Randomness is all around us, yet we tend to do as much as we can to minimize its impact on our day-to-day lives so we can stick to a routine and enjoy a comparatively unchaotic existence. However, as soon as we’re playing a game, we need luck to play some significant role, or else boredom will set in sooner rather than later.

So, what makes random rewards such a compelling part of gaming? Here’s a look at the psychological aspects involved, and how game designers exploit them to entertain us.

Chasing Dopamine

Our brains rely on a range of chemicals to regulate how we think and feel. Dopamine is among the most potent, as it’s associated with pleasure. In simple terms, when we win in a gaming context, dopamine gets released, and we feel elated.

Games of chance go one step further. We don’t even need to win to receive a hit of dopamine. All it takes is the anticipation of a win. A little uncertainty and the hope of a payoff helped our ancestors head out to hunt for prey, and today the same response is triggered in a gaming context.

Perceiving Control

Another reason that games of chance keep global audiences rapt is that we begin to believe that we have some control over random outcomes. Even if this is an illusion, it’s human nature to sense that something we’re doing has an impact on a purely luck-based game.

Take the popularity of online casino slots as an example. The latest and greatest games in this category are specifically programmed to be completely fair and totally random, meaning each spin has just as much chance as any other of paying out. Rules and regulations dictate this design requirement, but that doesn’t stop many gamblers from having superstitions about the way they play and how it influences whether they win or lose.

Embracing Belief

Ultimately, games of chance ask us to have faith that the reels, dice, or cards will fall in our favor. And belief holds a lot of power in human psychology.

We’re compelled to commit to a course of action based on nothing more than a hunch that the eventual outcome will be positive, even if the road to it is long and difficult. It’s the same reason that we spread out as a species to all parts of the world, and why we want to one day reach the stars. While for most of us this desire might express itself in the occasional dabbling in an online casino game or a board game night with friends, it’s rooted in the same evolutionary driving force.

Escaping the Norm

Lastly, there’s something to be said for the escapism games of chance offer from a modern life that’s perhaps a little too quiet and predictable. As we’ve established, humans evolved in a world of chaos and uncertainty, so random rewards give us that little taste of what our forebears lived with, but in a completely controlled way. And that’s a defining factor of all modern entertainment, from slot machines to action movies.