By David Stephen
An option to relieve gambling addiction is to make AI agents available to players, as their assistant, whenever they are on a gaming application. The role of the AI agent is a companion before, during, and after playing. The responsibility of this companion is to help prepare, suggest, and base players through the process.
Problem gambling—like other addictions—can be described as a lock in the human mind. This means that pathways in the mind are directed towards certain destinations, leaving out others—like consequences, caution, letting go, alternatives, and so forth.
The AI agent would be a channel to provide some of these mind absences to players in situations to ensure that they are better aware and clarity is close to absolute in the moment, not later, for whatever they decide to do—especially after losing a game.
This AI agent may also be an option to play simulated games, within the current options or others. The purpose is to have an assistant go through a parallel experience, with results, and to see how the agent handles the outcome. This handling by the agent may become a guide on how to act since there are consequences for an individual, but not for bots.
This AI agent will not be free, except for power users, who linger on the platform and lose the most money. The necessity of this AI agent is to cap externalities around the toll that losing might have on the individual’s finances, loved ones, society, and future. Availability of this AI agent would make the landscape fairer to players against several unknowns—from the mind to reality.
Since the approach of this AI agent can also be adapted to other kinds of addictions—including several digital types—it could become a separate earnings magnet should the gaming industry lead this approach.
This AI agent will make recommendations to players on what to play, when, and how—using the losing and winning stats of the player. The AI agent will also have dynamic messages, depending on the amount of money lost—or the proximity to a win. There may also be a no-play interval that the AI agent may suggest to the player, while letting it play—or deciding together on no-cost plays.
If developed, this AI agent is likely to change the relationship some people now have with sports, helping leagues and society towards safety and elevated neutrality. The exposure of anyone to gambling possibility—among other habits—may not just be eased by regulation of ads or campaigns, but at the provenance of the games.
There are several open-source large language models [LLMs] that can be fine-tuned for this purpose. The messages and play simulations in real-time can be bound in a solution that could become a new path to playing equilibrium.
There is a recent piece in The NYTimes, We All Live in Vegas Now, stating that, “These are just the losses, of course — $130 billion worth. The total wagers placed by Americans every year, he estimates, passes $1 trillion. Taken together, the two figures suggest that in 2022 Americans bet the equivalent of nearly 4 percent of gross domestic product and lost more than 10 percent of that money on those bets. The Supreme Court functionally legalized sports gambling only in May 2018, and because the country’s experiment with on-demand gambling is so young, it’s not entirely clear yet what its negative effects are. And as with our experiment with marijuana legalization, it’s sometimes hard to separate those effects from moral panic. But according to one survey early this year, 39 percent of American men aged 18 to 49 have an online sports betting account, and 38 percent of Americans with such accounts reported betting more than they should. Almost 20 percent said they’d recently lied about how much they were gambling — about the same percentage that reported losing money that was intended to meet a financial obligation. In New Jersey, in just five years, the number of calls to the state’s gambling addiction hotline has tripled.
There is a recent feature on City & State Pennsylvania, Watchdogs see uptick in helpline calls as sports and online gambling increase, stating that, “The Pennsylvania Interactive Gaming Assessment: Online Gambling Report 2023 found that online gambling participation increased to 16% last year after holding steady at 11% in 2021 and 2022. In the same year, the commonwealth’s online gambling revenue increased by more than 27% – totaling $2.1 billion in 2023 and landing the state among the top three online gaming revenue generators in the nation. The report found that not only did online gambling and sports betting see an uptick in participation in the commonwealth, but so did the number of reported problems with gambling and the number of calls made to the 1-800-GAMBLER helpline. The number of calls to the helpline regarding online gaming problems increased from 20% in 2021 and 2022 to 34% in 2023 – in 2022-2023, there were a total of 2,834 calls to the helpline, with 974 specifically about online gaming (in 2021-22 and 2020-2021, those numbers were 2,401 and 479, respectively). Researchers also found that about half of the state’s online gamblers reported problems with gambling; risk factors included increases in gambling frequency, hours, number of formats, spending and motivation to relieve stress. They both say that prevention, on top of education, is key to ensuring the general public is aware of the gaming industry and the risks associated with gambling.”
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