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Episode 558: Zone Time (Patreon)

Published:
2026-06-29 14:14:53
Imported:
2026-06
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We’re joined by Natasha Dow Schüll to talk about GAMBLING, MONEY, The Machine Zone, the Ludic Loop, and MORE.

Check out her book Addiction by Design | Audiobook

Hit the tip line: (646) 801-1129 | tips@trueanon.com

Discover more episodes at podcast.trueanon.com

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Comments

noahsarca

white whale guest

mimi

seventh

Tim O'

Only one girl at a time, please 🙏

Mungo Franczak

This episode brought to you by Stake.com

Madeline

I read this book in a medical anthropology grad seminar back in like 2016 and it has stuck with me and informed so much of what I’ve seen developing in the world in the years since. Reread a couple years ago before I visited Vegas. Cannot wait to listen to this ep!

Quinn

Is this the same person who was mentioned in previous episodes about gambling and people being locked-in “the zone”? If so, super stoked! Have been trying to find the book/info on the zone for a while.

Mark Owen

Player's Club! Pour one out for Telly Savalas. He got the VIP treatment.

bbb

Release the adult baby diaper episode now! While you still have the chance!

Mungo Franczak

The TrueAnon boys made it 7 minutes and 5 seconds without making a Star Wars reference this episode.

1

I LOVE GAMBLING!!!! LET IT RIDE!!!!!!

Matt Macnab

I read her book after it was brought up in the gooning episode. Definitely my favorite read of last year.

AbeLinkin

I’ve only gambled 5 times and I’m 5-0 putting $100 on black. The key is to assume I’ll lose, insist on never letting it ride, and having a micropenis.

1

took 7 min until the next one

Jorge Jorgensen

i work at da library and had the collection development librarian order Addiction by Design so i could put it on me staff picks. no one has checked it out though :( excited for the episode

notbrian

i had a parlay on kalshi on what this would be about, who the guest was, what time it would air. i lost a trillion dollars

Bob

Studied for years to master the purest form of gambling, stocks. Call it the Dow Schüll

Swaggypeepaw

This book has been inspiring my electronic record, I named one of my songs "the machine zone" (by Cnake) so uhh look out for chrome kintsugi sorry to do promo I just got a little excited to see people talk about this book and how much its made me think about the modern world

Hampton

Was that a Mandalay shout out?

Ollin

They’re gearing up to ban those machines in Philly .. we have little gambling rooms even attached to our Dunkin’ Donuts lmao

Redwing Farm

Easily one of the most anticipated guests. So stoked for this

helena

Gasped at seeing the guest for this the way I did when I saw Liz was back last week

helena

Gotta get em in before Liz returns full time

Coleman

Auto-Zone

tuztooz

Brace, hanging out and talking to people IS your job

Joey

bro i love being at the casino on mushrooms mgl

Reece Coren

“I never played counterstrike but I know this somehow” giant flashing arrow pointing at Felix

Blank

“I don’t have much experience with dating apps” Brace flexing on us 😞

Coleman

I used to love getting into the flow state with programming. Offloading big parts of my job to AI took that away, and it was kind of an identity crisis for me.

George Spafford

I’ve been known to enter the metal zone from time to time

MRSAful Fate

So stoked! Addiction by design has been on my list for a little bit but i haven't gotten to it yet. Also samhain rules and Danzig is my (rm brown drop) DAD!

Sillycrow123

Glad Liz is back but she needs to leave for an extended period of time again. I quite enjoy the creeping madness of the Brace and YC episodes.

Big Problem

Hello Dr. Schüll, can you please give me the name and address of every person you interviewed that wasn’t a hopeless addict? I’ve got some nice presents to send them 🙂

Maddie

I listened to the audiobook on Spotify because of the show and I definitely found it enlightening. I too had the public’s assumption of it being an education issue and not understanding the odds, but the “flow state” explanation was where it really clicked. Very cool to hear further insights from the author herself!!

danny

My cousins and I were absolutely like 16 and 17 gambling with Counter Strike skins. Valve spiked it when the FBI threatened to intervene.

Blank

Take my money for the Brace “Moshiach is here” stickers

Pug_luvr

It's not gambling when you have a system

Jasper Petty

Learning the Galil is Israeli sucks

brit

i’m a social worker and i think a lot abt phone addiction, mobile gaming, etc. a few months ago was working with a slot machine gambling addict - attended a training hoping to learn some interventions to approach this client with. unbeknownst to me, the training was exclusively about mobile gaming addiction, skins, loot boxes, gacha games, in-game gambling, and time on device. it was a psychedelic experience hearing the trainer talk, watching his weird slide deck about arknights and counter strike, and watching my clinician peers in their 40s-50s try to process what was being said. he did show us a cool video of a guy making a casino in minecraft tho

bradjr

this podcast is a slot machine, Liz episode is the jackpot, Brace is the smooth seat, Chomsky is the luck embassador

Frank Rossitano

A good friend of mine just got out of rehab for drugs&gambling and literally had to tell the manager of his halfway house to stop organizing sports bets amongst the residents.

ChigBungus

Brace is one of those diagrams of planes that survived battle from WWII. He’s riddled with metaphorical bullets, it’s just that none of them were fatal.

original gay pussy eatah

Line cook flow state was almost unbearable, and I was a real killer, too. But after a few hours my brain would be screaming for something else, but once the rush was done the exhaustion was nigh sublime

Joe D’grinda

Brace admit you said the n-word in that uber, literally everyone heard it and it’s kinda crazy that you’re keeping up this grand lie of yours

M D

Why does it kinda of sound like she sounds like RFK

Danny D

Nor is it addiction when you could stop anytime but simply choose to never stop

Cb1star

On the topic of past trauma, the quote that stood out to me most from the book was the woman who described machine gambling as her "destiny". It struck me how many of these people had fully internalized the idea that they were losers - not like "ugh I'm such a loser", but literally that losing was their lot in life, that their role in the grand cosmic order was to destroy whatever they had. Machine gambling was a way for them to realize that destiny on their own terms. I really hope those people are doing okay now.

Jacob Makes

This episode Made me want to Gamble

Quinn

Shootout*

Tranche Devereaux

22:30 as an addict myself, I always love a non-addict refer to gardening or photoshop as their “addiction.” I know brace kinda pried this out of her but still…. Oh brother. It’s like those people who say “I forgot to eat today.” 🙄 Btw can we get a task force to come up with a better emoji for eye roll?

Jack

Where is elizabeth?

Kimble

hello, Dougie!

Daniel

so crazy just now learning all this yung chomsky lore since liz's been gone, I too spent a torid 3 months in vegas when I was younger and did also grow up playing Multi User Dungeons, specifically AustinMUD

Zzz

She’ll come on when she feels like it lol

Ray

i constantly cross my fingers for after effects flow states... they're fickle

E

Frequency of event is an interesting metric. My partner (who is a casino worker in Las Vegas actually lol - there’s a whole new world of fucked up of casino workers getting hooked. A big issue is that the entry level casino jobs like dealing and waitressing are high on tips, sometimes cash tips. You spend your whole work day getting totally desensitized to large sums of money, seeing people win against the odds and can score big with tips that feel like “extra money” even if they are actually your main income… incredibly efficient fast track to becoming an addict) has a pretty serious gambling problem but his poison is Pai-Gow Poker, which is a very slow game. The catch is, he turns every card that he is dealt into an “event” and reveals them to himself slowly, one at a time. Each card reveal changes the possible outcome of his hand. It’s perverse. I’ve gotta get him out of the industry like, yesterday.

Danny D

Actually never even thought about that side of things, the staff being exposed to it all day every day

i shyr

brace ask her about sniffys, coward

weelee

thank you mister jackpots!!

Robert Armstrong

Ooo, Luck Ambassador Yung Chomsky? Address me like the United Nations you precocious boy.

J Fitz

My wife has so many friends who are into woo-woo neopaganism and I’ve attended enough Samhain parties that I have inherited their reflexive cringe when I hear someone pronounce it the way it is spelled

the empty suit

Regarding the Meta lawsuit… I think we need to be way more careful about making sweeping claims about social media being “addictive” especially when the research suggests otherwise. The last thing we need is someone using that Meta lawsuit to manufacture consent for abolishing Section 230.

DarylBarenziah

Brace being Mossad from yung Chomsky is to Liz being polish nazi from Brace

krumping4

the post-credits jumpscare is back

Clean Shirt Piggie

Guest super pumped that Brace shared his gooning knowledge

Sam de Waele

Liz has been called up to replace Pulisic in the round of 32 😔

Riaz Abdulla

It’s SAU-wn not SAM-HAYN! 😡. The anti-Celtic racism on this podcast is unacceptable

TrueAnonPod

It’s 100% addictive and is extremely harmful to huge amounts of the population

kayo

as a narcoleptic, i’m definitely gonna try getting into gambling now. thanks trueanon!

claudia

for those who can't afford the $5,000 tier – just watch the clip from Hasan's stream to find out the humiliating thing that happened to Brace in the cab...

the empty suit

Input appreciated but I didn't say it wasn't. What I am saying is that we should be more careful about this narrative of addiction due to the risk of overestimating social media addiction numbers and the fact that referring to a bad habit as an "addiction" has been shown to have a negative effect on self-efficacy. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41309982/ - no offense but, when it comes to things like tech policy, you aren’t the people I'd ever recommend others listen to lol, it's people like Taylor Lorenz and Mike Masnick instead of reactionary freaks like Jonathan Haidt.

ronnylongjohns

Is Samhain pronounced SOH-win or something like that? Maybe the band isn't supposed to be though?

Mark AB

Ah, fantastic episode! Well done!

antigonix

The Diablo-like game Brace mentions Elon has played is called Path of Exile 2, and yeah Im going to have to have a long night of soul over my video game consumption after this episode… It’s free and makes money through cosmetic boxes. Not especially distinct from Fortnight and others in that sense. But of note: one of the community’s phrases for strategies aquiring lots of the in-game crafting currency, Divine Orbs, among others, is, “It’s printing!”

Waffle Poet

Brace learned about the speculative CS skin market through cultural osmosis, just picked it up out of the air. Keen nose like that, truly. Anyway, I wonder how much money Felix lost on all those skins.

The Squash

Next time you and chomsky are in Reno avoid me like the plague and have a better time than your would otherwise

Jack

This may be old news but the notorious Nicholas Rossi aka Nicholas Alahverdian aka Arthur Knight died 4 days ago.

adam22

Great episode

Iain

I don’t think we should be calling the women guests whales

Nicole

Came here looking for this comment.

Big L

it's the roarin' twenties

Peet Be

Great episode. Who needs Liz (me)!!

Your Mum

Sent this to my gambling addict friend!

Tea for the Tillerman

White whale is not an appropriate metaphor here by dint of the guest appearing on an episode of the show. I think white whale guest would be more e.g. Hitler or Dan rincon.

Philip

This guest got brace sounding like Terry gross

jugsdotgov

I read Colson Whitehead’s World Series of poker memoir on the way to Vegas, and got this on the way home. This was probably six months before it was released with a new forward but at the time I was like, I will not wait for this book. And what a book!

skaffen_amtiskaw

i listened to this this morning while i was working in the casino and it was G R E A T fascinating conversation wonderful guest i wanted it to go on forever best episode ever

skaffen_amtiskaw

i was wondering if this was a reference to that but then i thought: there is no way that is the most humiliating thing that has happened to brace. oh it was awful though

Kevin Donnelly

no way dude you've won 100% of the time. you need to keep gambling!

Pigeon

A likely story

Laurie Mackin

Please can some tell me the name/number of the episode where you went to epsteins ny mansion n its like on location? Nothing i type in will bring it up!!

Tone Bug

The episodes where Brace books people he’s excited to talk to are the f*cking best hands down Also when is the next Il Polpo tho

Quinn

Sounds like it’s time to start gambling buddy

patreonuser9999

Yes, it's kind of like "SAO-wn." I don't know if the band is meant to be pronounced correctly though, like how the Celtics are apparently not (K)eltics.

Punished-Henry

Skill based matchmaking mention 👁️👁️

Marit

The game is no longer afoot

Jack

Thumbnail is awesome for this one

donnybrook

COUNTERSTRIKE is such a perfect example for gambling ik so many people who lost like $20000 as teenagers

NotMyREALname

lol I ran a book club at work on an addictive design book, with the express purpose of applying those techniques.

ben s

She was describing being in a flow state, not addiction

Jacobo

Great ep. I grew up in Vegas and Reno and was always stunned by the people playing slots at CVS all day. I developed an aversion to gambling pretty early on, but it’s the life blood of Nevada. One man’s miserable weekend is another development built out in the desert. Also Suncoast >>>

rizzler

i'm struck by the adjacency of the machine zone and its sensory cues to EMDR therapy

Empat

best guest in forever. History of world is history of dissociative abstraction in response to socially overstimulating population density (i.e. religion, technology, ultimately media, gambling, all manner of pseudoimmanence addiction).

Chris Knutson

The way they talk about The Zone makes me think along scifi lines - if we are a society that worships money and financial capital maybe gambling is the way we attempt to commune with the fickle dollar gods. Hitting the Zone as zen meditation/mysticism seeking transcendance

pizzapope

Civ 5 is the ultimate way to get sucked into the void / end up outside of time

podcast enjoyer

Look into what Nexon Games was pioneering in the early 2000s with Maplestory. I was absolutely addicted as a child and it was entirely designed to be addicting via a gacha mechanic for items and enchancement scrolls that you needed.

M D

I love getting into it doing research in our lab. I work with extremophile bacteria, and can spend hours on a single reaction or experiment. I just put my headphones in and let the world go by, it makes working on complex reactions or high detail work much easier

Bluebell

God I just know Liz would have some good shit to say on all of this

Michael Kupperman

They also put CHILDREN in Skinner Boxes. I know because I had a babysitter who'd been raised in one. Not the happiest or most well-adjusted person.

A Loon

Opening booster packs is definitely a potentially addictive gambling activity

Beast Law

Brace do you own the Iraq Ba'ath party playing cards the CIA gave to soldiers during the invasion? I found a deck at a thrift shop and they're sold often on eBay.

turbinity

Liz returns for one episode: no Star Wars Liz leaves again: "Reiki is like the Force"

turbinity

Brace is a patsy to be honest, it's YC every single time

Eric

“Hellooooooo” - Mr. Jackpots

DarylBarenziah

They really turbo cucked Liz’s on this episode LOL pull up the chair Liz and milk the baby cause brace is doing yo thannnnnn ng

Lulu

Realized scrolling the comments at 2a.m. that I was in the machine zone.

Smalls

I don’t think she’s a whale, but even she was, she’d be beautiful. Because women are beautiful

Richard Cochnar

Robot Stalker soyfacing when hearing that there’s a machine zone

Nami

Christ this was depressing but excellent, everything is phone

J Fitz

Well, what do you know. I just won $500 on a $5 lottery ticket. The player always wins!

Zacatuche

cant believe videogames were invented in 2012

Nathan

Guest so good brace is disoriented

Dario Sulzman

“I feel like I’m really lucky for some reason” — yes, 198k/month from a patreon podcast would make you feel that way I’d imagine 😂🤣😂

Jake Wald

I did not know Felix went to St Thomas lol what the hell

Lojban Chauvinist

Maybe I should read the literature but you're arguing against common sense. It's well established that the label of addiction can apply to compulsive behaviors without a substance involved. Compulsive and problematic use is a fact, so is that the social media companies designed to encourage compulsive use. It would seem pretty difficult to prove causality from "referring to a bad habit as an addiction" to low self-efficacy, rather than vice versa; but it's not surprising that there could be some self-fulfilling prophecy effect to calling oneself an addict, yet we haven't scrapped the concept of behavioral addiction for fear of that

the empty suit

The literature I cited concluded, based on studies of so-called “media addiction,” that using social media or smart phones in unproductive ways and referring to yourself as “addicted” makes it harder for you to quit the habit in question. Additionally, it’s pretty fucking ridiculous to call social media use an addiction. It’s like saying you’re addicted to listening to music or addicted to reading books.

Grace

Omg just started Addiction by Design a few weeks ago per Brace referencing it on another episode yayyyyy

Jenny Santomauro

Gotta check it out yourself so it doesn’t get weeded!

Taffy

towards what?

Micheline

Incredible detail that this author’s husband leaves the house *once* a week to gamble lol

Yola Yossilia

Yeeaaa.. actually life is 50% Gambling too ❤️

Jorge Jorgensen

i do! for a lot of books, actually. otherwise we’d be left with james patterson and danielle steele and nothing else. edit: and fucking kristin hannah, my god. our nonfiction is otherwise a wasteland. like that mike lindell book with the lenticular cover of his crackhead mugshot, or the bell curve

Jeremy H.

This was honestly top 3 podcast episodes of all time. Naturally, only behind the two on semen retrieval.

Donna Oakes-Munro

I had a 20 minute phone call with Liz today and she said she is fully embracing libertarianism and changing her name to Ayn Frandczak.

d

amazing book amazing guest woweeee

bruce

that sensation of constantly being fed something that feels like an important choice via gambling, but via a bunch of other things too, is exactly why everyone is becoming so insane these days

T

I think the interesting thing about the narrative vs ludic games is that most games that trap players on that ludic zone mostly make money off whales, a colloquial term meaning the top 1% of players who spend the vast majority of the money the game makes in pay to play schemes or in game currency. I’m curious if that % of players that make up the whales is comparable to the general population % of gambling addicts to non addicts

bud dustin

Would you guys still love me if I was a whale?

b2b saas purveyor

ah, the crab legs.. once dined at the Trump Taj Mahal buffet in AC & at the booth adjoining mine a woman was snoring ass asleep until waking, pushing aside 2' of crab detritus piled up before her & marching back to the buffet for more

Chuck Finnley

I'm gonna be thrown to the wolves for this but, there's an amazing video essay series, that could make a companion series to this called, Gambling and the desire machine | Pay to Win. by Jimmy McGee

Lojban Chauvinist

Paused this episode about 2 dozen times to check Kalshi and Facebook Dating