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Comment by tom_ | Hacker News Reader

The link is to the BingeEatingDisorder subreddit. From the link,

> I know that at least for me, the actual process of ordering food delivery is part of the addiction

I'm seeing a business opportunity for a gambling site where it is extremely cheap to play, but the payout is always 0 dollars.

You've just invented the mobile games industry.

Hm, or even a gambling site that uses real money but where you always get your money back, eventually.

There were fintechs that did this, I think yotta and one other that was acquired by a big bank. I think it was (is?) popular but if I remember correctly they lost customer funds because of Synapses failure and the way the customer funds were organized they weren’t insured.

That would be interesting. Probably works best as a non-profit with donations or grants. Be a normal gambling setup, but with the expected value of all the games zero instead of negative. Advertise to existing gambling addicts. You might also be able to invert some of the dark patterns to encourage less addictive behaviour.

I expect the main threat would be that it might be possible to extract money with the system with clever statistical tricks.

I once had the strange experience of playing such a game. It was an "instant game" on Facebook Messenger, that simulated a slot machine casino. It didn't have a cash-out, so it was really just a game.

It had an auto-play, so I watched the dials spin and lights flash until my money ran out, and it prompted me to buy more.

The game played entirely by itself, until it inevitably lost. It ran with no meaningful player action other than selecting which slot machine and buying coins.

And it had a leaderboard, with Facebook profile photos and names of big winners that I can only assume spent real money to be there.

Progress Quest lives on in strange ways.

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