2012 (2): The House Always Wins
The most memorable conversation I had at the ESOMAR 3D conference this year wasn’t about research at all: it was about poker. Josh, from BrainJuicer’s marketing team, is a keen online poker player, and explained the extent to which online poker in particular is a percentage game – playing for incremental gains on multiple virtual tables. All the regular players, he said, are using apps and algorithms to automatically calculate their odds and are adjusting their play accordingly. Which leaves the newbies and the suckers who want to see poker as a social game, or imagine it’s a game allowing for flair, or employ a range of other losing strategies which are generally based on individuality rather than trusting the numbers.
More end-of-year crystal/navelgazing - somewhat more dystopian I suppose: to be honest I think carelessness and individuality have always been taxed but the formalisation of this will accelerate.
(Also, I have never played poker except for fun, so it’s quite possible I either misunderstood Josh’s point or his certainty wasn’t quite as cast-iron as he painted it. But I liked the metaphor.)
