What happens when you gamble? How does your brain react when the roulette wheel starts spinning, or the dealer puts the first card on the table? But more importantly, what happens when you start to play the slots? What happens in your brain when you zone out spinning the reels at a casino or at home in front of a computer?

This is what MIT associate professor Natasha Dow Schüll called the “Machine Zone” in her book “Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas”.

To understand the concept, let us familiarize ourselves with another concept.

Zoning out

Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi was the first to name the phenomenon a “flow state” in the 1970s. Like a state of hyperfocus, the state of flow (or zoning out) is a mental state where a person is not only fully immersed in an activity but enjoys it. It comes with a feeling of energized focus, complete absorption, the merging of action and awareness, and a sense of personal control over the activity.

In a state of flow, a person will feel the potential to succeed and feel so immersed in the experience that everything else is secondary.

The “Machine Zone” is a more recent term that’s part of the psychology of gambling. It describes a state of flow characteristic for casino players, in which they immerse themselves completely in the game, forgetting about their daily worries, emotions, and even their sense of self. This mental state is not entirely dissimilar from the one experienced endlessly scrolling through social media.

Positive feedback
According to psychologies and behaviourist B. F. Skinner, human behaviour is controlled by the outcome of our actions. If an action has a positive consequence - we feel like being rewarded - then we’re more likely to repeat this action. When the reward is random, humans tend to increase the frequency of an action, hoping to receive a reward. This is exactly how people behave when gambling.

In her book, Schüll points out that gambling was a much slower and much more social experience back in the day, before the age of gaming machines. Today, it has become automated thanks to the wide array of gambling machines available both in a land-based and online setting.

Maximizing “time on device”
Daily worries and social demands fade away in the “machine zone”. While some gamblers play, hoping to win or to win back what they have lost, many play for the sake of playing. And they do this while sometimes exposing themselves to financial and physical ruin. This is, in part, by design, though - maximizing “time on device” is the holy grail of the gambling industry.

The Machine Zone is a mental state where players lose themselves in the spinning reels of a slot machine. It is relaxing to the point of oblivion, and when left unchecked, it can become a huge problem for the players.