There was an old Casino parody film from the mid 90s (iirc Mafia!).
Anyway, they had a scene where they were showing the different games that were being played in the casino. Things like a bunch of Saudi princes playing an extremely high stakes game of Candyland, etc.
One of the games was called the black hole or something like that. Anyway, people would step up to the table and the guy working the table would just sweep up their money into a hole and tell them they lost. It had a constant stream of people walking up to the table to lose money.
It's more or less the mental model that I use for gambling.
This is a slightly different topic (government spending), but I've always loved this old Onion News Network video: 'Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?'. The sentiment feels the same to me:
i'm always shocked the grandeur of places like mohegan sun, you walk in and you know it's nothing but losers that built that place, brick by brick, with a tidy profit for the owners and government too don't forget!
That is correct for the first half, but the Vegas scenes where he is "observing the floor" and showing the games, including the Black Hole, are parodying Casino scenes specifically.
Anyway, they had a scene where they were showing the different games that were being played in the casino. Things like a bunch of Saudi princes playing an extremely high stakes game of Candyland, etc.
One of the games was called the black hole or something like that. Anyway, people would step up to the table and the guy working the table would just sweep up their money into a hole and tell them they lost. It had a constant stream of people walking up to the table to lose money.
It's more or less the mental model that I use for gambling.