Massive Luck

How to play Massive Luck

For Curwen, tackling the problem therefore means changing the risk-reward equation behind game creation. If creators can develop and test ideas more quickly and at significantly lower cost, an unsuccessful experiment becomes less consequential – and taking a chance on something genuinely different becomes easier to justify.

“Technology changes the equation,” he says. “If we can make development faster and significantly more cost-efficient, creators can afford to experiment again.

“I’ve said before that I think we’re moving towards the end of the traditional reskin model. Players don’t need another 100 versions of effectively the same game.”

How to play Massive Luck

This summer, the Commission reached settlements of £900,000 with Betfred over safer gambling failures, £4.75 million with Evolution over weaknesses in its AML risk assessment and supply-chain oversight, and £122,835 with Stakelogic after games were found to be running faster than permitted.

Taken together, the cases provide further ammunition for the anti-gambling lobby at a time when it is already facing political pressure, tax increases and demands for tighter restrictions. Each apparently avoidable failure makes it harder for the industry to argue that existing regulation is sufficient.

Yet Dan Waugh, partner at Regulus Partners, pushes back against the idea that enforcement notices reveal a fundamentally non-compliant sector.

How to play Massive Luck

Two years later, Buffett again targeted the “gamblification” of financial markets in his annual shareholder letter.

“Markets now exhibit far more casino-like behavior than they did when I was young. The casino now resides in many homes and daily tempts the occupants,” Buffett wrote, noting that extreme volatility makes identifying sound, long-term investments vastly more difficult.

“One fact of financial life should never be forgotten. Wall Street–to use the term in its figurative sense–would like its customers to make money, but what truly causes its denizens’ juices to flow is feverish activity. At such times, whatever foolishness can be marketed will be vigorously marketed–not by everyone but always by someone,” Buffett warned.