And, Now it’s Fun

If I told you to play a game, where you continuously press a button and every ten times you press it, you give me $5 - would you play it? The rational reader would not only reject this offer but would feel utterly insulted that I tried to dupe them into playing in the first place. Now what if the terms change, and I told you that out of a hundred people, two people who play this game would win $10 back? You may ponder for a moment, but still reject it. The offer is not as insulting as before though, just not economically attractive.

But what if I told you that every time you press the button, you may periodically win some money back, and there is an extremely small but possible chance of winning $10,000?

I can’t exactly predict what my smart rational readers would do in this case, but I do know that every single day millions of people throughout the world play the game I mentioned above. More commonly known as slot machine gambling, players are consistently...