On a recent Vegas trip, after a few rough losses at craps, I cashed out my remaining chips, sauntered to my hotel room, and booted up Balatro on the 'ol Steam Deck.

Did Balatro save me from losing more money, or prevent me from making it all back? The degenerate's mind obsesses over what could've been if he had walked away from the table earlier, if he had added another leg to his parlay. I don't consider myself an addict, but I imagine that at the extreme end of this, the wouldacouldashoulda of it all is just a coping mechanism to deal with the complete lack of control over meaningless numbers (odds, payouts, bankrolls, jackpots, ahem, antes, 'round scores' ) flying right past you, in and out of your addled brain as fast as a blackjack dealer can pull your cards and your chips off the table. Number go up. Number go down.

Balatro is a game about gambling as much as any other video game that relies on risk and reward, but the poker and casino aesthetics, to my degenerate ass, were an 'emperor wears no clothes' indictment of card-based roguelikes, a mask-off reveal of these games' true nature, to the point where I might retire from them completely.

There's nothing gamers hate more than to be shamed, but if somebody I knew was spending countless hours playing games like this, whether on a mobile app or on a casino floor, I would try to get them the fuck outside. The same concern for addicts' well-being should extend to grown men locked up in hotel rooms playing a Steam Deck. Time is also a form of currency, and you can never win it back at the poker table.