack” games.

    It is true that when you play a card game, especially in a casino, you appreciate its fluidity. Thus, consulting the strategy table before each action tends to irritate blackjack players at the table.

    And if you are a regular at the casino, this may frustrate you too! That’s why we advise you to start by playing a free online blackjack game to start!

    Here is a differential, grouping of the advantages and disadvantages of playing blackjack for free or playing it for real money :

Free Blackjack Real Money Blackjack
✓ On free games you can learn blackjack by taking your time ✓ If you love the casino vibe, playing for real money at an online casino will let you relive that
✓ Free blackjack games allow you to be able to set up strategies ✓ You can really win at blackjack thanks to the strategies you learn
✓ On a free blackjack game you don’t have to spend money to have fun ✓ The winnings you win in blackjack are in real money which is more interesting
✓ On a free blackjack game, you do not risk losing your real money bets ✗ The losses you suffer are unfortunately also in real money
✓ You can take bigger risks on a blackjack-free game without worrying about losses ✗ Since you are using your own money you will be able to take less risk when betting on the casino
✗ You cannot win real money bets on blackjack free games ✓ You can register at an online casino offering access to the best online blackjack game software

Free online blackjack games

If you’ve done some research, you know there’s no shortage of free online blackjack games. Like the rest of casino games, such as slot machines, roulette, or video poker, they are popping up all over the internet.

To ensure you have fun without having to look any further, we offer a selection of games and websites to play blackjack for free.

Best Free No Download Blackjack Games

Do you want to play blackjack online? Here are the best free games of the moment:

Ranking game name Game developer
1 Multihand Blackjack  Pragmatic Play
2 blackjack Wazdan
3 Ruby Classic Blackjack Microgaming

The fact that you can switch to paid mode after testing this or that application is a real advantage. Indeed, it increases your chances since you already master the free version of the game of blackjack.

Moreover, these free games are developed by extremely popular developers. It is therefore certain that you will be able to play it at your favorite casino. You don’t have a casino where you can play blackjack? Read on…

Where to play free blackjack online? The best online casinos

As a general rule, if you don’t know where to play online casino games, all you need to do is register at an online casino. Indeed, this type of establishment offers all the games found in a land-based casino. And even more, because video slots are much more efficient

So, to play blackjack online choosing a casino is a really good idea! Here are our favorite casinos:

Each casino of this top has the advantage of offering a free mode or demo mode. That is to say that the casino offers to offer free access to the games on its website and to test the casino for free. This access is also unconditional. No need to pay or download! Of course, you can also take advantage of no-deposit bonus casinos.

Playing at an online blackjack casino has several advantages:

  • Free access to the best free online blackjack games
  • Secure platform (no virus risk)
  • Diverse game offer in one place
  • No need to switch sites if you want to play for real money afterward
  • You can then register and benefit from a generous welcome bonus

Once registered, you can play with a live dealer in the live casino

Gambling Male

Gambling male

Gender is an important topic in contemporary gambling studies, not only given the underestimation of female gambling. Excess and utility, on the contrary, are not, or to be more precise, have been subsumed and then concealed by psychiatric and economic language, the former (excess) being referred to as a problem, compulsive, or pathological gambling, and the latter (utility) reduced to the behavior of the economic gambler, a person who plays with the rational intent of making a profit.

Excess is, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, ‘an amount that is more than acceptable, expected, or reasonable.’ An extent or amount which is immoderate and extreme, which goes beyond what is socially prescribed and results in what is proscribed or explicitly forbidden by shared values of a certain society, if not by formal norms. When used as a noun, it is synonymous with extra. Excess cannot be referred to without implying a connection to the extreme.

Excess Gambling

A better understanding of the notion of excess requires a brief consideration of what is usually understood to be its opposite, namely utility. After being recast in Darwinian evolutionism as the idea of survival utilities and in Marx’s emphasis on useful labor as the mainspring of the human condition, the principle of utility remains of crucial importance in contemporary thought. Utilitarianism is a theory which considers the best action to be the one that is best able to maximize utility.

It is based on Bentham’s notion of utility as ‘that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness’. According to research, even while criticizing utilitarian theory, did not break with the idea of slavery to utility and rationality as forces driving human action.

The principle of utility has not been radically challenged in contemporary mainstream sociology either, creating a juxtaposition between utility and excess where the latter notion is seen as a negative phenomenon to be contained. No example is more appropriate than the German sociologist Beck’s analysis of excess in terms of calculation of risk and security. In coining the term ‘risk society’ he referred to dangers created by globalization such as radioactivity, pollution, and unemployment, issues capable of generating concern in people from all classes, and, consequently, strategies to insulate oneself from these risks.

The contemporary age offers a variety of examples of the rise of excess. These are not confined to cases of extremism inspired by religion or ideology but instead are embodied in the everyday behavior of people. They include political populism which leads to the election of excessive leaders such as Donald Trump or an excessive and ultra-conservative reaction to socio-political problems (voting for Brexit or supporting xenophobic and anti-European parties).

The excessive power of Internet oligopolies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google should also be mentioned, with their collection and ownership of an excess of data, a more apt term instead of the polite scientific language which calls the enormous amounts involved Big Data.

Today’s art market and the art auction world, providing an arena in which huge sums of money can be blatantly consumed, offer another apt illustration of hyperbolic exaggeration.

‘At times it has appeared,’ researcher notes, ‘that excess, rather than utility, has become the dynamic of contemporary social transformation, that the endless pursuit of utility has driven society into excess’. If we limit our argument to the examples listed above, it is no surprise that the supporters of Trump, Brexit, and Marine Le Pen view the output of their favorite as rational definitions of economic and social issues.

Due to the lack of concern shown by users when they provide information about themselves while pursuing personal utilities, including the construction and maintenance of social networks of friends and creating an appealing online persona to promote their own activities and skills, Facebook is allowed to act as ‘the biggest surveillance-based enterprise in the history of mankind’. This is why ‘utility and excess must not be conceived as binary oppositions, as mutually exclusive’.

Gambling is an apt terrain for an investigation of the controversial relationship between utility and excess. On the one hand, gambling is a phenomenon characterized by many nuances ranging from excess in problem and pathological gambling to recreational activity, a socially acceptable behavior.

On the other hand, it highlights a moral definition of excess whereby gamblers who have ‘lost control’ are labeled as pathological, yet the term used by the state when increasing the possibility to gamble, through more games, more gaming sites, and an increased frequency of extractions, is legalization.

Gambling, then, reveals that excess is declared or not depending on the agent who exceeds. I term this the social hierarchy of excess gambling. Losing is a noble action when performed by wealthy classes as a form of ostentatious expenditure through games of skill that assume that players are skilled, while it is ignoble when associated with lower socio-economic groups addicted to ‘games of chance.’

According to the researcher’s vision of excess, the modern calculation of utility is not able to provide a full sense of existing as a human being. The market economy acts as the ideological framework legitimating utility as a principle of social action; manifestations of excess are discouraged, if not explicitly limited.

The researcher’s attention focuses in particular on unproductive and profitless expenditure. In his influential essay, The Notion of Expenditure, the French intellectual sees utility as theorized by classical approaches to be something to be aimed at because it provides pleasure, ‘but only in a moderate form since violent pleasure is seen as pathological’. If this material pleasure is reduced to acquisition and conservation of goods, its role is that of a concession instead of a diversion. It is tolerated when productive, or at least when it does not conflict with productive and utilitarian needs.

Non-productive expenditure

is identified as the opposite of any rational consumption, and consequently denied and stigmatized. But, as ‘human activity is not entirely reducible to processes of production and conservation’, unproductive expenditure remains a part of the behavior of any social agent.

The researcher’s list of ‘useless’ activities includes ‘luxury, mourning, war, cults, the construction of sumptuary monuments, games, spectacles, arts, perverse sexual activity (i.e., deflected from genital finality)’. Unproductivity, in these examples, lies in the lack of ends and the enormity and irrationality of the loss. As to gambling, cited early by the author, ‘the loss of insane sums of money is set in motion in the form of wagers’, so that gamblers are led to losses disproportionate to their possessions.

What they betray is the utilitarian faith in the principle of balanced accounts. This faith claims to compensate for expenditure with an acquisition. Excess gamblers destroy and do not create any capital, winning is merely a result of either accidental or statistically unlikely action whose expected consequence is losing. The win is the apparent utilitarian goal of a process where the economic rationale is achieved only from the perspective of the cashier, in line with the refrain ‘the house always wins,’ and not from that of the bettor. Fighting a perpetual battle to balance previous losses, ‘players can never retire from the game’ and are ‘at the mercy of a need for limitless loss’.

There is no doubt that unproductive expenditure may be viewed as functional if, in a sociological framework, it is interpreted as an ostentatious form of leisure class consumption. This is the type of gambling accurately described by Dostoyevsky in The Gambler, where the money wasted by the aristocracy and wealthy classes is a means of displaying their fortune.

However, the rise of gambling in recent decades has mainly affected the middle and lower socio-economic groups, where the Veblenian-flavoured ostentatious loss is replaced by a different form of profitless expenditure. Such an excess represents, for these consumers of the entertainment industry, both a trap and a symbolic revolt. Many scholars and journalists denounce gambling as a trap because they claim that lower socio-economic groups are ‘deceived’ by a coalition between the State and commercial concessionaires.

This alliance has created a marketable to exploit the citizen’s desire for social and economic redemption through the chance of a better life paid for by a scratch card or a coin inserted into a gaming machine. Actually, the word ‘deception’ risks becoming misleading here as it implies that these groups neither recognize nor understand the mendacity that lies at the base of the gaming industry, and the promise of a state of well-being that cannot be attained. It would be more correct to state that it is an ideological trap where gamblers continue to lose money and to take pleasure in it precisely because they know exactly the system works. As the researcher points out, ‘knowledge has very limited power to unsettle ideology’ and its efficiency in material and everyday practices.

Gambling, in its extreme, compulsive, and pathological forms, is also a revolt, it enhances a rebellion because it represents a direct challenge to the value of money and to the rational principles of the homo oeconomicus.

Places of Excess

Excess gambling in the form of the researcher’s non-productive expenditure takes place behind closed or partially closed doors (gambling halls, hidden corners of public bars). This spatial separation may support the idea that excess has disappeared from public space – or at least that the designers of those spaces try to confine excess to a more private sphere.

The word ‘designer’ is used here, in the broad sense and includes those social agents who contribute to the establishment of both the structural features and the social meaning of the space.

This means not only the gaming industry professionals responsible for the architecture of the rooms, the creation of gambling environments where both light and sounds are studied to lock the gambler in a timeless bubble, the design of the machines and the elaboration of the game schemes able to create a compulsive relationship between the individual and the machine, but also legislators who design regulations inspired by the protection of public health (for example, the placement of video lotteries in an area inaccessible to minors and separate from the non-gambling public, or the use of opaque glass to obscure the ‘dangerous’ behavior from public view).

Within the public space of a bar or a store, a private zone is created for compulsive games like slot machines, while what is perceived as ‘recreational gambling’ may take place openly. The designers seem to be concerned that the privacy and habits of certain categories of gamblers are protected from scrutiny and that the public role of a person does not include the exhibition of addiction to machines. The boundary between the public and private realms, progressively removed over the last century, is artificially rebuilt by the gambling industry through the architecture of the space.

To have contact with gambling as a real phenomenon, we must first access gambling sites. With this in mind, I conducted a three-month ethnography in 23 Milanese locations where gambling took place to learn about the world of gamblers by observing their activities, and to assess to what extent space can enhance excessive behavior.

Despite the popular image of the bright nightlife in Las Vegas, the contemporary gambling industry generates its main profits not in casinos but through a ubiquitous and capillary urban network of shops and corners where gambling has become a daily activity rather than an occasional and adventurous escape. This example naturally excludes the new online gaming industry – a world that is not investigated in this essay, but that is a prominent part of contemporary gambling.

This landscape is a product of the progressive legalization of gambling in most European states over the last 30 years. Its evolution in Italy may be divided into three-phase. The first involved a drawn-out childhood period from 1946 with the launch of schedina, a popular prognostic game based on football matches, followed in the mid-80s by a restricted gambling industry and a clear distinction between gambling venues such as casinos and racecourses, and places of daily contact, bars, and tobacconists for example, with little or no presence of games.

The second phase may be termed the unruly adolescence. This period of maturation was characterized by legalization and the progressive introduction of new games, including slot machines, video lotteries, and online products, until the beginning of the 2010s. The Italian normative model which emerged from this process is characterized by a strong presence of the State as a regulator, even if gambling is actually managed by private concessionaries within a competitive and government-licensed market. This is in effect a perfect example of the neoliberal alliance between the State and private companies, where the search for a mutual benefit has shaped legislation that other European countries are imitating.

This is the premise of the third and more adult phase, whose maturity is visible both in the economic structure of gambling (a flourishing industry supported by a State interested in maximizing fiscal revenues) and in the growing awareness of its social costs. The available data on incidence reveals that more than half (54%) of the general population aged 15-74 gamble at least once a year, while problem gamblers in Italy are estimated at between 1.3% and 3.8% of the population (767,000 to 2,296,000 adults), and pathological gamblers vary from 0.5% to 2.2% (302,000 to 1,329000 persons).

Anti-gambling organizations and local administrations are pressuring for a public debate on (and against) gambling, and the first restrictive law was presented by the Health Ministry in 2012, accompanied by regional laws approved by 16 out of 21 Italian local authorities (19 regions and two autonomous provinces) and aimed at combating the proliferation of gambling sites.

Gambling has become an everyday presence in Italy, especially after the legalization policies promoted by both center-left and center-right governments in the 1990s and in the 2000s, thanks to (or because of) two types of venues. Bars and tobacconists (BTs) are of the first type. Accessible to any member of the public, they are the most visible proof that gambling has become a ubiquitous phenomenon within consumer culture. The second are specialized outlets (SOs), such as Bingo halls, slot rooms, and betting rooms, and are locations devoted exclusively to gambling and forbidden to minors.

SOs do not contradict the trend towards the ubiquity and normalization of gambling as mainstream entertainment, since they are widely spread throughout both urban and rural areas. Far from being radically isolated from everyday reality, as casinos or racecourse are, they paradoxically make an escape from routine part of the daily experience. BTs licensed for the sale of games represent a hybrid environment in which the supply of food, beverages, and tobacco is found side-by-side with a range of lotteries, scratch cards, and bets.

Upon entering a BT, I often noted that the visual elements related to gambling (ads, walls full of scratch cards, corners with slot machines, etc.) were more prominently displayed than other goods and services sold by the shop. ‘It is only later that one understands that the site is also a tobacco store’, I wrote in one of my field notes.

It is true that SOs are recognizable from outside as sites for gambling, but at the same time, it is not possible externally to know the details of what is happening inside. Dark glass facades and solid walls prevent citizens from seeing gamblers and their activities.

This ‘protection’ means that passers-by are spared the sight of the actual gambling practices. However, such concealment creates an ideal environment for the excessive behavior of whoever is inside the premises.

The differences between BFs and SOs may also be highlighted in the following five juxtapositions:

BT disorder vs. SO maniacal order and cleanness

The former has an atmosphere of familiarity due to the coexistence of games, cafeteria, and tobacco products, together with a sensory hyper-stimulation through screens and loudspeakers tuned to a radio or sound source. In the latter, the space is extensive and has been organized in order to avoid overlapping or confusion between rooms dedicated to gambling and the refreshments areas.

The small spaces of a BT (with overlapping areas) vs. the expansive spaces of a SO

 The spatial organization in BTs requires consumers to interpret where the different closely placed services (gambling, food, tobacco) are, while SOs offers the freedom to circulate, inviting people to follow the shorter route to reach a specific product or service.

<h5>BT naturalness vs. SO artificiality. The chaos in bars appears synonymous with a natural and spontaneous environment. The artificial lighting, cautious design, and consistency with the brand image of the particular gambling concessionaire make an SO a space-separated completely from the flow of everyday life.

BT noise vs. SO silence

An analysis of auditory stimuli underlines the contrast between the raised voices and normal, day-to-day confusion of BTs and the aseptic extra-ordinary dimension of SOs. Here, sounds such as coins won in the slot machines sometimes interrupt the silence, but the background noises of city life are far away.

BT mobility vs. SO stability:

BTs are dynamic sites with consumers entering and leaving non-stop, while gamblers in an SO stay longer, move less, and remain focused on one activity at a time. This description is a necessary premise in order to clarify the spatial landscapes offered to gamblers and to make some assumptions on how the spaces of gambling may favor excess and profitless expenditure.

This seems to be possible in at least three ways. Firstly, BTs as highly diffused stores make gambling ubiquitous. They allow an everyday excess made of seemingly limited bets, whereby the regular monthly sum may be a considerable amount. For example, I observed during my research that it was common for many retirees to spend more than €30 on scratch cards every morning.

Secondly, SOs are constructed behind walls where playing is possible without the activity being visible from the outside. Social stigma is reduced and the passing of time is not perceived in these artificial places. They become ideal places for cultivating excess and are even more captivating when devoted to highly compulsive games such as slot machines and video lotteries. The third aspect is a transverse dimension to both categories. The adolescence of gambling noted above was characterized, among other features, by the diffusion of games with a higher payout frequency.

Lotto extractions take place three times a week instead of weekly, 10eLotto extractions occur every five minutes, and scratch cards and slot machines can be played at any time for an instantaneous win. In short, the games introduced or modified in the last 30 years have produced a shorter interval between purchase and win/loss, and subsequently between the first purchase and the next.

Dependency, in the form of a compulsion to gamble, is facilitated both by the availability of everyday opportunities to gamble and by the contexts capable of creating a kind of space-time bubble, a player’s isolation from the flow of daily life. This is particularly evident in the case of slot machines which are in an isolated location in the marginal areas of BTs and along the walls in SOs combined with structural features offering visual stimulation and the sound of coins falling during wins, capable of creating a completely immersive experience.

During my visit to a video lottery terminal site, a 65-year-old man sitting in front of a machine and holding a glass full of coins said ‘Call me at 11 o’clock, as I should go home to have lunch.’ His request to the shop owner demonstrated an awareness of his incapacity to maintain control, and the possibility of losing temporal cognition.

Biographies of Excess

If we assume that the observation of gambling sites is able to provide elements to understand how space can act as a facilitator of excess, then in-depth interviews with pathological gamblers may better illuminate players’ reasons and practices. Adrenaline is the most oft-cited word used to describe the relationship between a gambler and games, and it is linked to both well-being, excitement, and obsession.

If I don’t play I don’t feel well [laughs], it makes me feel good […] The competition, the adrenaline rush when I see the results in front of me.

As far as I am concerned, that is the reason to bet.

I liked playing because it was a challenge.

This adrenaline rush is surprisingly not linked to a state of full enjoyment. The emotions observed in gambling sites, both positive and negative, are always moderate and controlled. ‘When you win you feel satisfied, but not euphoric’, and when one loses there is a disappointment, not despair.

I have no happy memories of those afternoons in the bar because I always left upset because whether you win or always lose, you are never happy.

When I lost I felt a little bored, I wanted to change my life. I was so nervous and melancholic when I went home.

In any interviewee’s account, there is a moment where a behavior which appeared under control was subject to a progressive increase in frequency and number of bets, leading to a lack of control and separation from reality.

I remember when I started, I was at the Cascina Gobba [tube station], where the machines are. I had stopped for a coffee […] I paid €5 and they gave me €4 change. There was someone playing the machines and I heard ti-ti-ti-ti-ti and all these coins fell out. I said to myself “Why not? What the Hell do I care, it’s only €4.” I put the money in, and a Bonus came up. I didn’t even know what it was. It gave me €200! I said “This is better than working”, if this happens every day […] I went to the bar and cashed the €200 Bonus.

I put it into my pocket, went home, and felt satisfied with myself. The next day I left home and went again because I take the metro there every day. I saw the machine and changed €50 […] when I had finished I had won €200 plus what I had

in my pocket, another €150. At that point, I said to myself “Tomorrow I am coming earlier. I will give up work and come here.” That is how I started, coming every second day, and then I went somewhere else, and in the end, a huge hole had formed.

Similar stories mark the decline into excess gambling, an evolution that goes hand-in-hand with an alienation of the player who becomes totally immersed in a parallel universe.

I played the slots, I couldn’t even tolerate someone standing behind me.

I lived in another world and when I got home at night I was half-mad, I didn’t eat.

I lost all my friends, especially in the end when I went out only to play.

A player is alone […] When you enter the world of gambling nothing else exists, you don’t feel hungry, thirsty, you don’t go to the toilet, don’t drink, don’t smoke… At that point you no longer exist, you’re inside a shell. You play and that’s all.

The dimension of excess appears to function as a separate realm, at least at the beginning of the pathological phase. Evidence can be found in the interviewee’s accounts describing the clear separation between every day and professional life, and the time devoted to gambling.

I went to work as normal, [but as soon as] I left work I had my routine appointment.

I am a man people respect, I have 35 people who work for me and in 15 years I have never been accused of anything. But when I leave work I become another person.

A man who plays games of chance is a man with three personalities— his work persona, which is respected by his clients, [as well as] the man who gambles, […] and then there is the man who enters his home in the evening and has to account [to his family] for what he has done during the day.

However, in any story of excess gambling there comes a time when it is no longer possible to conceal the addiction, and the consequences for work and family begin to appear. The deterioration in family relationships ranges from the quality of everyday life (‘When you gamble online you become one with the PC, with your smartphone, the TV, and therefore you have no time for your children nor your wife, to separation from loved ones (the wife asks for a divorce, the children no longer speak to their father), not to mention lies and theft (‘I asked my mother for her ATM card to collect her pension and I stole the money,’ admitted a gambler.

Similarly, another gambler said ‘I was a signatory on my mother’s bank account, I took her money without telling her. Later I confessed because I was disgusted with myself.’) These gamblers suffered from feelings of complete failure and often regretted wasting their lives.

I threw away everything I have ever achieved as a man, as a carpenter, the faith everyone around me had in me. Perhaps I only imagine it, but I think that people now look at me very differently, I destroyed myself, I gambled away the chance to be a good father, which is what hurts most, I gambled away my chance to be a good husband.

The economic consequences are devastating. Every interviewed, without exception, reported debts of thousands of euro, mainly with banks and financial companies, together with an accumulation of other debts with private individuals (‘I get between 30 to 40 phone calls a day, from people who want money from me,’ Loss of business is another frequent issue in interviewees’ accounts.

We had a bar and we had to close because of the debts.

I am self-employed, I had a car transport business with my brother…

The problem began with the financial crisis in 2008, up until then gambling was just a pastime. [I told myself] I was playing to recover the money. […] It came to the point where my brother noticed that I was taking money that was not mine…it was the company’s money.

Excess gambling may also lead to health and psychological problems.

I was under so much stress that I had 2 heart attacks.

I also tried to kill myself, I was riding my motorbike and I closed my eyes.

For the purposes of this study, a gamblers’ relationship with money is of particular interest. Every interviewee remembered their fall into excess as strongly associated with a lack of control over money and its value. The inner logic of excess gambling lies exactly here— money is no longer perceived and used as money.

Gamblers are far beyond over-spending in an unproductive manner. The sums they spend/invest in gambling are undeniably disproportionate to their incomes. Moreover, a return to gambling after a significant loss does not serve the purpose of only recovering money, but rather that of rebalancing the account with the ‘fates’. The rational part of the gambler perfectly knows he has no statistical chance of winning against the bank, but his need for excess keeps his gambling.

[I understood I had gone too far] when I ran out of money! [laughs] Because when you are at it you don’t notice how much money you are spending, not even when it is €150 a day… Money has no value for you. There is no specific moment [when you understand you have lost control]. When you are immersed in it, it is as if you have been caught by an avalanche and you can’t fight your way out.

I remember one day that I had gone to finish up a job, and they paid me €1,000. On the way home I found a gambling hall, I won €900 with €30… I then went to the video lotteries and I lost everything… proof that I had lost all control. And then I had to pay a supplier and borrow the money to pay him.

I spent more than half of my salary.

I have had winnings of €3,000, 4,000 5,000, and in three days I had nothing left… if I had €100 in my pocket I wasted €100, if I had €1,000 in my pocket I would have wasted €1,000.

You never get the money back; you keep falling till you hit rock bottom. The biographies I collected illustrate a recurring process where economic problems, once discovered by family members, lead to a familiar crisis.

In parallel, the gambler is no longer able to hide his addiction from colleagues or employers, because the excess gambling begins to affect his performance in the workplace. Family and work complications make it obvious to the gambler that he has lost the control he thought he had over his gambling, and that a therapeutic pathway is needed to recover his social relationships.

What I have described in few lines is a process that develops over many years, a period during which the gambler becomes familiar with excess through the negation of the value of the money he has spent in an unproductive manner. This is an implicit negation of the utilitarian values which characterize a productive and capitalist society, one where profitless activities are regarded as dysfunctional for individuals and society as a whole.

Extreme Losers

Both excess and excessive gambling are cultural constructs where the definition is largely indebted to an epistemology of disease and disorder as used in psychiatry. In fact, the term ‘pathological gambler’ was introduced by the American Psychiatric Association in its 1980 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM-III, followed by two successive editions, DSM-IV and DSM-V), and is connoted by the presence of a set of ‘symptoms’ and measured through diagnostic tools.

Excess is an activity which may also have a further significance for our purposes. In the researcher’s interpretation, the excess is the result of the proliferation of the ideology of utility, a kind of reaction to the sovereignty of functional obligations.

Ours is a society founded on proliferation, on growth which continues even though it cannot be measured against any clear goals. An excrescential society whose development is uncontrollable, occurring without regard for self-definition, where the accumulation of effects goes hand in hand with the disappearance of causes. The upshot is gross systemic congestion and malfunction caused by hypertelia – by an excess of functional imperatives, by a sort of saturation.

In biology, hypertely is an extreme overdevelopment of an organ which then becomes disadvantageous and damaging to the animal concerned, an exaggerated degree of growth not explainable by the utility. the researcher coined hypertelia to describe the excessive degree of consumption and production not based on utility and observed within contemporary societies, where our needs and the objects we purchase to meet them are no longer related through their usefulness.

The paradox of excess gambling is grounded in its two-fold nature of entertainment and of reaction to utilitarianism. Gambling expanded within liberalized markets and became a mainstream leisure activity for consumers. It is also a response or backlash to the hypertelic profit and utilitarian mentality. Whereas the utilitarian ideology prescribes useful and profitable activities, to invest money despite the evident statistical probability of loss is an act of resistance to the values of utilitarian and capitalistic society.

Gambling may therefore be seen as a perfect example of the ‘insubordinate function of free expenditure’, as well as a form of sovereignty of the Self over social constraints. This sovereignty, which ‘constitutes the region formally exempt from self-interested intrigues to which the oppressed subject refers as to an empty but pure satisfaction’, reveals the unwillingness to submit oneself to the household economy through a feeling of superiority, a moment where instead of serving life, life serves the individual.

Curiously, excess gambling particularly demonstrates its potential as a tool of sovereignty in the most recent advertisement campaigns promoted by Italian gambling concessionaries, where the used keywords are ‘safety’ and ‘responsibility’ – an attempt by the industry to distance itself from the negative image of gambling.

Consumers find it difficult to trust current marketing trends which present ‘a whole series of products deprived of their malignant property: coffee without caffeine, cream without fat, beer without alcohol’ and gamblers do not believe in gambling without risk, nor the ‘decaffeinated’ representations offered by advertising.

On the contrary, they are eager to experience passion through excess and risk where individual forces are liberated in a state of excitation, rational laws of calculation are substituted by pseudo-rationality, unproductive values are created. Though it may seem a paradox, one true within the realm of intellectual argument and not linked with the reality of gambler behavior, gambling functions as a liberation from the constraints of a market economy, where individuals are dominated.

Pathological gamblers fail as citizens because they are not able to grasp the chances of personal growth offered by society, as husbands and parents because they cannot take care of their families, as consumers because they are unable to enjoy gambling as merely a form of pleasure and entertainment just as the commercial industry of gambling invites them to do. However, in extreme gambling, where the money is no longer money, a new sphere of action is created, excitation is freed and the illogical becomes logical.

The rational choice model underlying utilitarianism states that individual actions are the consequences of a motive. In line with this, excess gambling is irrational and, which is the same, immoral, both for an industrial society where it stands as an example of unproductive activity, and a post-industrial consumerist one where the dysfunctional gambler fails as a consumer. The difference lies in the attitude toward recreational gambling, which is tolerated in the latter but not in the former. Despite this, one might argue that excessive gambler is the ultimate consumer.

As the only thing a gambler does is consume, their behavior is in fact harmful to consumer society because they overspend rapidly to the point of bankruptcy, while the ideal consumer maintains an ability to spend over time.

A seductive image of a process to describe excess gambling is that of creative destruction, not in the economic sense of a process of industrial mutation that revolutionizes the economic structure from within, but as a desire to remove what came before in order to set up what will come next. Such a tension of opposing experiences, destructive and creative is typical of modernism and seems to act as the perversion of excessive gambling. An extreme behavior destroys wealth, through endless losses, to create the illusion of a world ruled by non-utility laws.

The interviewees illustrate this well when their debts have caused the failure of a family company or they have brought about their own destruction through non-stop slot machine gaming.

An approach oriented to viewing excessive gambling as an act of sovereignty also leads to a reconsideration of the notion of utility. Players appear to derive a form of pleasure while immersed in the act of gambling, despite the evidence of economic losses. This activity is deemed useless if the utility is measured in terms of the (catastrophic) consequences of the gambler’s behavior, but has usefulness if we take into consideration the utility of the whole process.

Gambling, in fact, may provide social rewards, such as prestige, in specific contexts where the excessive player measures themselves with other gamblers and, in the researcher’s dramaturgical terms, attempts to favorably impress others by demonstrating skill.

Masculine gambling, when excessive, creates an extreme loser, one who is devoted to an expenditure so profitless and useless that money has no longer meaning as such, it is merely a medium to experience excess. Gambling has been often read as a mechanism of social domination and a tool for mass distraction and a relief valve for subordinate classes. What if a further function of gambling is a form of resilient consumption in which socially oppressed or marginalized

individuals and groups may experience freedom, breaking the social constraints linked to utilitarian values by denying them through an extremely unproductive expenditure?

Following the researcher lexicon once again, such a function may be viewed in terms of a (momentary) recovery of sovereignty, where a compulsive, addictive, profitless, exaggerated (in short, excessive) session of gambling acts as a means to control the forces to which gamblers are submitted. Marginalized victims of neoliberal capitalism, economic failures unable to attain the material success they desire, they regain sovereignty through the destruction of economic capital.

If money is, from a Marxist standpoint, the ultimate foundation of any social relationship and the goal of any productive activity, its destruction serves the double purpose of dismantling one’s network ties and of denying capitalistic values, as clearly testified by the interviewees’ biographies collected in this essay. Here lies the contradictory nature of gambling – the compulsive loss of control as defined under the psychiatric approach becomes, in the topsy-turvy world of gamblers, a way to take control by challenging the rules to which they feel subjugated in the utilitarian realm.

When conceptualizing gambling as submission, guilt, and anxiety, the interviewees are expressing a retreat from an exceptional state of sovereignty and, through medical and psychological care, they are regaining a condition of ‘normality’ where their past behavior can only appear inappropriate. Rebellion and sovereignty are now in the past.

Important Poker Software for Players Looking to Win in 2020

Online Poker

3 Crucial Types of Poker Software for Serious Players in 2020

Are you new to the world of poker? Do you want to increase your winnings? You can use some poker software to your advantage if you want to maximize your gains. Whether online or live poker games, these tools will help you take your game to the next level.

If you’re wondering why you need poker software, here are the reasons. Firstly, it is an effective assistant when learning game strategy; it helps you analyze your opponents and gain a significant advantage. If you are a serious gamer, getting poker software is one of the most important things to do. Not only do they assist in giving you high wins, but they also increase your expertise. Secondly, these tools have been developed by highly advanced professionals. Apart from considering various betting sites similar to Mr. Bet, you also need to review different tools you can utilize to have the edge over your competitors. 

Poker software is divided into three important types: database software, equity calculators, and solvers. Each of them plays a vital role in your game, and they can help determine whether you win or lose. 

This article will discuss the types of online poker software, poker odds calculator software, and the best poker software for PokerStars. Let’s dive in.

Database Poker Software

This one is essential for your arsenal, and it has the following functions:

  • It will track the hands that you play 
  • It will give you your opponent’s statistics through a heads-up display (HUD) 
  • It will calculate your stats 

Like every sports game, it is good to review how you played to learn from it. Using this online poker software can help you study your competition to find the leaks and fix them. Besides, looking at your opponent’s results, you can scrutinize their strategy to maximize your winnings. The information is stored in the poker software server, which allows you to analyze your situation adapted to the competitive poker world. 

Most professional gamblers and those you will be competing against have database software. These tools will display your opponent’s stats while the game is in progress through interactive pop-ups. Once each hand is dealt, the information is updated on the software. This guarantees that you have the latest data to aid in making better decisions when playing. However, you need to be careful when using this feature to avoid making costly choices. If you want database software, you can consider the following: 

  • Poker Tracker 4
  • DriveHUD
  • Holdem Manager
  • Hand2note 
  • Poker Copilot 

They offer free trials that you can utilize to see the one that works best for you. Any of these poker tracking software programs will display your performance in all the tournaments and give you an edge by revealing patterns that you can execute.

poker software
poker software

Equity Calculators

The world of poker is extremely competitive, and having poker odds calculator software is one of the ways you can get ahead. Equity calculator tools help you determine how much equity is contained in one hand or several hands against the other hands. Equity refers to the chance you have to win a pot in a given situation within the game. The calculations can be performed on a specific board or a preflop match-up. 

The poker software calculator helps you determine whether your hand contains enough equity to call once you estimate your opponent’s range. You can find extra features in poker software calculators, such as the number of times a range will hit on the flop. 

If you are a new poker player or have not been able to master the game, investing in this tool is extremely useful. It assists in tuning your intuition of the number of ranges and equity hands in specific situations. Many pieces of software in this category offer friendly user interfaces with quick and easy to use outputs. For this, the tools to look at include:

  • PokerStove
  • Poker Range 
  • Flopzilla
  • Equilab
  • You can also access Cruncher, which is a free poker software limited to preflop calculations.

Solvers

What is the best poker software? The answer is solvers. They can teach you Game Theory Optimal (GTO) strategy, using which you can master your game. They give you the skills that you will need to earn money by exploiting your opponent’s weakness. You are also better placed to make adjustments to counter the strategy your contender employs.

Solvers have been a game-changer in how poker strategy is understood. They are one of the best poker software that you can use to equip yourself with Nash equilibrium strategies, also known as solutions that vary depending on the inputs. The inputs could include:

  • Pot size
  • Raise size or sizes on the flop, turn, and river
  • Effective stack size
  • Best size 
  • Preflop ranges that are involved

Applying solver software helps simulate various outcomes of the game by trying multiple strategies. This is done under the assumption that each player is aware of other player’s techniques. These strategies are helpful as they prevent you from circular thinking, making mistakes while, at the same time, they improve your objective analysis. 

Using this software, the strategies achieve equilibrium after countless calculations where no player can tweak their tactics any further. As a gambler, if you know your opponent’s weakness, you can adjust your GTO strategy on the solver to gain even more wins. Solvers are the best poker software for PokerStars as they give hyper-mixed solutions that you can study and create a strong winning concept over time. You can use them to spot trends, especially for flop situations, which you can include in your fundamental strategy. Solver software includes:

  • PioSolver
  • Simple Postflop
  • GTO+
  • MonkerSolver

Conclusion

One of the sure-fire ways of zeroing in on the best tool is going through poker software reviews. Some may have additional features that you can look at to see which one suits your needs. You can analyze them based on the three crucial types that we have discussed. The software could be database-oriented, which can help you study your games to see where you are failing and seal any leaks. It also enables you to analyze your opponent’s stats to know the weaknesses you can take advantage of to maximize your winnings. 

Calculating your odds while playing is also an essential strategy in poker. Choosing the best equity calculator is one way of determining whether you can call as soon as you estimate your opponent’s range. More so, using this tool for your poker games will be an excellent way to hone your skills and game intuition.

All in all, a good game is about strategy, and free poker software is a great assistant in that. This is where solvers are incredibly essential. An effective tool will help you learn game theory optimal strategy that you can use to boost your results. It will also keep you from circular thinking and making mistakes by helping with objective game analysis. Please write to us and let us know what poker software tools you have been using for your games. Did you find it useful?

Author’s bio:

Thomas Glare is a passionate poker player who is always trying to improve his game. His tutorials and poker strategy thoughts are very helpful. He shows that you don’t have to be the best player in the world to profit from poker. If you stick to the basics and play well at poker, you will be able to win games at high enough limits.

Gambling and Gaming

Gambling and Gaming

The increasing convergence of the gambling and gaming industries has raised questions about the extent to which social casino gameplay may influence gambling.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between social casino gaming and gambling through an online survey of 521 adults who played social casino games in the previous 12 months. Most social casino game users (71.2%) reported that these games had no impact on how much they gambled.

However, 9.6% reported that their gambling overall had increased and 19.4% reported that they had gambled for money as a direct result of these games. Gambling as a direct result of social casino games was more common among males, younger users, those with higher levels of problem gambling severity and more involved social casino game users in terms of gameplay frequency and in-game payments.

The most commonly reported reason for gambling as a result of playing social casino games was to win real money. As social casino games increased gambling for some users, this suggests that simulated gambling may influence actual gambling expenditure particularly amongst those already vulnerable to or affected by gambling problems.

Social network gaming, which refers to playing games that are connected to social networking services (SNS) directly, or through mobile applications (apps), is a popular online activity. Social network games (SNG) are generally free-to-play and do not award monetary prizes, but users can make in-game purchases to advance within the game, customize the game, give gifts to friends, and access other exclusive benefits and features, leading to these games being referred to as ‘freemium’.

Although SNG are connected to an SNS and encourage users to interact with their connections, most SNG can be played without any social interaction. SNG has grown rapidly in popularity and the global SNG market is predicted to grow annually at 16% from 2013-2019 to reach a total market value of US$17.4 billion (Transparency Market Research, 2015).

A survey of Facebook users in Australia in November 2012 reported that there are over 3.5 million social gamers across Australia and almost 70% play SNG daily (Spiral Media, 2013), and it is highly likely that the use of SNG has increased since this time. One of the most popular and profitable SNG genres is games that simulate casino or other gambling (or betting) activities. Such games are referred to as social casino games.

These games generally appear to replicate the basic structural design of gambling activities (i.e., betting mechanics, chance-determined outcomes), but are free to play and the prizes awarded are generally virtual currency that has no value outside of the game.

Thus, while they resemble gambling activities, they are not legally classified or regulated according this category. Gambling and gaming market convergence The proportion of SNG users who become paying customers is generally small, with estimates suggesting that only 2.3% of all users made in-app purchases with real money.

Despite the small proportion of paying users, the massive number of users means that the global social casino market generated an estimated US$2.8 billion in revenue in 2014, a 37% increase from 2013 and revenue was expected to reach US$3.4 billion in 2015.

Not surprisingly, the high profitability of the social casino market has attracted international interest, most notably from gambling operators who have, through partnerships, mergers, and acquisitions, now become the dominant players in the social casino market.

For example, Playtika, owned by Caesars Interactive Entertainment, a subsidiary of Caesars Entertainment Corporation, the world’s largest gambling company, was estimated to account for 22% of the entire social casino game market, whereas DoubleDown Casino, owned by gaming machine manufacturer IGT, accounted for 11%.

An increasing number of land-based gambling venues are also now offering social casino games, often linked with player loyalty programs, for marketing and customer engagement purposes.

However, despite apparent convergence between the gaming and gambling markets, several online gambling operators that have established online gambling on social casino games or directly on SNS have ceased these operations. The lack of success of these online gambling operations may indicate that the cross-over between the gambling and gaming markets does not necessarily translate to being able to ‘migrate’ social casino game users to a gambling product.

To date, little research has examined the convergence between gambling and gaming, although early evidence provides some grounds to justify more detailed investigations.

For example, correlational studies show that young people who play gambling-themed games, including social casino games, are more likely to also engage in gambling and experience gambling problems. A study of 2,010 Australian adult gamblers found that 13% also played social casino games, and these were more likely to be younger respondents, males and Australian born.

They were also more likely to gamble online and be involved in all forms of gambling assessed, as well as smoke daily, use illicit drugs, experience gambling problems and have higher psychological distress.

A survey of US social casino game users found that over one-third (36%) of participants visited a land-based casino more than twice a year, and two-thirds (68%) were interested in gambling on their favorite social casino game.

Similarly, a survey of online gamblers found that more frequent participation in social casino games was associated with greater gambling involvement. These results suggest some cross-over between the social casino game and gambling markets.

In one longitudinal study, 409 US social casino gamers who had never gambled online were surveyed at two time-points.

About one-quarter of the sample of social casino gamers reported having migrated to online gambling over the six-month period and making microtransactions (payments) was the only unique statistical predictor of migration from social casino gaming to online gambling.

Theoretical links between gambling and gaming

The increasing convergence of the gambling and gaming industries has raised some concerns about whether social casino games might pose risks to certain groups in the community. One of the theorized consequences of gambling-themed games is the normalization of gambling behaviors.

If people play social casino games they may be more likely to view gambling as an acceptable everyday activity and develop favorable attitudes to gambling, transferred from their positive experiences with the games. One hypothesis is that social casino games may represent a gateway product that could precede gambling.

At present, however, evidence in support of migration from social casino games to gambling remains very limited. The notion of migration is complex and could involve transfers from social casino gaming to gambling activities while still remaining with the same operator, or it could refer to transfers to other available gambling activities.

This may include users who have not previously gambled, as well as existing gamblers for whom the games triggered engagement in discrete or ongoing gambling sessions. In this way, the term migration connotes the possibility that users may engage in social casino games, while also expanding their online activities to include gambling.

Apart from their shared commercial connections, another reason why social casino game users may migrate to gambling is that the activities have many characteristics in common, particularly in relation to structural design. However, unlike gambling products, social casino games may not involve randomly determined outcomes and there is no transparency about how outcomes are determined.

Conceivably, it is possible for social casino games to use algorithms that produce different outcomes in response to user behaviors to encourage continued play and in-game purchases.

Without the same regulatory oversight of game mechanics as in gambling, it is possible that social casino games may encourage misplaced confidence in users that they will be successful at gambling if they perceive the two experiences as highly similar.

Engaging in SNG may also encourage financial risk-taking, based on research that shows that online environments produce greater disinhibition and risk-taking and the establishment of online social interactions that might encourage financial risk-taking to appear courageous and skillful compared to other users.

It is possible that individuals who play social casino games are already interested in gambling. Given a demonstrated interest in gambling themes, social casino game users may be targeted with advertisements and promotional offers from gambling sites or directly encouraged to migrate to a gambling site based on their use of social casino games.

These issues were examined in a qualitative study with social casino gamers. Some participants reported that playing social casino games may lead to gambling because the similarity between the two activities may encourage user familiarity and transition in the hope of winning prizes of value. Other participants reported clearly understanding the differences between social casino games and gambling, and that if they were going to play games for money, they may as well gamble.

For some users with gambling problems, social casino games acted as a trigger and exacerbated gambling, and at least one participant attributed their gambling and associated problems to earlier social casino gaming experiences. Thus, a variety of effects may occur but limited research has quantified them or determined any differential effects on sub-populations.

The aim of this paper was to examine the relationship between social casino gaming and gambling. Australian adults have access to Internet gaming and gambling in multiple forms, including online gambling and were chosen as an appropriate population to examine the impact of social casino games on gambling.

The principal research question was whether social casino games influenced users directly to gamble or whether social casino games increase gambling (Rq1), and to investigate the demographic and playing patterns that characterized these affected social casino game users (Rq2). We hypothesized that, for the majority of users, social casino games would have little to no impact on their gambling, but that for a subset of users social casino games would lead to increase gambling and some users would gamble as a direct result of these games (Hp1).

A second hypothesis was that migration to or increased gambling as a result of social casino games would be motivated by a desire to make money and a belief that their experience with social casino games had increased their likelihood of winning when gambling (Hp2).