Virtualizing Scratch Card Gambling Makes it More Real

It would seem undeniable that when somebody scratches an instant-play game card, there is something particularly satisfying in rubbing off and blowing away what conceals the secret inside that scratch card. What is our salient attraction to the real sensation implicit in the literal meaning of scratching a ‘scratch card’? Moreover, how is this sensation modified when the scratch card becomes a virtual game online?

The card’s opaque coating that is removed, and its very removal, lends itself to plenty of symbolic and even poetic interpretations. By and large, people scratch these cards to reveal possible futures, specifically their financial futures. Surely many people don’t think just in terms of the x-amount of money that is won in their imaginations during a portentous and exciting scratch moment ¾ many people instead are visualizing ideal situations and new experiences that will be made possible by that influx of cash.

At any rate, this moment is loaded and it’s emotional, full of broad assumptions about life, about oneself, about what one hopes for in the world, and so forth. All of that becomes codified in the act of using a coin or a fingernail to scratch through the un-knowing, as it were, to find out if redemption and good fortune are at hand (finally!). When this act is performed without the paper token, without the card, and instead the scratch happens on a screen, then how has the experience changed? The question can be further stipulated by considering whether a gaming website’s automatic scratching feature is turned on, or, one makes use of a mouse to scratch away at virtual concealment.

‘The scratch card or “scratchie” is a type of gambling product that appears to have the characteristics of the more addictive forms,’ suggests a research paper about the vital role of studying gambling in the development of models of addictive behaviour per se ¾ gambling being a compelling manifestation of addiction because of ‘the absence of a psychoactive agent’ [1].

But isn’t the original scratch card product, as well as its latest virtualized online manifestations ¾ as an interactive object, as something to handle and then decide when and how to ‘play’, which is as simple as removing the opaque film from the surface of paper ¾ isn’t this a rather substantial something? And isn’t that tactile element substantial enough to get factored into the modelling of gambling addiction? Indeed, the concrete and performative aspects of the scratch card ¾ simple though they are ¾ lead the authors of another paper ‘to question whether “scratchies” should be included at all within a mental disorder conceptualization of pathological gambling’ [2]. In other words, after studying the use of scratch cards (in the Netherlands) these researchers could be understood as having decided to question any approach to this particular gambling product ¾ traditional scratch cards ¾ that underestimates its substance-oriented allure and pleasure (albeit just small toy-like tabs of paper or online versions of the same).

In lieu of a comprehensive study of the tactile and instrumental qualities of the original scratch card, if not also of the online scratch card games (which interestingly enough begin to resemble the traditional paper versions when played using a smart phone with a mobile app for scratchies), we can follow a few ramifications of assuming that scratch cards may be a hitherto unacknowledged sort of ‘psychoactive’ paper gambling product.

If there is something tantalizing about the removal of an obfuscating coating, then perhaps online scratch games that emphasize this precise moment (in graphics, multimedia, et cetera) may be even more addictive than the paper cards ever were. The reasons can be summarized as the overwhelming convenience of the Internet, especially as it can be used on a Web-enabled smart phone that can run gambling apps. This convenience of online gaming ¾ removing even the need to visit a ‘convenience store’ to purchase game cards ¾ is a major contributing factor to substance abuse within the pathology (we might say, the danger) of gambling addiction. Because we literally have a casino in our pocket or purse, the repetitive gaming phenomenon (as with slots or scratch cards), ‘a continuously repeated

sequence of stake, play and determination’ [3], is much more likely to occur and tempt the user into an excessive diet of scratchies.

Another factor in the alarming seductiveness of mobile gaming is purely technical. This factor is the introduction of advanced touch-screen technology with the recent emergence of powerful phones (pioneered by Palm Pilot smart phones years ago, but of late dominated by the Web-enabled iPhone). Apple’s touch screen features accommodate the movements of two or more fingers, and its responsiveness and slick operation resemble the futuristic computers shown in sci-fi movies within the past decade (the technology, we presume, was developed for military management purposes before its ‘smart’ debuts in consumer electronics). This highly addictive sensation of manipulating software and games with the tips of one’s fingers is practically made to order for completing the phenomenological circle of scratch cards: in passing from an analog gambling format (paper) to the electronic medium of mobile gaming. A highly personalised mobile devise makes the opportunity to gamble omnipresent in our lives ¾ which goes much further than even the most liberal cities like Amsterdam or Las Vegas in making these temptations available.

It could very well be the case that many forms of entertainment that have  always required the real consumption of something physical (from using a cassette tape until the music sounded fuzzy, to buying scratch cards at a convenience store, rubbing off the stuff, then throwing the duds away) will go the way of virtualization. And aside from the environmental impact of ceasing to produce much rubbish for the sake of these amusements, their online versions are bolstered by such technological wizardry that the electronic or virtualized experience may someday soon become overwhelmingly preferred to the ‘old’ analog media. Gambling is no exception. In fact, the allure of virtualized gambling, given the richly tactile aspect of mobile apps, has all the ingredients to become an opiate of the masses par excellence.

Sources:

[1]http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1360-0443.2003.00415.x/pdf

[2]Cf the paper by DeFuentes-Merillas et al in the references for the above paper.

[3] Cf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1360-0443.2003.00415.x/pdf for more about this repetition’s effects.